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Kit: Eduard (1:48)
The Eduard Profipack version... A very nice kit, indeed. Paints are: Guess what..? Yeah..! Humbrol Enamels. Most of the colors were the result of several mixes till I found the right shades (specially elusive was that Venetian Red for the wings uppersurfaces). The laminated propeller was masked and airbrushed in two shades of Brown. And the rib tapes on the CDL wing tip were also masked and then airbrushed... As a matter of fact, I used a great amount of masking tape in this one... You know..? I really like masking..! I've seen pictures of this plane with captions stating that this particular plane was flown by some Lt. Weber, but looking at that N°1 on the underwing, I'm convinced that this was flown by Lör, cause.. Wasn't the N°1 a prerogative of the Staffelführer..?
The Eduard "Mailed Fist" D-V with a different finish. I opened the cowling area, added detail to the engine section, opened a couple of inspection doors on the undersides, put a headrest on top of the fuselage, added a black border to the tail Eiserne kreuze (this was done by superimposing the Kreuz decal over the Bertrab's Albatros D-III one, which had the colors reversed and was a bit larger), enlarged (hand painted) the white border to the fuselage crosses and not much more. Paints are Humbrols and the rigging is invisible thread.
Kit: Scratch (1:48)
Scratchbuilt from plastic card. The engine is a Mercedes from an Eduard Albatros or Pfalz kit converted into a 200 HP Hiero engine with bits of plastic, wire and stretched sprue. Propeller was carved from a piece of plastic. The fuel tank behind the seat is a sheet of brass curved to shape (my good friend Martin Afflitto wisely says that nothing looks more like brass than real brass). The radiator is a modified one from the scrap box (I'm still trying to figure to which kit from the past it belonged). Paints are Humbrol 71 for the CDL wings and the wooden veneer of the hull and wing floats were hand painted with a mix of some synthetic enamels which brand I can't remember. The Scwarzlömachine gun is from the Blue Max D-III (Oef) kit. Rigging is stretched sprue. Ahh... At a later date and after a close look at some pictures of Banfield's plane, I modified the hull codes (from A24 into A.24.)
This is the Eduard Nie 23 kit with a scratchbuilt cowling and a modified engine, (It was done before Eduard released their Nie 21). I added a transparent top wing center section, which was done with cellophane from a cigarette packet envelope doped with clear varnish after carving and scratchbuilding the internal wing structure. The finishing was done with Tamiya Acrylic Flat Aluminum and a couple of coats of AV Vallejo Acrylic Matt Varnish (I'm not quite satisfied with the final appearance... I guess that Russian Aluminum finish was a lot duller... Not so bright as the French one). The red number 3 was cut from a red decal sheet and the Russian Navy flag on the fuselage sides were hand painted on white decal. Rigging is invisible thread painted steel.
The Eduard kit, an excellent one... As many of you say: "It just fell OOB together". Paints are Humbrols, Dark Earth mixed with black for the PC10, Linen 71 for the undersides of wings and horizontal tail surfaces and Semi Gloss Black for the cowling, nose metal panels, wheel discs and tailfin. Rigging is painted invisible thread. A very useful reference were the pictures I took to the Sopwith Triplane (and many other beauties resident there, of course) when I visited Hendon several years ago. There's not much more to say about it... I really enjoyed making this one.