Military Illustrated Modeller – September 2019

 Military Illustrated Modeller - September 2019

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ASSEMBLY AND RIGGING

With the main sub-assemblies painted and

markings applied, it was time to put it all together.

Prior to attaching the wings, every locating point

for the rigging was drilled out with a #80 bit and a

small copper loop glued in place. These loops were

made by taking copper wire from an electrical cord

and wrapping it around a #78 drill bit and giving

it three twists.

Leaving off most of the delicate bits like tail

assembly, Lewis gun bracket, etc. I attached the

wings and struts to the fuselage with the help of a

device called the Fantastic Third Hand by Kronos

Designs. Thanks to the descent engineering of these

kits, the struts all fit the upper and lower wings

perfectly and I just had to apply the Tamiya Extra

thin cement in the right places and quantities to get

it all to sit right.

I should have pre-rigged the lines coming out of

the fuselage in hindsight, but managed to thread

a few of the control cables through the holes in the

fuselage with a bit of a struggle.

Each of the rigging terminations had a small

fitting on the real aircraft, and I attempted to

emulate this by cutting 2mm sections of 0.4mm

od brass tubing and sliding them down to the

ends of the EZ-Line rigging. The rigging was

secured by wrapping it through the copper loops

previously mentioned, and placing a tiny blob of

cyano glue to secure it and the brass sections in

place. In all I made about 140 of these and had

to ream out each end so that the EZ-Line would

fit through the 0.2mm inside diameter. After

painting them all black and giving them a slight

metal tone highlight later they looked the part.

Where turnbuckles we’re called for according to

the on-line references provided by WnW website

with their magnificent

walk-around colour

photos, I used etched

metal offerings from

RB Productions.

Model Cellar’s British RFC pilot and Lewis Gunner were painted with

Vallejo acrylics, and oil paints for the flesh colours.

The Falcon engine was detailed with fine copper wire for the ignition wires and given a wash of black and

raw umber oil paints.

The top wing was

attached with the

help of the Fantastic

Third Hand and some

masking tape.

There is a considerable amount of rigging to add

to this model, and EZ-Line was used for this.