About 8 years ago, my lovely bride, Carol, bought my first WNW kit. I requested the Ninak for Christmas since I thought it looked cool and no one produced one in 1/48 scale. And then it languished. Since then, I built a WNW Triplane, a Pup and a W.12. This past Christmas was the first Christmas in 8 years that the WNW fairy passed me by so I took it as a hint, pulled the Ninak out of the stash and got started.
The first thing I noticed was how the top of the box bulged with parts. There are more parts in the cockpit of this beast than in my last two models in their entirety. And the wing span is massive.
The only modification I've had to make so far is the positioning of the control columns. The sticks and linkage are arranged in such a way that stick would be in the pilot's lap which would put the elevators in a climbing attitude. Most photos I've seen of the Ninak show the elevators slightly drooped for which the stick would have to be forward. So I cut a little off the linkage and tilted everything forward. That was it.
I used Uschi leather decals with a black water color wash for all the leather components.
Tolerances are very tight so all paint had to be scraped off mating surfaces.
Because I'm building this with the cowlings in place, I didn't add any detail to the engine. Just assembled and painted. Then it disappears.
Light grey as a base for preshading, then battleship grey.
This is where she stands now. Desert sand base coat on wings and tail surfaces.
Now for the epic masking of the ribs for preshading. Did I mention this wing is big? Only half of it is in daylight, the other half is in another time zone.
Cheers,
Bud
