Some of My Builds

[Bluesman]

I am new to modelling, so there are no show winners in the bunch, but I have enjoyed building all of them. The Academy Camel was disappointing, a lot of time invested with a disappointing result. Their SPAD XIII had errors, and I corrected them as best I could. Some problems, like the top engine cowling are beyond my skill to fix.

I am still getting the hang of weathering, and don't do much at the moment, but I will as my skill improves.


The Albatross DIII is one of my favorite planes and I like Revell's kits.

[Bluesfan]

Nice! Are these all 1:72? You might like the new Airfix offerings, and also the later Eduard kits in the scale.
Any chance of another picture or two, like in the second picture, against a plain background?
Cheers
Mark

[RAGIII]

Your kits look very nice to me!
RAGIII

[Bluesman]

Thanks for the kind words. I will post some better pics soon. I do 1/72 for my planes mainly because I don't have much room to display them, but also because they are inexpensive. I also thought working in small scale first would help sharpen my skills for when I move to larger scales.

[Bluesman]

[imghttp://][/img]
[imghttp://][/img]
[/URL][/img]
[img]http://

This is my Academy 1/72 scale SPAD XIII with the Lafayette Escadrille markings. I don't know which pilot flew this plane, I did find an old French newspaper picture with a plane with these markings, but it was a SPAD VII, and not a XIII. As the pilots continued using the same livery on their replacement planes, I wasn't too worried about this. I would like to know the pilot's name, however.

 This was the first airplane I did, although it is the second kit as I messed up the first kit I bought. There is lots of problems with the kit, but it was only $4 and some change at Hobby Lobby, so I can't complain. I added the opening on the bottom of the fuselage and used a small strip of aluminum duct tape to move the belly band to a spot closer to real life. The kit comes with raised panel lines instead of the more accurate recessed panel lines. What I did for those was take the point of my hobby knife and score the plastic using the raised lines as my guides. When I was done etching in the lines, I simply sanded away the raised lines, leaving me with recessed panel lines. Probably the most frustrating part of Academy kits are their decals. I used micro sol/set, but the decals are so thick I never got that painted on look. I learned from my first kit if you didn't want silvering around the edges, you had to trim the decals, so that is what I did. You can still see small bubbles under the decals. I tried to add a woodgrain effect to the prop, which didn't turn out bad, but doesn't match what you can do with oils paints. The rigging is black thread soaked in PVA (white) glue and then CA glue. They looks better in person than in the pics, but I think I will try to use stretched sprue to do it in the future. I did try to weather the plane some, you will have to decide weather it worked or not. In all, as this was my first model, I wasn't displeased even though the flaws are pretty evident.

[Bluesman]

A close up of the rigging and prop.

[coyotemagic]

Very nice work on all of them, Sam, but I especially like the Voss D.III!
Cheers,
Bud

[dr 1 ace]

Dittos, nice work  !

Ed