life seems to have got in the way the last couple of months but i'm back at it now and have made steady progress over the last few weeks.
I decided to give the revell nato olive a go for the green, partly because it's close to what the colour should be and partly because i really liked the way the other revell enamels i've used went on. I really wish i hadn't bothered, no matter how much or little i thinned it, or whatever brush i used, or how much i put on the surface layer evaporated almost immediately locking in any brush marks. Luckily i'd only applied it to the wings so they spent a few days in a dettol bath and i switched to using oil paint. I used a different shade of black for the mix (the mix is now yellow ochre with ivory black) which has produced a different shade of green compared to the camel i did, i also put the parts in the airing cupboard for around 4 days between coats, this seems to have cured the paint nicely (don't know why i didn't think of doing that before)
I need to do one more coat of grey for the nose then i can start to think about assembly.
I've also got the prop painted, i just need to paint the retaining plate and then give it a couple of coats of varnish
unusually for roden they neglected to include the control horns for the elevators so i made some simple ones from evergreen strip. The rear stabs have been fitted, the 'linen' is mainly white with a few drops of revell beige silk and a dash of grey in enamel, the wings have been painted with the same mix.
This is my second attempt at fitting the rather fragile undercarriage legs, the first attempt involved fitting them to the wings first as they need to fix on both the upper and lower surfaces of the wings plus the fuselage, so a fiddly job at best. The first method didn't really work, i thought i had it glued in place but the slightest touch and they broke free so for this attempt i thought i'd try fixing them to the fuselage first. It means i now need to slide the lower wing between the fixing points on the struts without breaking them, but for now they are on and square
My second attempt seems to have worked and i managed to snuggle the wing between the legs and fuselage, i then fitted the remaining struts and although i think the fuselage is sitting at slightly the wrong angle (it should be level with the wing from front to back) it's as close as it's going to get and if i try and move it now things will break and then i'll be buggered. Once the upper wing and struts are on it shouldn't notice too much, i think the main thing is the undercarriage seems square and the wing is square to the fuselage. So a few touch ups to do then move on to attaching the upper wing
On my last day off last week i did the touch-ups and stuck it in the airing cupboard for 5 days. It's now had the top deck fitted so it's officially a bi-plane
I've also pre-rigged and fitted the elevator controls to the fuselage and the scarff ring is now in place
thought i'd get the decals on the tail end sorted so i can then rig the rudder etc. I splashed out my pocket money on the print scale Bristol aces of WW1 decal set (thanks to Rip Van Winkle for the heads up on this decal set) in which you get 10 different schemes to choose from, i've opted for the scheme as flown by Sydney Dalrymple and his observer G Beagle. The decals went on quite nicely although the stripes were a bit of a pain to get lined up, also there should be an S under the scarff ring but the first one i tried looked awful as the backing film seemed too thick and the edges wouldn't sit flush so i made the decision to leave them off for now. I might get a general number and letters decal set and use an S from that later on.
