Multi-Seat 2026 GB - Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter 1/72

[DaddyO]

I loke the stitching, very effective. I'm experimenting with watercolour pencils to create subtle rib effects under linen and it seems to work quite well. You could always use something like that to enhance the structure......

I'll take a practice at that one Nigel. I did buy some permanent brown fine line markers to get a similar effect which seem to work well (although I 'd completely forgotten about them until your post) 

[ColonelKrypton]

On the other side a similar thing was done with added 'stitching' from some old Archer rivet decals 

That is an interesting idea.  That "stitching" does look the part in your photo.  I have some of those Archer rivet decals somewhere. I will have to dig them out and have a try. 

Failing that I might have a try at using a laser printer and decal paper.

if you print in black on a glossy surface the dots or lines can stand proud of the surface a bit but you have to play around with the printer settings. My old laser printer finally wore out and I just recently replaced with a new small office Brother laser printer. I will need to mess about with printer settings to see what I can produce. So far I managed to make a few decals of other types so I am starting to zero in on my settings.

cheers, Graham

[RAGIII]

The stitching looks terrific! I also like your idea for the fabric.
RAGIII

[DaddyO]

On the other side a similar thing was done with added 'stitching' from some old Archer rivet decals 

That is an interesting idea.  That "stitching" does look the part in your photo.  I have some of those Archer rivet decals somewhere. I will have to dig them out and have a try. 

Failing that I might have a try at using a laser printer and decal paper.

if you print in black on a glossy surface the dots or lines can stand proud of the surface a bit but you have to play around with the printer settings. My old laser printer finally wore out and I just recently replaced with a new small office Brother laser printer. I will need to mess about with printer settings to see what I can produce. So far I managed to make a few decals of other types so I am starting to zero in on my settings.

cheers, Graham

Thanks Graham.
The ones I used were from a mixed sizes sheet of 'offset rivets' which look pretty good unless you blow up the photo; to the naked eye they're fine  Interesting idea about messing with the printed settings on a laser printer to get a similar thing. I'm pretty sure the railways modelling guys have something similar available commercially, but they use 'O' gauge, 'HO guage' etc rather than give a size of rivets and spacing which makes it a bit pot luck unless you buy loads of them . . .

Probably need to mess about with home printed decals at some point given my prediliction for unusual types 

The stitching looks terrific! I also like your idea for the fabric.
RAGIII

Cheers RAGIII.
The 'primer' ribs worked well and probably are very scale (given I overdid the sanding back) They are just a bit too subtle however unless you hold the model just right and catch the light on them so needed a bit more emphasis.
After the initial coats of linen I decided to try Nigel's suggestion of using a coloured pencil to suggest the ribs which I think worked really well. I probably should have used a light rather than dark colour for the fuselage sides, but I'm happy with the effect and will use it again. Everything is masked up now for the next coat, but I'll take a picture of the sides once that's been done 

[DaddyO]

Few bits of progress this week 

Made up a cockpit surround with duro putty and drilled all the strut/rigging holes. Mounted the lower wing and started spraying - yippee

Underwing rbs done in the usual way (for me) spray a lightened colour, mask each rib with 0.4mm tape, spray again with slightly darker top coat. Looks a bit too contrasty here, but looks okay in reality. The 'linen' colour came out a bit brown, but there you go we can sort that out with some oil tweaks in the final stages

Strutter wing ribs , on Flickr

Here are the fuselage 'ribs' done over a base coat of white primer with a 'burnt umber' coloured pencil (I also tried indelible fine line markers in black and brown which gave a very uniform effect, but not as realistic IMO) Hopefully you can just about see the effect. I didn't want it too obvious, but just a hint at the underlying structure to break up the flat areas

Stutter ribbing , on Flickr

[RAGIII]

That looks perfect to Me Paul! Love the rib tapes and the Burnt Umber Pencil worked as planned! Something I might try in the future!
RAGIII

[NigelR]

That looks great to me! The rib tape effect looks spot on.

[DaddyO]

Thank you gents. 

Nigel's suggestion of the coloured pencil for the fuselage ribs was spot on. (Can't find a thumbs up emoji but I'll buy him a cake at the show next week as a thank you)
Mainly today there will be masking and getting the rest of the model painted. I was going to try something I read about for the cowl turning, but think I will go with just spraying aluminium for this one since it's been hanging about a bit

Paul

[lone modeller]

Catching up on your progress Paul: I do not have either the skill or patience to get the rib and stitching effects on my models, but I respect greatly modellers like you who experiment and persevere with different techniques.

I do like the idea of hammering copper wire for struts though - must give that one some serious thought and experimentation.

Stephen.

[Alexis]

I reallly like how this build is turning out so far ...


Alexis

[DaddyO]

Catching up on your progress Paul: I do not have either the skill or patience to get the rib and stitching effects on my models, but I respect greatly modellers like you who experiment and persevere with different techniques.

I do like the idea of hammering copper wire for struts though - must give that one some serious thought and experimentation.

Stephen.

Thanks Stephen 

It's true I sometimes enjoy working out the 'best' way to do something rather than the actual model building.  Even looking at my painted figures I can only spot 3 or 4 which were straight paint jobs; everything else had some degree of modification or conversion incorporated 

Give the metal struts a try. The hammered copper looks like it works really well (using the right tools) and it does allow you to explore really thin struts without fear of collapse.

I reallly like how this build is turning out so far ...

Alexis

Hiya Alexis 
Getting there slowly. Just varnished everything so should be ready for some piccies later today (Actually given the current temperature here probably in about 10 minutes! Got up early so I could get some modelling in before it gets too hot; currently not yet 9.00am and the temperature is already up around 23 degrees which is a pleasant summers day in this neck of the woods - still sitting around in garden reading stuff is quite a nice way to spend a day) 

[Tim Mixon]

Excellent linen effects Paul. This will really come to life with the markings and PC-10 color.

[DaddyO]

Excellent linen effects Paul. This will really come to life with the markings and PC-10 color.

Cheers Tim 

And as if by magic here it is with some colour and a varnish coat. Wood effect is in oil and the rest painted with acrylics. I did vary the colour slightly between the factory bits and the squadron applied 'camouflage areas' which seems to have disappeared with the varnish layer, but I'll re-instate that later.

Strutter paint , on Flickr

And in case you didn't spot them here's a close up of one of the pully wheel viewing panels in the wing (complete with annoying tiny hair courtesy of one of the animals) 
Again I varied the colour surround slightly for effect since I think the reinforcing surround was aluminium rather than linen

Strutter pully , on Flickr

[RAGIII]

That really looks Fantastic Paul! The wood grain is perfect for the scale. Lovely work on the PC and pully panel!
RAGIII

[NigelR]

That's an absolute gem Paul! The woodgrain is very effective and the pulley in that scale is superb. Pity about that cat hair.....