G'day.
Back from the farm, where I fixed up the bottom of the Pfalz. Most of it, anyway- I left my putty here and made the choice to get on with it, rather than wait until the next trip. So the seams where the lower rear part of the wing joins the fuselage are there- and there they'll stay. I didn't try to spray the cross on the wing, I can do that next time and I'll know the paint is completely dry before masking. Or I'll mask and brush paint it here. The wing looks blotchier than the photo's shows, the Mr Softener I used to help lift the decal remains may be the cause. In any case it will be toned down with weathering (I hope). At least the rear fuselage came up well and it only took a minute to touch up the various feldgrau fittings. This is a learning experience, and I'll do better with the Spad and later models, I hope.
When I got home I rigged the tail. It was a lot easier than I'd feared and I'm fairly happy with how things turned out. I've used a slightly different method to those I've read about, as I was trying to emphasise the use of turnbuckles. The fences on a farm mean you get very familiar with using turnbuckles.....
They look larger than I'd really like them to look and I'm afraid the swaging clips don't look as good I'd hoped, but they did make the rigging fairly easy to tension and don't look too bad at three feet. The lines have been painted with Mr Metal Colour dark iron and don't look nearly as "lumpy" as they do in the photo' below. Anyway, you can see for yourself.
Next up is a bit of dot filtering and a couple of washes to add some depth to the details and to (lightly) stain the lower fuselage. The photo's I've seen of this aircraft show it looking very clean, but close-ups of the fuselage show some dings in the fuselage, on the silbergrau paint. I wonder if these photo's show the 'plane cleaned up and after having the red and blue added, perhaps when they changed the style of cross? After that will be a coat of "One-Go" (Aussie Future) and then semi-goss, before I try the pastel weathering technique that many here use so well.
As usual, all comments, suggestions and corrections will be gratefully received.
Cheers.
Dal.
