As part of a little side project next to my 1/32 A-6 Intruder (see the WoS sub-forum) I'm working little by little on this Nieuport. I started it for 2 reasons: a French themed group build on another forum, and for the fact I got this as a gift from another modeller who was not enjoying the build very much and thus had the box lying around.
Probably familiar, as this model has been around for a while, but nonetheless:
The seat was damaged, but the remains were usable enough to use as a template, which also allowed me to drill the lightening holes in an imagined pattern:
Most of this was already assembled and partially painted, I only re-painted the original grey (indicated in the SH instructions) to medium blue, assuming that the painting might have beem similar to early Nieport XVIIs, so I used Copper State's instructions as a guide. I also added wood grain to the wood parts, as they were only in their base coat:
The fuselage halves internals were painted already, so all I did was add the forward wood grain (roughly depicting the diagonal strips seen in the CSM XVII) to the forward fuselage and interiour frames -which came pre-rigged and are only dry-fitted here awaiting further detail painting:
Maybe on of the reasons the build was stalled... landing gear legs definately need some accurate drilling and pinning to help them get the same shape:
Struts and interiour painted, the wing struts came with nice pins:
I did hit a snag though, the resin engine included in the kit had some parts broken and was missing parts like the induction pipes. I solved it for now by robbing CSM's excellent Le Rhône 9J from the XVII kit, which needed some modifcations to the Special Hobby kit: unlike the kit instructions the engine axle needs only ~1,5mm trimmed off the end, the diameter is exactly the same. Also, the kit has the ignition ring moulded with the firewall and this needs removing as the CSM engine has this as a nice separate part.
Also it seems very much that the SH engine is undersized as the CSM one looks much more robust and better detailed, and will not fit the cowling without significant rough sanding with my Dremel, followed by gradually finer grit sandpaper until it just fits. The SH cowl is the scale thickness of a tanks frontal armour so will take thinning very well.
I hope I can fit the engine and cowl with white glue eventually as I still need the engine back for the CSM kit!
I'm now working on getting the rear cowl fairings to fit, the shapes don't really match the fuselage and cowling. But what's the fun if it all fits perfectly, and don't forget this is one of SH's earlier efforts.
Jeroen
