WnW Sopwith Pup RNAS

[gedmundson]

I often finish a project and mope around for a few days deciding which to choose next. After nothing seemed to appeal I was able to decide on a build I'd planned a while back, saving two old articles by a friend Haris Ali who had built two Sopwith Pups for the now defunct Military In Scale Magazine. I had a couple of the WnW RNAS kits in my stash, and pulled one from the shelf onto the bench. The ship-board scheme of N6453 appealed to me, as it had the well-weathered CDL on the fuselage. I've made a little progress on some of the interior sub-assemblies and wanted to share a few pictures.

Cheers,
Gary




The instrument panel got a wood grain finish using ochre, burnt sienna and raw umber oil paints.


After airbrushing the engine Alclad II Duraluminum, it was detailed with Copper printer's ink and a wash of dark oil paint.


I added a clear glass and impulse line to the pulsometer, and actuation rod to the throttle (?)


The seat was weathered with acrylics and oils , along with the etched metal seat belts.


Based on Haris Ali's article, I made a "Brock Sheild" anti-flash device for the upper mounted Lewis gun

[Kreston]

Nice start...the engine looks great.  I look forward to following your build.

Kreston

[AngryJazz]

Great start! Looks very nice already! 

[DaddyO]

Lovely work so far. The glass is another level.
(I've wanted to model the Brock shield on a Lewis ever since reading that article)

Paul

[NigelR]

Nice subject and an excellent start. That engine looks great, as does the instrument panel. Nice use of printer's ink.....

[Dirigible-Al]

That instrument panel is a work of art!
Alan.

[Allan31]

Oh boy, another Pup!!

[gedmundson]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment  - and not to point out that there were no turnbuckles on my interior rigging! I just didn't want to faff about with those things on this build. I'm still trying to figure out the best way of adding the control cables with no rear panel. Previous builds on this Forum are a great help, along with the previous mentioned articles by Haris Ali.

Nice subject and an excellent start. That engine looks great, as does the instrument panel. Nice use of printer's ink.....

Those printer's inks are great, Nigel. You & David shared a great tip there. I'm using them as much as possible instead of enamel now. Just a small blob onto my disposable pallet (top of a yogurt container) mixed with a touch of white spirit and it makes a great fine paint. And El Greco did a very fast job of getting them to me in Canada!

[NigelR]

Those printer's inks are great, Nigel. You & David shared a great tip there.

Glad you've cracked how to use them, they are great. Like all my best ideas, it was stolen from someone else........ Although in my defence, I did used to use these for figure painting in 70s, it's just that I had completely forgotten about them!

[gedmundson]

I decided to use both thin stretched sprue sections and elastic rigging line from QW Model for my control cables in the cockpit. I ended the lines at the rear of the floor, so if an over-zealous judge were to look into the back of the cockpit with a bright light - this one would be laughed out of the competition room.

I would usually paint the wings & fuselage  separately, but this one of course has the lower wing complete with lower forward fuselage attached, so it was glued into place beforehand. I found that stretched sprue (or "runner") works well for filling small gaps better than putty, so showed a picture of the piece glued into the bottom with plenty of Tamiya thin cement, to dry thoroughly then be trimmed and sanded smooth. Then there'll be the small spaces to deal with near the back of the wing root. It's finally starting to look like an aeroplane.
Cheers!

[NigelR]

That cockpit looks fantastic Gary, great work. Thanks for the stretched sprue gap filling tip. That's a really good idea.

[Borsos]

Impressive interior on the Sopwith Pup. Be careful with the interplane struts. When I built mine, they cried every time I touched the model <<break me!>>. . .

[Allan31]

So glad mine is done and gone before I saw this, great stuff.

[RAGIII]

I have been following your build and must say I am impressed by the detail and especially the Paint work!
RAGIII

[gedmundson]

Thanks Rick, Nigel, Andreas and Allan.

I followed Haris Ali's suggestion of pre-shading the fuselage structure of the Pup. By airbrushing over the shading and rigging lines, the effects are quite subtle in these photos, but adequate for what I was trying to achieve. It's possible that this was all a complete waste of time & effort once I've added the eventual weathering...but one is not certain until the end of the process 


Internal structure was sprayed with XF-15 Flesh, then masked.


The tapes were lightly sprayed over with NATO Black XF-69


Removing the tape revealed the pre-shade pattern


Airbrushing XF-55 Deck Tan (for CDL) muted the pre-shade


pencil lines were drawn onto the fuselage to mimic the internal rigging (not quite that well as it looks)


The internal rigging pencil lines were muted with more over-spray of XF-55