Thank you very much Gary, Nigel, Edgar, Warren, Joerg amd Xan.
Andreas,
A wonderful start. I've been pondering the materials used for the caps on the oil tank and fuel tank. I was leaning towards brass for various reasons, and seeing you've done the same has convinced me.
I'm really looking forward to see what you do with this build.
Warren
To be honest, I have not done any special research here, Warren. I entirely relied on CSMs instructions. And the color callouts say brass.
Andreas
please do not forget, the panels and the fuselage are of a different materials, the panels are plywood covered with linen and covered with layer of varnish, so it should looks not the same as the rest of the fuselage, at least that is how I think it should be)
Edgar
I am with Nigel here, Edgar. I have not yet seen any photographs of Nieuports XI that show a difference in color shade between the wooden, linen covered panels and the rear of the fuselage.
This also shows (as do many photos) that these aircraft were generally not heavily weathered. There was not a lot of oil staining from the inside, probably because the dope prevented it.
The Ni-11 are not dirty generaly. I my opinion , itthe main reasin is that their life were very short...
Ni-10 trainers build in the same way, were veryvery weathered, just because they relmins more time...
Nieuports XI photographed in late 1915 or early 1916 do not yet show many signs of oil stains. In fact these Nieuports might have been too new. But let us remember that these rotaries used tons and tons of castor oil that soaked the fuselage. Here are some (not so randomly) choosen photos of Nieuports XI that show what I mean:
If you have Jon Guttmans <<Aerial chevaliers. the History of Escadrille Spa. 15 in World War I>>, a purchase that I cannot recommend highly enough, you can see more photos of heavily stained Nieuports XI, e. g. on page 16.
And if you have a special interest in Raymond Lis N1222 like me, you find more photos of his bird on pages 26 and 27 from June 1916 that show that my first picture here above show N1222 even still cleaner than it really was.
And that is in fact the reason why I oriented myself on N1222 when weathering my Nieuport: I just have no actual photo of Peletier dOisys N552. But meanwhile I have a certain theory how Lis N.1222 might have looked like in June 1916. So maybe I switch to his machine.
My theory is, that Lis N1222 is in fact an early Nieuport IX. It is not only painted with blue lines around the wings and fuselage corners, but it also has early style side panels. I think, Lis Nieuport simply has a replacement rudder from a later Nieuport IX and its actual serial is unknown.
