Greyhead46

I’ve made a start on the bomb rack, or to be accurate on the bombs; there’s no point making a bomb rack if I can’t make the bombs! Here’s a photo to show what I’m aiming for. (sorry, I just couldn’t stop myself!!) I decided that the only practical method is to turn the bombs, but therein lays the first problem; I’ve not got a lathe. If you work for Health and Safety I suggest you don’t read the next bit. I "converted" my vertical drill stand into a make shift lathe, very Heath Robinson but it works. I started with a length of curtain pole and I’ve now got the basis for one bomb, but I don’t think I would be able to produce all 4 bombs and end up with them all being the same; they’re quite a complex shape. I’m thinking of using this one as a master for a mould and then making a set of bombs from casting resin. I’ve never used casting resin before so it’ll be a steep learning curve! One question that immediately springs to mind is “is it tuff enough to withstand being dropped from the model?” They will be released quite low, I’d think about 50ft and at relatively slow speed over grass. For safety I intend to mould the front black bit from rubber and the arming vanes will be removed. There was no chance of getting any casting resin until after the Christmas holidays so I thought I might as well give it go at turning all 4 bombs. I’d turned the first one using a card template and found it quite a difficult and slow job; then I had a “eureka” moment, it does happen! I measured the diameters at various points along the length of the bomb, turned the wood as a series of cylinders and then simply tapered from one diameter to the next. This produced the other 3 bombs very easily and quickly; they’re not factory perfect but certainly near enough for me and a lot cheaper than buying casting resin etc.

To answer the rhetorical question posed at the end of my last post; “yes I can!” In fact having given it some consideration I changed the question I asked myself to “having spent the best part of 2 years building this model can I afford not to buy better servos?” I’ve bought a pair of Futaba S3305, they have slightly less torque at 7.1 Kg/cm but are quicker, 0.25 sec/60º as opposed to 0.33sec for the SuperTec; I’d thought that the 0.11 sec that the SuperTec were slower than “standard” wouldn’t really be noticeable but it certainly was and importantly the Futaba don’t have that “agricultural” sound. I’m a lot happier with them notwithstanding the extra cost! I’ve also replaced the 148s with ball raced S3001Bs. In order to rig and connect the aileron cables to the servos the model has to be held upside down; before I fitted the Lewis gun I just used beanbags for support and protection but obviously this was not a permanent solution so I've made a stand, which is simply a length of 75mm x 50mm timber and “Y” shapes soldered up from15mm copper pipe with foam insulation for protection. The stand will also come in handy for routine maintenance etc. as it holds the model securely whichever way up it is! I’ve had the wings on and off the fuselage several times sorting out the aileron linkage etc. with no problems, until today that is! The secret is to keep a small amount of tension in the cables whilst assembling the model, which I did by pulling on the linkage as I fed the wing pegs into their tubes, but I must have got a bit complacent today as one of the cables came off it’s pulley. After a considerable length of time and much cursing I managed to get it back onto it’s pulley using thin wire fed through the exit slot for the cable: I now have much more admiration for the “ship in a bottle” modellers! I’ll have to devise some sort of mechanical device to keep the tension; I wouldn’t want this to happen again as I’m getting ready to go to the flying field. The model is now all but finished; the “teething troubles” with the rigging has been sorted out by using a mechanical tensioner to keep the cables in the pulleys at all times. The problem is that there is not much room between the wing and the centre section whilst rigging, this taxed the brain a bit until I literally used some “lateral thinking” and although I’ve only used it a couple of times I don’t envisage any more problems. This is obviously just the prototype; when I make the rest of the set they’ll use springs not elastic bands! It doesn’t need much tension, in fact the elastic band is really too strong. When in the storage position the ailerons are at neutral and the quick links just protrude from the wing tubes. When connecting an aileron cable it is pulled out from the wing tube, which of course pulls the other connector into its wing tube, the metal “staple” is to stop the thread cutting into the rib. As I said in my last post, the model is all but finished and there’s a long time to go until the flying season, so the question is what to do in the meantime? I thought “a Cooper bomb rack would while away the hours!” I was a bit concerned that my SE5a was “piling on the pounds” with all the detailing work. A quick calculation for relative sizes gave me a target weight of 4.2Kg, so I stood on the scales holding the model with my pockets full of batteries, servos and a Laser 70 and got a weight of 3.8Kg. The model actually feels quite heavy but there’s a lot of wing area so I’m sure the model can take the extra weight, but whether or not I manage to sort out the complexities of designing and building the bomb rack remains to be seen!

