I just found out about this list via a friend's link to your homepage. I've been lurking for a week or so; now I'm ready to introduce myself.
My interest in WWI kits goes back to the 60s, when I built all the Revell 1/72 kits at age 10-11. Now that I'm 40, I'm finding the fingers aren't so nimble and the eyes aren't so sharp, so I prefer 1/48. I've been following the slams back and forth between proponents of both scales. Isn't there room for both? Can't we just get along?
I'm a member of the Midwest Cross & Cockade. We have quite a few talented model builders in the club, and usually some members bring their work to each meeting. We also have some members that build in 1/1 scale <g>, including a Sopwith Camel with a real Gnome rotary and a Fokker D.VI (still in production) with a Warner Scarab. If any of you are in the Chicago area, or even the surrounding states, our meetings are the second Saturday of January, March, May, July, September, and November. Greg Van Wyngarten is a member, and usually drives in from Iowa. The November meeting is our model contest. Meetings are held at Klas Resturant in Cicero, 5734 W Cermak Rd. Lunch is $9.00 and is good Czech fare.
I've been back building kits for only 2-3 years, so there's a considerable gap in the technology I knew as a kid and what I'm seeing now. The biggest changes are superglue and photoetched parts. As a kid I could not affort an airbrush; I'm just starting to get the hang of this great tool. I subscribe to FSM and am gradually coming up to speed on modern modelling.
I just completed the Testors SPAD XIII, adding some detail in stretched sprue. My current project is the Smer SVA-5. I've purchased and stored the Eduard kits, but I figure I'd rather wreck some $5 kits and learn before I wreck the $25 kits.
My references on the SVA-5 are pretty sparse, with no color. The kit comes with Russian markings on the decals, but I'd rather build it in Italian service. Before I spend $15 for the Windsock Datafile on a $5 kit that's not going into a contest, I figured I'd ask here. The machine gun with the kit is pretty poor, so I'll either build one from scrap or get an aftermarket one (or two?) Also, does anyone know if the struts are bare metal, wood, or painted? If anyone has any paint scheme suggestions, unit markings, etc., I'd greatly appreciate them.
Thanks for listening to me ramble, and I hope to learn from and eventually contribute to this list.
Bill Ciciora
Pitney Bowes Software Systems