Scale Aviation Modeller International – April 2019

Gloss and the propeller was

done. I also gave the cockpit

loor a few coats of H91 too.

PAINTING AND

RIGGING

With the cockpit parts

assembled I was now ready

to close up the fuselage. With

a bit of jiggery and pokery,

this went Ok. The engine

was next for painting, this is

straightforward and is ixed to

the fuselage. The Bristol Fighter

is unusual in that the lower

wing is suspended from the

fuselage rather than attached

as would be standard, so I did

a dry it just to make sure that

everything thing is ship shape

and.... well, ‘Bristol fashion’

A quick tidy up of some small

seams, a Black Primer coat

and I was ready for paint. H338

was ‘black based’ on the metal

part of the fuselage, while

H85 and H66, and a dusting

of H309 was sprayed onto

the fabric areas. When dry, I

made sure the paint surface

was smooth, using a buing

stick to knock back any raised

areas. I did this on the wings

too. Eduard’s decals are usually

very good, and these were

no exception. What followed

nearly broke me! Before I

started the build, I was going to

add turnbuckles to the rigging,

so now the time came to put

this aspersion into reality.

First job was to make

eyelets. Very thin copper wire,

from an old phone charger, was

twisted around a hook made

from larger diameter copper

wire, not too bad up to now.

Although I did have make over

50 of these! Next 0.4 brass tube

is cut to length, approximately

2mm, again over 50. Using

images gleaned from the

internet and best guess, small

holes are drilled into the wings

where the eyelets would be, the

eyelets are then superglued into

position. The wing struts ware

now glued to the bottom wing

and again best guess was used

to determine the correct angle.

Put to one side to dry, I now

add rigging to the top wing.

Uschi Van Der Rosen ‘Standard’

thread is cut to length and

carefully threaded through

the brass tube, this is small

work, almost nanotechnology!

THE FINAL PHASE

In scale, frustratingly the brass

is just too small for the thread. I

had some larger diameter tube,

so more cutting is required.

This tube, though larger, is

The rear gunners Scarff mount

Adding a wood effect to the propeller

APRIL 2019 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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