When assembling the model I have to connect the 4 aileron cable quick links, this is a bit awkward as there is only a relatively small gap between the centre section and the wing root rib. To make things easier I’ve made a small “tool” to hold the links open, as a bonus it also stops the links disappearing into the wing tubes! It is simply inserted into the link and turned through 45º. It’s easier to see how it works using a link that is not on the model. The aileron linkage is now fully installed in the model and it all works fine! I still need to tidy things up a bit; I need to make new servo connectors because as I was fitting everything into the model I realised that once they’re glued into the snakes the servos would be very difficult to remove and knowing my luck one of them would pack up, I’ll also make better spring connectors, Because I decided to modify the servo linkage by “turning it inside out” so to speak I was able to mount servos horizontally instead of vertically as I’d originally intended, which makes things a lot easier. The mounting plate is from 0.5mm galvanised steel with some 1/8th ply to improve the grip of the mounting screws. I modified the mounting lugs to enable both servos to be held by the same grommets, this wasn’t strictly necessary but the assembly being that bit narrower does make it easier to fit into the fuselage. 2mm mounting studs are glued into some 1/8th spruce, which also helps to keep things straight. The whole assembly fits between the front spars and is held in place by the 2 studs. This photo is at neutral. As the servos move, differential ensures they don’t work against each other whilst the spring keeps the cables under tension; only the “pull” servo is doing any work. Full right. Full left. As each aileron servo has to operate all 4 ailerons with their associated cables and pulleys I needed “high torque” servos. Because I wasn’t convinced that the system would actually work satisfactorily when installed in the model and I didn’t want to waste money, I decided to buy a pair of “cheap” Supertec servos. These are very powerful, giving 7.4 kg/cm torque at 4.8volts and have no trouble at all moving the ailerons, but they do sound a bit “agricultural”. I now think maybe I should have had the “courage of my convictions” and gone for either Futaba or JR. Can I now justify the extra expense?

I had thought that the wings would be quite “wobbly” when held in the frame but in fact the assembly holds itself in position quite well. The photo also gives a good view of the underside weathering and the inspection “window”. The interplane struts are held in position with bent pins with only the bent section epoxied to the strut; if needs be it should be fairly simple to remove them. The struts only really need the pins to hold them in place until the model is assembled, after that the struts are always in compression so they really hold themselves in position on the pegs. The front flying wires are permanently attached to the fuselage bracket; the 2mm stud goes through a hole in the fuselage side just above the front undercarriage leg and is held tight by a nyloc nut. On the full size the rear flying wires are attached to the fuselage inside the lower wing stubs. This is impractical on a model of this size so these wires end inside the wing stubs joined by a length of brass tube. The SE5a has a very thin wing section but the model has sufficient strength, thanks to carbon fibre spars and LE, to not actually need flying wires, except for show, so it is perfectly feasible to just leave the wires loose. I don’t really like that idea though as I feel they might “flap about” uncontrollably once the engine is running so I’ll devise a way of applying at least some tension; either flexible “tails” attached to the wires themselves or hooks on flexible wires inside the wing stubs, I’ve not decided as yet. For the last few days I’ve been experimenting trying to make the tail plane support wires from 24swg piano wire. I made various ends using brass and aluminium tube but none of them looked right; they were all too “chunky”. In the end I decided to try bending the wire to the exact length required, doing this meant there would only be 2 wires in the “ferrule”, which could also be a lot shorter as it isn’t functional. This was not my preferred method as I thought it would be a problem getting the bends in exactly the right place but as it turned out it wasn’t too difficult, of the 8 wires only 1 had to be scrapped and re made. The ends are made from a sort length of heat shrink tubing, which is very thin walled, painted silver; the overall effect is certainly a lot better than the fishing trace.

Hello All Thanks for the replies they’re much appreciated, I’m glad you’re finding the thread informative and enjoyable. As it’s retrospective I can post updates most days, don’t have to wait to do the actual building, that was done long ago and yes I don’t like spending money unnecessarily, if I can make my own that’s better than buying readymade! Grahame I’ve said before that I like to get the positions for the radio gear sorted out as early as possible in the build so as not to get any nasty surprises at a later stage, after all the whole purpose of the exercise is to produce a radio controlled model! Unfortunately, although I confirmed the principle for the aileron control very early on in the build, the practicalities of actually fitting it into the model could not be worked out then because I had no idea how much spring tension would be needed or how much “slack” the system would have. This is the design that I tested to prove the principle. I fitted the spring temporarily using the inserts from an electrical connector strip and adjusted the tension as necessary. Because of the tension I had to reduce the length of the cable joining the top ailerons slightly then all worked nicely. I was surprised to find that as with the elevators there was no noticeable tightening or loosening of the cables and the tension required was the same, ¼" plus a bit for safety; I’d expected to have to use about double as the one cable controls all 4 ailerons, runs round 4 pulleys and there is a lot more of it. Fitting the spring the way I have done has given me an idea; I’m going to turn the design “inside out”, that is I’m going to attach the spring outside the servo arms not between them as originally intended. Doing it this way means I’ll be able to move the servos a lot closer together, which will mean less bending of the snake inners, which in turn will make for a smoother and more precise movement of the ailerons. Having got to this stage I couldn’t resist the temptation to fit the wheels and take a couple of photos. Looks a bit “naked” without all the wires, Lewis gun and a pilot! I was discussing the aileron linkage and was asked “why use the spring if there’s no slack?”. Well the first thing to say is that I said “there was no noticeable tightening or loosening of the cables” not quite the same thing, but anyway the cable needs to have some tension to keep it in the pulleys and make them rotate, without the spring this tension would have to be supplied by the servos working against each other. Stalled servos drain power from the battery very quickly and the result can be disastrous. I had considered using a true closed loop system with the cable itself providing the tension but I feel the set up would be quite critical; the spring gives that bit of leeway.

