Hannover Cl.II, Jakob Gfrör, WNW-Kit in 1/32

[MichaelStieber]

Hello,

Here I am trying to write a report of the building of my Hannover Cl.II.
I have to admit that the plane is already 98% completed, but since i am rather new in this forum I am too late to do it just in time.
On the other hand I have far too much building-pictures for the 'completed' section and so I decided to show them here in form of a building report.
I hope this is okay for you.

I am sure that almost everybody here knows the plane, nevertheless here is a picture of the kit so that I can be sure that all of you know what I am talking about:



The challenge that I was looking foreward to, and the reason why I decided to build this paticular plane, was the rather difficult color scheme. I never thought that it would be that challenging...and that it will take even many more hours of researching...

The first opening of the box was a bit disappointing. After thoroughly checking the sprues I found out that the pilots seat was missing completely, the sprue was still sealed but the seat was broken out before sealing. At least the cushion was there, so that i will have to scratch only the border. Some additional work but makeable.
Even worse was the totally miscast of the engine sprue:



I knew there will be a lot of not inspected work in front of me...
I bought the kit from a regular retailer in his shop, but since WNW was already closed at the time I found the defects, he couldn't help me.
Just to try if it helps, I contacted the customer service on the WNW website and was very surprised to get an answer after some time. They apologised, and even told me that maybe, if they will find such a sprue, they will send it to me.
Since it was very uncertain if I will get a replacement, and due to the very long shipping-time from New Zealand to Germany, I decided to start with the miscast parts...
(After some long weeks of shipping I really got a replacement sprue, but at this time my engine was built a long time before)

I started by painting the wood-pattern of the fuselage with three different oil-colors (light ochre, burnt umbra, nature umbra light) on a basecoat of Vallejo Air 291. Altohough it is supposed to be a airbrush color, I did the basecoat with a brush because it's much faster than with the airbrush. I payed attention that the brush strokes had the same direction as the later wood-pattern.
Now, some months later I think I have overdone it a bit with the wood-knots, I fear they wouldn't had used wood with knots for it...but thats the way it is, you never stop learning...
God thing that with the finished aircraft you dont see too much of that wood anymore. 



Soo, for now I think I will stop this report and hope you will like it.
Have a good time 

[Alexis]

Looking forward on your article being posted . I do like your wood tones , nicely done 


Alexis

[RAGIII]

Excellent work! I am looking forward to the periodic updates!
RAGIII

[FAf]

Of course we want a build report even if you're almost done!
Looking good!
/Fredrik

[MichaelStieber]

Thank you Alexis, RAGIII and Fredrik for your comments 

Now it's time for part two of the building report.

As usual, the next building step was the interior.
I will keep this part rather short, because it dont differs that much from all the hundreds of interiors you have already seen here...

First I had to build the back and the border of the pilots seat. I did this with thin plastic-card and a plastic profile with 0.6mm diameter. It really helped that I have another one of those kits in my stash, so I could use the part of those kit as a stencil for cutting out the plastic-card.
At this stage I have also built the camera and the Telefunken-Wireless.
The seat-belts I used are the PE-parts of the kit, I think if they are bended in a nice shape and painted with some shading, it is not necessary to replace them with aftermarket products.





Next came the engine.
I knew that later most parts of it will be hidden behind the cowlings, since I decided to just leave the port-cowling open.
Thats why I had built the engine rather fast with all that miscast parts that I corrected with lots of greenstuff and brass-tubes.
Next comes a picture of my test-fit of the engine, it was completely brush-painted with Vallejo Colors (Model, Metal and Air).
On the pipe in the front I made an attempt to picture the asbestos-wrapping with a 0.7mm masking-tape and thin CA-glue, the cooling-pipes in the background will be treated the same.



After buliding the other interior parts I made one last test-fit before glueing the two fuselage-halves together.
All interior parts are also brush-painted, the MG is basecoated with Tamiya X-18 and then finished with metal-pigments.
For the brass parts I created a mix (2 parts Vallejo Metal Color 725, 1 part Vallejo Model Air 068) which I think comes out very nice.







Now we rushed a bit through the interior-building...
With the next parts, that I think are far more interesting, I will take more time...the very special painting of this plane deserves a thoroughly report 

As usual, I gladly answer questions nad I am happy If you comment here...

[Alexis]

Guten Tag Michael ,

Only question I have at this moment and I did put a lot of thought into this .....Can have it when you are done ! .... BITTEN 

Remarkable work on the interior and engine . The insulation wrap on the rad pipe ..is made with Tamiya tape ?


Alexis 

[RichieW]

Really impressive work, this is one of the many WNW kits I missed out on so it is good to see it getting made so immaculately.

Richie

[RAGIII]

Awesome interior and amazing work on the miscast engine! Beautiful work to date!
RAGIII

[lone modeller]

I have to agree with the comments above: a marvellous restoration of the engine and the insulation around the pipe is inspirational. The detaisl in that kit are mind blowing - and you have added to them!

Stephen.

[MichaelStieber]

 Thank you for the kind comments.

@Alexis
 I am sorry, the answer to your question yes no 
The tape I used for the insulation wrap is from AIZU (Japan), but I think a thin stripe (about 1mm) of any masking tape would be good.

@Richie
This kit is really great, the only problem with it is that it’s so challenging painting this plane properly.

