THE BUILD CONTINUES
The next stage was fitting the
tail booms, undercarriage, and
tailplanes. Again, this stage was
far more painless than I had
thought – I had been putting it off,
those confidence issues again...
The model by now was
certainly looking like an aircraft,
with just the rigging and a few
fiddly last details to add. I had
decided to use smoke-coloured
invisible mending thread for
the rigging, which I intended to
thread through the holes in the
photo-etch attachment points.
This proved to be frustratingly
hard and I broke several of the
steel attachment points before
deciding to cut my losses andchange my rigging method.
Many years ago as a lad, when
I first started building biplanes,
my chosen method for rigging
was stretched sprue, and it was to
this now old-fashioned, but tried
and tested method I returned.
Stretching sprue over a candle to
get lengths of equal consistency
requires practice but it is rather
satisfying when you achieve it.
I used Wingnut wings plastic
sprue for the rigging, as from
all the different types I tried
this gave the best results. Once
the sprue had been stretched
I coloured it blue by pulling it
through a tissue which had the
colour on it. Using dividers, I then
measured the gaps between the
struts and spent several modellingsessions rigging the Caudron.
Finally, with the odd little
details like the windscreens added,
the model was at last finished.CONCLUSION
This is a really good kit, the fit is first
rate and it is surprisingly easy to
assemble despite it being a multi-bay
biplane with tail booms. It is not a kit
for the biplane beginner, but certainly
if the subject appeals and you have
built a few biplanes then it will make
a nice addition to your display case.
The model will also give you the
opportunity to get to grips with clear
doped linen finishes and a chance to
learn some new techniques. If I were
to build another there are certainly
a few things I would do differently,but that is the joy of modelling,
every kit is a learning curve!
As an aside and as a sort of
therapy, I treated myself to the
Copper State Models Lanchester
armoured car. I had this model
assembled and primed in two fairly
short modelling sessions; it required
no filler and was an absolute joy to
build! Copper State models are a
quality product and they seem to be
getting better with every new kit they
produce. I am really looking forward
to seeing the 1/32 scale Nieuports
they are releasing later this year!
My thanks to Copper State
for supplying this kit to build
and my sincere apologies to
the editor and readership for
taking so long to build it!WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2018 • 27
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