I used canopy glue to attach the acetate “windows” and then added the frayed tapes. They’ll be painted once the inspection “windows” in the wings and the aileron connecting wires are in place and taped. I’ve bolted the fin to the fuselage and added the tail plane support wires; they should be solid wires but I decided to use fishing trace because it would make life easier if / when I have to alter the incidence of the tail plane. I don’t know what it is but they just don’t look right, so much so that they’ll have to be changed, if it means more trouble later on I’ll just have to live with it; I think I’ll get some 24swg piano wire and hope that looks better. The “windows” were virtually the first thing that I considered when starting this model, they have influenced the design and construction throughout and will actually be virtually the last thing to be added to the model. I’ve replaced one of the tail plane support wires with one made from 24swg piano wire and it’s a lot better, the model shop hasn’t got any in stock but fortunately Mike’s putting in an order this week so it should be there some time next week. In the mean time I can get on with the rudder and aileron control cables. I’ve tested the top ailerons and they work fine, but of course they’re the easy ones, I’m hoping to test the bottom wings and also connect the top and bottom ailerons tomorrow. One thing I’m pleased with is the control horns, this is the first time I’ve had them “operational” and I have to say I think they look good. In the neutral position the shackles are inline with the cables. It’s only when the ailerons are deflected that it shows that the shackles aren’t actually free to pivot. Of course the ailerons will be at neutral when the model is being “examined” and if anyone can see the shackles when the model is flying they’re a better man than me!

Hello Toto I couldn't agree more, I well remember building a model railway layout for my son must be over 40 years ago now. Grahame The elevators are actually operated by a pair of pushrods but I want it to look as if the scale control cables and pulleys control them. To do this I will run a cable from the top control horn on one side to the bottom control horn on the other and vice versa; to take up any slack I will include springs in each cable run. The first thing to do is to find out where any slack in the system may be by temporarily joining the elevators together and connecting the control horns with cotton. I did each cable separately to ensure there wasn't any interaction. Moving the elevators from full up to full down showed that there is in fact no noticeable slackening or tightening of the cables; more by luck than judgement I’m sure! I’ll still incorporate the springs but with just enough tension to stop the cables flapping about I made up the 2 cables complete with springs; as they won’t be seen I used the easy option of brass tube as crimps, with a drop of cyano just to be sure. I fitted the cables through the fuselage before threading them through the tubes built into the tail plane, one spring each side. I then attached the cables to the control horns ensuring that there was equal tension in each cable by the simple measure of ensuring that each elevator was at the same relative angle. There is a little friction introduced by the pulleys and the springs running inside the tubes but definitely not excessive, as I’m using a separate servo for each elevator I’m certain there’ll be no problems. Just the acetate “windows” and frayed tapes to fit now. If you’re building an SE5a, or similar and want to incorporate the pulleys etc., or you’re a bit “nerdy” like me and like reading technical stuff then the next few paragraphs may be worth reading. Then again you might just be suffering from insomnia and what boring to sleep! The cables each consist of a spring with “tails” attached to both ends. A short “tail” that is attached to the control horn on the same side as the spring, which I’ll call the sprung cable. A long “tail” that passes through the fuselage and attaches to the other control horn; I’ll call this the non-sprung cable although of course the spring does have exactly the same effect on it. My original idea was to pass the non-sprung cable through the centre of the spring of the other cable but in practice this wasn’t a good idea. When some tension was applied to the spring and the coils opened slightly the non-sprung cable could get between the coils and this caused a lot of friction; running the cable on the outside of the spring, between it and the tube in the tail plane, caused no problems. I threaded the cables through the 2 halves of the tail plane bringing the sprung cables out for the top control horns and the non-sprung cables out for the bottom control horns. The choice was purely arbitrary but if done the other way round the following steps would have to be reversed. The model was turned upside down and the non-sprung cable pulled until the spring hit the fuselage side. With full up elevator (remember the model is upside down) I bent the cable back on itself ¼" past where it met the control horn thus ensuring that in practice the spring would never hit the fuselage side. The cable was threaded through the control horn and fixed by binding with thin copper wire and a drop of cyano. This was then repeated for the other side. The model was then turned the right way up and the elevators temporarily joined by a length of spruce and clamps. One of the sprung cables was threaded through its control horn and pulled until there was sufficient tension to keep the cable tight and provide enough friction on the pulleys to make them rotate when the elevator was moved from full up to full down. This turned out to also be about ¼" but I tensioned it just that bit more to be on the safe side and then terminated the cable as before. When I removed the spruce “joiner” the spring contracted and I had one elevator deflected up and the other deflected down. Now we get the "equal tension" bit! I threaded the other sprung cable through its control horn and tensioned it until both elevators were in line. When operating the elevators together there’s no pulling against the springs as the tension of one counteracts the tension from the other.

