Here's my attempt at a 1/72nd scale Spad XI. This is the Planet Models resin kit. It was a challenge for me as this particular kit had problems out of the box. Also, I tried using all Vallejo products and Strutz brass struts. This kit sat half built on my shelf of doom for a good 10 years as the wings were terribly warped, bent, and twisted. I had made several attempts to straighten them, but never got them to flatten entirely. I decided to just finish the darn thing, come what may. I had the brilliant idea of cutting holes all the way through the wings for the Strutz, and use them to glue the wings straight. This failed miserably as the super glue was not strong enough to hold the stressed resin wing to the brass struts. I know, I know, you can't force things on models. I don't know why I tried. So, leaving the wings as they were, lots of filling and sanding ensued. I decided this would be my test bed for hand brushing VMC. After the second strip and repaint, I decided to live with the results. The rigging was done with lycra thread. It took four tries to get it to look right between finding the right size of thread and a couple attempts trying to fabricate some semblance of flying wire spacers. I never did get the spacers to look decent, so those were omitted. When I went to put on the decals, I realized over the years I seem to have lost the unit markings. Fortunately, I have a second kit that someday will be made into a Spad XVI, so I could steal the unit markings from it. While I was grabbing the decals, I took a peek at the kit itself, and of course, the wings are perfectly flat and straight. My first reaction was I built the wrong kit first, my second reaction was thank the modeling gods this one isn't a mess like the first. When this build stops showing up in my nightmares, I may consider starting the XVI project.
I'm not entirely happy with the results but I am happy it's done. I know I'm a bit better modeler from the mistakes I made and the lessons learned.
Stuart
