This working on two kits at once can be quite a task, Rick, but you provide Lots of inspiration! Who can really resist the Meng-Nuts kit? Well, maybe Przemo, it doesn't have much rigging!
Thanks for checking in Lance, I have been following your build really carefully, and it is a great help - you are making amazing progress and it is looking good! But I think I have a few things to add, as I am fore-warned!
So continuing with the Meng kit, I started with the wings. Yes, all three of my wings had warps. This is not that unusual with wings with such thick single piece mouldings. There are lots of comments about the WNW Albatross upper wing and I had great warps in the WNW Camel wings... So, lots of warmish water, lots of careful, and I mean careful bending and then plunging in cold water... Hold it under a heavy book overnight, check it in the morning and go back to step one... Well, after a few days they all look much better... I am not that enamored with the rib tape and stitching detail on the wing upper-surfaces. Under-surfaces look OK. Particularly the head on period photographs show smooth leading edges, so I attacked them with sand paper and files. Quite a lot of cleaning up made them look better in my eyes. Remember to remove at least one set of the leading edge stacking pads on the leading edge of the middle and upper wings. these pads varied, check your references. Winsock DR.! Special has quite a lot about this, IIRC. I think this photograph shows it.
I also wondered about warps in the fuselage, but I was surprised that so much cleaning up of sprue attachment points and ejection pin markings near the tail was required. ( The blade tip shows where some nasty EP markings were...)
Then I noticed the fuselage halves didn't line up... so I opened up the holes for those little pegs all round the fuselage half, and filed down the pegs on the other fuselage half so I could wiggle the two halves around a bit.. and to my delight if the upper fuselage seam is perfectly aligned that strip of fabric lacing fits just so perfectly in the belly of the fuselage... This is really worth doing, it will save time (and heartache)... More photos soon...
The Roden kit has had some attention...
Ee, Gads! I hear you say. First he tries to do Lt Jacob's kite, and now it looks like Lt Weiss's machine! Well, white is actually the best undercoat for red, so colour change coming up! (Top wing loose). This white coat was unfortunately not a good coat as it had powdering and eggshell (Lots of wind here and dry) so I will need to rub down and recoat... C'est la Vie...
Regards,
Marc