Hello Grumpy & Toto Thanks for the replies, helps to keep me motivated with posting so you can follow! Weathering is more akin to art than modelling but I find it very rewarding and there's no stress, any errors are easily corrected. Hopefully this thread has encouraged you to have a go with your next model. Any scale(ish) model, even ARTF's look so much better with a bit of "wear &tear". Grahame

Hello Geoff Nice model and that PC10 looks quite similar, definitely not olive green. Just have to keep the model for 20 years and it saves all that time and trouble "weathering" the paint job, why didn't I think of that?!? Grahame As far as the wings and tail plane are concerned the parts to concentrate on are the areas behind the hinges and the leading edges, but once again the effect is quite subtle. The colour of the paint in the photos varies depending on how the light falls on it, but this is not as noticeable in “real life”. The roundels on the top wings also need careful attention; the stitching really picks up the “dirt” and the area behind the hinge, which is hidden by the aileron gap cover, shows up a lot more than on the PC10. I can assure you that the roundels are round; it’s just the way it looks in the photo! Another photo showing how the dirt picks out the stitching. It seems a long time ago that I was working on producing a nicely stained undercarriage and to some it may seem like sacrilege, but this is what it looks like now! As for the colours, it was really the Germans who went for the “flashy” paint schemes and very nice models they make too, perhaps the British were / are too reserved. In the photo of the Shuttleworth SE5a you can see how dark the PC10 is, this is a latter variation, some of the earlier ones were a lot lighter, but whatever base colour was used the red wheel covers are about as far as they usually went, although there are one or two examples of fairly bright “nose art”. I’ve repainted and weathered the offending front section of the fuselage and am now happy with it.

I had the comment made to me that it was a pity to “spoil” the covering by having to use patches. Well just have a look at this photo of the Shuttleworth SE5a. This is an aircraft that doesn’t fly that often, is lovingly maintained and certainly doesn’t have to take the sort of punishment handed out on a WW1 airfield. The painting of the fuselage is now finished; the individual pieces were painted separately then fitted in place ready for weathering, this will ensure that the weathering “flows” from panel to panel in a natural way. I need to leave it for a while to let the paint really harden off before I start wearing it away with a pan scourerer, that’ll really show up the rivets and panel edges etc. Only when I’m happy with that stage will I start to “dirty” it up a bit. Here’s a better shot of the control rod for the radiator slats. There’s lots of “damage” to the lower part of the front panel, which will eventually be very heavily weathered with chipped and worn paint. "Dirtying up” the fuselage has been a bit of a hit and miss affair; with the PC10 being very dark it’s hard to tell where the very thin black paint has been applied and how much it may have built up in places, until it’s actually dry that is and by then of course it’s too late to do any corrective work if there’s too much build-up of paint. The finished effect needs to be quite subtle and I’m not happy with the front section, that is in front of the oil cover, so this area will be repainted with PC10 and the process repeated. The other side has worked out OK.

I’ve just looked back through the last few pages to find out how long it’s been since I ordered the PC10 and it turns out to be just over 2 months. The reason for this is that the “new” PC10 (dark) arrived over the weekend but according to Phil at Fighteraces he’d been sent the old PC10. On further checking with the manufacturers in America it was discovered that this was indeed the PC10 (dark) but it’s nothing like the colour shown on the website and is in fact very similar to the old PC10. The website has been updated in the last few days to show this colour but it’s definitely not what I want for my SE5a so that’s a couple of months wasted. I emailed Chuck Graves of Warbird Colors about this and he pointed me in the direction of some German WW2 colours that are a very close match to the colour I want, As I’ve said before the colour of PC10 is at best an educated guess and as I’m not a competition man I’ve decided that Schwarzgrun RML70 is near enough for me. The paint has had some talcum powder added to produce a nice matt finish and obviously still needs to be weathered but I think it looks a lot better than the lighter shades. The templates for the white lettering are what I call “positive”; that is they are the actual shapes, which I draw around, not holes cut out. Here a card “Z” is held in position on the fuselage side with low tack masking tape. I don’t know about you, but I find painting rather boring, not weathering, which I enjoy, as it really brings the model to life and makes it an individual “miniature aircraft” as opposed to a model. It’s the slapping on of the overall basic colour that really drags, especially with the prospect of having to apply 3 or 4 coats around a fairly complex shape as below. There are a couple of things I do to relieve the boredom and a couple of things I don’t do. The photo above shows one of each! I do, if practical, split the painting into smaller sections. The section behind the rear white stripe has had 2 coats and the rear edge of the “Z” made a convenient place to stop the next section, the first coat will be continued forward before applying the second coat and so on. I don’t use a thick coat of paint to reduce the number of coats required, it may indeed reduce the number of coats of paint but the chances are that you’ll end up spending a lot of time and effort trying to remove sags and runs from the paint and the finish will never be as good as a build-up of thin coats. You can tell from the area with only one coat that the paint is quite thin, it hasn’t covered very well but the second coat is a great improvement. Another thing I don’t do is rush the job; I always allow ample time for one coat to dry completely, not just “touch dry”, before applying the next. Another thing I try to do to alleviate the boredom is to take breaks from painting and do a bit of detailing. Unfortunately I have done most of the small detailing work whilst waiting the 2 months for the paint to arrive, but there have been a couple of things to make. The control for the radiator slats. It doesn’t show up very well, I’ll take another photo after the front has been painted. The tubes from the pitot head exit the wing at the root and are encased in the rear of the cabane strut. The other hole in the covering is for access to the aileron control cable adjustment and will be patched once they are set up correctly.