@RAGIII
 Yes, this miscast took me a lot of extra work that I didn’t expected, and that I didn’t appreciated.
 The starboard side of the engine doesn’t look that good, but that’s the side that will be completely hidden by the cowlings so It’s okay for me.

@Stephen
 Thank you for the nice words. You are right, this kid is extremely well detailed.

 I think on Sunday I will have the time to post the next part of this report   

[MichaelStieber]

Part 3 - Finding The Colors

Now I tried to find the right colors for all the handpainted parts which are the complete fuselage, the middle-section of the upper wings and the lower elevators.
This step was the most important, and it took a lot of time.

At first I did a bit of research and collected some facts:
On historic pictures I can clearly see five different shades (colors) on the upper side and on the lower side, so I assume they tried to match the colors of the printed fabric.
Also I can see that the colors are not 100% the same as the fabric-colors.

So I have to find a total of ten colors that are more or less close to the printed fabric, but not exactly the fabric colors. Of course all the colors together should have a coherent appearance.
Since I like the illustrations of Ronny Bar, my first idea was to keep my color-scheme very close to his colors. When I realized that the decals of the kit are very far away from his colors I dismissed this idea, the color-style of the Wingnut-Decals (which I think are very authentic) wouldn't match with the color-style of Ronny Bar.

So I decided to use some color-style between the decals and Ronny Bar, that would be close to the fabric but not exactly the same. Just like on the historic pictures.

To do this I had to work with this colors to became a sense for them. So I finally had a plan:
1. Find mixing-recipes that meet the Wingnut-Decals as close as possible (they also would be later useful if I had to repair damage of the decals).
2. Find mixing-recipes that meet the Ronny Bar style as close as possible.
3. Find a mix between 1. and 2. as my color-scheme that I will use.

So I started to work on my plan, mixing lots of colors over many hours...



...mixing more hours...




...until I finally had a result that I was satisfied with, and most important recipes that I could repeat.

Here my attempt to match the Wingnut-Colors:




The Ronny Bar Style was a bit more difficult, but I found also mixes that were okay for me:



And the result after my mixing-marathon:



On the right side Ronny Bar, in the middle WNW, and on the left my mix of both styles. Later I slightly changes my mixes a bit, the exact mixes I used were:

Upper Side
beige - 1x Vallejo Model Air 025 + 1x Vallejo Model Air 027
green - 3x Vallejo Model Air 014 + 2x Vallejo Model Air 143 + 1x Vallejo Model Air 001
dark blue - 2x Vallejo Model Color 048 + 1x AK Acrylic 171 (turquoise)
grey blue - 1x Vallejo Model Air 111 + 1x Vallejo Model Air 295
mauve - 7x Vallejo Model Color 044 + 1x Vallejo Model Color 048 + 2x Vallejo Model Color 038 + 2x Vallejo Model Color 146 + 3x Vallejo Model Air 001

Lower Side
ochre - Vallejo Model Air 291
pale green - 2x Vallejo Model Air 008 + 1x Vallejo Model Air 014
blue - 1x Vallejo Model Air 299 + 1x Vallejo Model Air 111 + 1x AK Acrylic 171 (turquoise)
violet - 5x Vallejo Model Air 140 + 3x Vallejo Model Air 313 + 1x Vallejo Model Color 044
pink - 1x Vallejo Model Air 085 + 3x Vallejo Model Color 044 + 2x Vallejo Model Color 136 + 16x Vallejo Model Air 001

Ready for the first attempts (now this will be hard to explain in english). I first basecoated all the parts with my beige-mix (1x Vallejo Model Air 025 + 1x Vallejo Model Air 027).
Then I made a copy of the Wingnut Decals of the Wings middle section and the elevator, and pinned holes in those copies on all the corners of the lozenges.
With masking tapes i fixed the holed copies on the wing and elevator and with a really soft pencil (8B) I made a small dot in every hole to transfer the corners of the lozenge to the kit parts.





Now it was just a matter of time  to mask the lozenge one after another and airbrush one color after another...very meditative...






Huh...there are some mistakes...but they were easy to mask again and to be repaired...

By the way, the stripes on the bottom of the fuselage I sprayed at the same time as the wing and elevator...



That's enough for today, next time we will comtinue with the fuselage and the overspray of the fuselage...

As usual I apprecciate every comment and will answer every question 

Have a nice time.

[lcarroll]

Michael,
    This is just incredibly thorough work, your efforts are paying great returns here, this model is already extraordinary! The color matches look great on my monitor and you have certainly spared no effort to achieve matches to the decals and profiles. I'll enjoy following your progress further, great Build Log thus far!
Cheers,
Lance

[RAGIII]

Michael,
    This is just incredibly thorough work, your efforts are paying great returns here, this model is already extraordinary! The color matches look great on my monitor and you have certainly spared no effort to achieve matches to the decals and profiles. I'll enjoy following your progress further, great Build Log thus far!
Cheers,
Lance

What Lance said!
RAGIII

[janh]

i checked my hannover kits, (i got both). the older one is perfect, the later one has the same issue concerning the pilot's seat. i dropped an email tot WNW and they responded promptly. on their request i've just sent a couple of photos of the bag and sprue location

[Bughunter]

Great work so far on the interior, engine, and all the other parts!
And now some very thoughtful research on color shades, not to mention your manual masking of the pattern
I will follow this build (but I think I move my Eduard Hannover a bit deeper in my stash).

Cheers,
Frank