I always use silver Solarlac to fuel proof the engine bay; firstly because you can see where you’ve been and more importantly where you’ve missed and also because it shows up any places where the joints are less than perfect and believe me there’s quite a few of them! You can see where the corner of the engine bearer meets the former there is a slight gap; it’s not a strength issue at the moment but the crevice could hold fuel / oil and eventually it would soak into the wood and cause problems. I’ll fill it and any others with epoxy / micro balloons then give it another coat of Solarlac. How much “weathering” is appropriate, if any at all, is a matter of personal preference; I like my models to look as if they’ve seen a fair amount of action, others like a pristine, ex-works finish. Also you can see that the lettering looks obviously hand painted, as it should do for a WW1 aircraft; accurate, computer generated transfers just wouldn’t look right. Some of my comments during this thread such as “I don’t worry about the odd scratch or dent” may have given the impression that a “weathered” finish is an easy option, I can assure you that it isn’t! To get the correct amount of wear and /or damage in the correct places so as to make the model look “real” is a work of art in itself. Some scratches and dents can be left; others can’t and have to be repaired. Although WW1 aircraft were not spray-painted, one substance certainly was liberally sprayed about and that was oil! This is where things can go horribly wrong; having spent a fair amount of time painting the model it needs to be “dirtied up”, paying special attention to any white areas. An error now and it’s a re-painting job. Ideally I’d have finished all the painting before I started on this stage but as I’m still waiting for the PC10 I’ve made a start where I can. Here’s the rudder after this second stage of weathering. I apply the paint, which is very watered down, with a rag and wipe it in the direction of the airflow slowly building up the “dirt” to what I consider to be an appropriate amount. The under surfaces of the tail plane really get the treatment, as will the under surfaces of the fuselage and the lower wings. It is impossible, because of the lack of quality of photographs from the time, to be sure just how weathered / dirty these aircraft became in service but it is clear that the fields got quite muddy so I think it’s a fair bet that the aircraft themselves got equally dirty. The pitot head is fitted to the R.H. interplane strut; the 2 copper “pipes”, which disappear through a hole in the covering into the wing, are made from twin and earth house wiring, the “hoses” are short lengths of the neutral sleeving. A few years ago I did some wiring work in the house and had the forethought to keep some of the old wire, which used red and black sleeving, the cable available now uses blue and brown. I didn’t want the pitot head attached to the interplane strut too solidly so that a knock might damage the strut, therefore, I used1.5mm diameter plastic rod. I drilled shallow holes in the strut, pushed the rod through the mounting lug into the hole and applied a drop of thin cyano before trimming the rod over length. A touch with a sanding disc “mushroomed” the end producing a realistic attachment and twists of wire for hose clips finished the job. Obviously it still needs to be weathered, talking of which, it may sound bizarre but the “dirt” on the underside of the tail plane in the photo above is at the moment too clean, it will all be blended in at a later stage by gently rubbing over with a pan scourer.

This post is not about a part of the model itself but none the less important for that! The ailerons need to be joined by a length of thin piano wire, at this scale “quick links” are a non-starter mainly because of their size but in any case there are no detachable linkages on the full size Se5a. Therefore the upper and lower wings will be permanently fixed together by the interplane struts and the aileron linkage; I don’t haven’t enough room to be able to keep the model permanently rigged so this could cause a problem for storing the wings when removed from the fuselage. I’ve made 2 frames to support the inner sections of the wings; they are in 2 parts and held together with removable pins. The wings will be stored “hung” from brackets by the top wing, the lower wing supported by the interplane struts and the frame, which grips the trailing and leading edges. To assemble the model the wing locating pins are pushed a little way into the holes in the centre section and wing stubs, which then take over the support of the wings. The pin is then removed and the frame disassembled, the aileron controls connected and the wings finally pushed home and the wing retaining grub screws tightened. That’s the theory anyway! I’m still searching for things to do whilst waiting for the paint to arrive; I hadn’t intended to do this job until much later in the build but needs must etc. The piano wire, which links the ailerons, has to be the correct length to ensure the ailerons themselves are at the same angle relative to the main planes. Although they are drawn on the plan I prefer not to rely on these but to make them to fit the actual model; a build-up of tolerances (euphemism for building errors!!) can result in the drawings and model not exactly matching, so first I made an adjustable link. The landing wires are attached to ensure the correct dihedral angle, the ailerons held at neutral with spring clamps and the link adjusted to the correct length. The adjustable link is made from a couple of bent pins soldered to some brass screw clamps from my “useful items” box and a length of 2mm rod. Once locked at the correct length the aileron clamps are released, the link removed and a piano wire link bent to the same length. Fitted in place the link looks a lot better than a 2mm rod attached to control horns by quick links. When the links are permanently fitted the hole in the Solartex will be covered using a frayed tape with a slot in it, but this will be about the very last thing to do to the model, it won’t be done until all the painting etc has been completed and the wings are joined as a single unit.

The first thing people seem to look at on any scale model is the cockpit; therefore the padded edging needs careful attention. A good starting point is some split earth wire sleeving. Given a coat of brown paint it’d look just like “brown painted earth sleeving”, so it really does need covering with leather. I searched high and low for some thin brown leather but couldn’t find any anywhere, then I remembered that I had an old “reversible” leather belt, black one side brown the other. Because it was made from 2 pieces sewn together the leather was not all that thick, but still too thick for what I needed! After separating the 2 halves, more in hope than expectation I fitted a rough sanding drum into the Dremmell, much to my surprise it worked and half an hour later I had a strip of very thin leather; the down side was that I had produced what seemed to be an inordinately large amount of rather unpleasant smelling dust. I used contact adhesive to glue the leather to the sleeving. I fitted the split sleeving to some paxolin sheet after first having covered the edge with paper, applied the glue then held the leather in place with clamps and a couple of steel rules. The observant will have noticed that it isn’t earth sleeving in the photo; for the first attempt, which I photographed, I used fuel tubing but the contact adhesive wouldn’t stick to it! I’ve used fuel tubing before with no trouble but this was a new “environmentally friendly” contact adhesive. Anything “environmentally friendly” never seems to work as good as the old stuff! The finished padding was first stitched to the fuselage, which was then turned upside down and thin cyano “wicked” around the edge to finally hold everything securely in position. Another use for the thin leather is the headrest. This is simply a piece of soft 1/4 balsa covered in leather, which is then suitable “distressed”. The rear section of padding has been added and although not that noticeable in the photo the cockpit edging has also been scuffed. For the centre section tank overflows I’ve used copper wire from domestic house wiring cable; this is very useful stuff, it bends easily and comes in various sizes, this is the earth wire from 2.5mm2 with a 14BA nut and tinplate mounting brackets, which are soldered to it then simply cyanoed into small slots,. The top of the centre section now looks suitably “busy”.

I’ve thought some more about the glow plug connector and decided that it will be best to mount it under the hinged flap and not the oil filler cover. Having made that decision means that it will have to be a working hinge and I have to consider how to keep the flap shut. To ensure that the hinge will take the “punishment” I’ll make it from tinplate so the obvious way to keep it shut is with a small magnet. The flap and half the hinge are made from a single piece of tin plate The hinge is bent around a 1mm drill and soldered then the slots cut out with the Dermal and cutting disc. The other half of the hinge is made in a similar fashion, I used a drill as opposed to piano wire to form the hinge around because solder won’t adhere to it. To attach it to the fuselage I didn’t want to rely on the small amount of gluing area available so the pin is bent at 90º, this will go though a hole in the fuselage side and be securely epoxied inside. The “catch” is a 14Ba washer soldered into a “cross” slot. A slight change of plan in so much as I’ve made the hinge pin in 2 halves so as to be able to have a 90º bend at both ends. The backing plate, which will fit inside the fuselage, is 1/8th lite ply, it will give a firm fixing for the ends of the hinge pins and also hold the small magnet. The hinge pins have a small brass keeper soldered in place, I’ll reinforce it with a layer of epoxy later to prevent any vibration causing the holes to wear. The flap in position and closed With the flap open there is a nice sized hole for the remote glow plug connection. The flap is held securely shut by the magnet working through the 1/32nd ply fuselage sides.

There are at least two different types of oil filler covers; the Shuttleworth SE5a has is a simple “blister”, the other is flat with “OIL” embossed as used on the French restoration. To make the “blister” would be another plunge moulding exercise but I thought that the embossed cover would look good when painted and weathered to pick out the lettering. I first drew the design, with the lettering reversed, and printed out two copies onto sticky labels. One label was stuck to litho plate and “OIL” embossed using an old Biro the other onto 1/64th ply, which was then cut to shape. The ply was given a thin coat of 5minute epoxy and using the holes as guides the litho plate was held in position with pins whilst the edges were formed first with a hard balsa tool then finally “sharpened up” using a piece of 1/8th square spruce. I think the finished part will look quite convincing with some subtle weathering. I’ve not fixed the cover in position as yet because I might use it to hide the access hole for the glow plug connection, but there’s a hinged flap on the other side of the fuselage that might be a better proposition, I’ll make a decision on that later.

Before marking out the roundels a piece of liteply is taped at the centre position to hold the point of the compass, the circles drawn in pencil and the white blocked in. Then the circles are drawn again, this time using red and blue marker pens, I haven’t got a “PC10” pen for the outer ring. The centre red section won't be painted as yet, it’ll have to wait for the outer ring because I can’t remove the liteply until that has been drawn. This photo is with 2 coats of blue applied; one more should finish it. I am using Warbirds water-based paint and when painting the rudder registration and the black “Z” everything seemed to be OK, but to quote from the 1960s “black is black”! When painting the blue, which is quite a lot lighter in colour than the marker pen it became obvious that the paint wasn’t being drawn to the edge of the marker pen ink as is the case when using enamel oil-based paint, in fact if anything the paint was being repelled. It was certainly no easier or better than painting to a pencil line so I’ll be thinking again about the outer “PC10” ring. First I’ll try my home made trammel, I’ve never been happy with the results using enamel paint but maybe it’ll be better with this thin water-based paint. As on this model I want to replicate hand painted roundels getting a sharp edge isn’t all that important. When brush painting to a line it’s far easier to paint from the “coloured side”; this means that when painting the outer edge of the blue ring of a roundel eventually you end up having to reach across the section that has just been painted. A useful accessory is a suitably sized tub placed in the centre of the roundel which helps to ensure that your arm / sleeve doesn’t end up smudging the other half of the roundel. This one is a Morrisons “healthy eating” coleslaw, courtesy of the better half; I just knew it was the right thing to do to buy good wholesome food! brush painting to a line it’s far easier to paint from the “coloured side”; this means that when painting the outer edge of the blue ring of a roundel eventually you end up having to reach across the section that has just been painted. A useful accessory is a suitably sized tub placed in the centre of the roundel which helps to ensure that your arm / sleeve doesn’t end up smudging the other half of the roundel.

Went to see Phil at Fighter Aces and bought the Warbirds paint, minus the PC10, which he hasn’t got in stock at the moment. It’s the first time I’ve used this paint, it’s quite thin with a flow more akin to ink than paint and it does take several coats to cover but overall I have to say that I’m very impressed with it. Water based so easy clean up, virtually no smell, quick drying and to top it all, fuel proof! The model will be entirely brush painted and for the registration etc I’m using my preferred method of permanent marker for the outline. White lettering can be a problem as it’s quite difficult to get white marker pens but a bit of forward planning can save the situation. The area concerned is painted all over white first and the “background” painted in afterwards. This will be a white “Z” on the top wing when I eventually get a coat of PC10 on. The under surface of the tail plane has been finished with “linen” paint. The registration markings are printed onto thin card and templates cut out leaving “bridges” where necessary. The top template above is for black lettering the bottom one for white lettering. The template is held in position with “low tack” masking tape and the outline drawn. With the template removed the “gaps” can be filled in using the marker pen and a rule. Use a fine brush for the edges and then fill in with a flat brush. At this stage they look “too good” but the final “weathering” will take away the “newness” and allow some of the white to show through in places. I don’t worry too much if I stray slightly outside the lines; remember the original was painted well before the advent of masking tape and airbrushes! If, once all the painting’s finished, I don’t like the look of any part of the lettering then I’ll just do a bit more “weathering” around the offending area and it’ll soon merge in to look OK. We can tend to “romanticise” these old aircraft etc. When we see examples today they have been painstakingly restored to “showroom” condition but at the time the SE5a was just another way to kill the enemy and being churned out as quickly as possible. To get an idea of how they must have looked it’s best to look at one of today’s “work horses” like a crop duster; no perfect paint job there!

·What I failed to point out in my previous post was that I’d already made the pitot but I had no photo at the time because it was held together by masking tape while the epoxy cured. The trouble with anything like this, which sticks out from the model, is that it is very susceptible to “hanger rash”. To alleviate the problem it has to be made strong enough to take a few knocks, removable or flexible; they all have their pros and cons but I tend to go for the first option, to that end it’s made from tin plate and copper tube. The “weak point” will be the fixings to the interplane strut so any substantial knock will break them and not the pitot or more importantly the strut.

The magneto handle is made from brass sheet with 2 bead-ended dress makers pins, the larger one has the bead cut in half, epoxied to it. The base is litho plate; placing the litho plate on some scrap 1/16th balsa, positioning a suitable washer and giving it a firm tap with a tack hammer forms the large ring. With the position marked the litho plate is turned over and the forming around the washer finished off with some hard balsa. Although I’ve worked with litho plate for many years it never ceases to amaze me just how versatile it is and what complex shapes can be easily formed. A lick of paint, some subtle weathering and the jobs done, but I won’t fit it to the model until after the PC10 paint job. I think that’s all the “ bits and pieces” made but I’ll take a good look at all my reference photos just to make sure, it’s amazing what you (I) can miss!

The fairings for the screen are “plunge moulded” as one unit, cut in half, glued to a litho plate base and given a coat of silver Solarlac. This is where they fit virtually hiding the screen side pillars. The Vickers front sight starts as 2 rings and some brass rod and tube. Holes are drilled in the rings, which are still quite thick at this stage for ease of handling and the unit assembled over the template ready for soldering. The outer ring is a bit too small but to get it correct I’d have to buy a 3m length of 25mm tube, which seemed a bit much considering I only needed about 6mm! As I had some 22mm I decided to use that, it’s near enough for me. When it’s been soldered the inner “cross hairs” are removed and the rings filed down to a reasonable thickness. The Vickers is now finished with front and rear sights, the copper “pipe” is for the interrupt. The Vickers in position.

A nice feature on the SE5a is the metal “tread plates” on the lower wing stubs; they have a ridged non-slip surface. It wasn’t clear when I made them if the ridges would look the part so I gave them a lick of paint and tried a bit of weathering before gluing them in place and I’m very pleased with the results. To produce the parallel ridges I made a jig from20swg piano wire and tinplate. I then embossed the ridges using a length of 10swg piano wire ground to a smooth point. It took a bit of experimenting to get it right; at first the wires were too long and opened out as I scribed the grooves How would we manage without Lithoplate? I’ve just fitted the aileron gap covers also made from the stuff. I don’t want to upset any farmers but the covers certainly look a bit “agricultural” but it’s how it’s done on the full size. The cover is bent at an angle to allow the aileron to move; looking from the rear you can see the gap between the cover and the aileron. The bend in the cover may well be able to be reduced once the correct amount of aileron deflection required has been determined during the test flights. The cover is split for the aileron horn. In this photo you can also see the drainage holes, I’m not sure whether or not they’ll be visible in flight only time will tell. The cover has a frayed tape fairing it to the wing. A thing to remember about frayed tapes is that all the edges are frayed. Because Solartex has an adhesive on one side, to start a fray you have to nick the material so you can’t actually fray all the sides. The best thing to do is to fray the long sides and then “fray” the ends when the tape is cut to length. To do this cut lots of small nicks with a scalpel, turn the tape over and repeat from the other side; it looks right when it’s been ironed in place but a straight cut stands out like a sore thumb.

I’m looking forward to getting some colour on, but what colour is the question? The answer would at first appear simple; PC10, but that is where the problems really begin! I’ve done a lot of research and the only firm conclusion I’ve arrived at is that nobody knows what colour PC10 should be. PC10 was not primarily a colour, PC stands for Protective Coatings and protection of the fabric from UV light, fuel and other contaminates was its main purpose. As such it was as much about the under coats as the final colour coat and more about the quality (ie proportions of solids to solvents etc) than the actual colour of the paint. Only later in the war as aircraft became more capable and any aircraft caught on the ground was a “sitting duck” the idea of using the paint as camouflage was developed but the colour seems to have varied from a fairly bright green through many shades of brown to almost black. I did find a recipe for “PC10”; it was like something from Shakespeare "Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog," Seriously it had several variables, use this or this, and measured some ingredients in so many “handfuls” so it’s not surprising that the colour varied. I’ve decided to use “Warbird Colors” from https://warbirdcolors.com/ for no better reason than it is a shade of PC10 that I like, an added advantage is that it’s water based, but it’s not cheap! It was very rare indeed for any WW1 aircraft to be spray-painted so brush painting using a soft brush is the best method for a realistic finish. The under surfaces were just clear doped linen (CDL) and I’m still debating whether to use the “linen” paint or to “age” the Solartex by staining it; apparently cold tea does the job but I’ll have to do some experimenting first. I’ve heard good reports about Warbirds paint so I hope they’re born out in practice, I like the sound of it; water based and fuel proof! The Internet is a wonderful thing but it can sometimes be a case of too much of a good thing and you can get contradicting information. Whist researching PC10 all the references I found referred to brushing the paint but I also found a photo of an SE5a which appeared to have sustained some damage to the fin, the repair had the (silver?) undercoat applied and it appears to have been sprayed on. So we appear to have photographic evidence of spray painting but there is no write up about the photo so we don’t know really what it shows, it’s just conjecture, the photographic technology at the time wasn’t the best so it may not even really be spray-painted. I suppose, if you’re trying to reproduce the model as it would have been during WW1 and not as a restoration, you can do whatever you like and no one can prove any different. I use a soft brush about 20mm wide and don’t over brush too much, the finish shouldn’t really show brush marks as such but it’s definitely not a “spray” finish. Don’t be too worried about the finish; remember that they didn’t have the filtered air painting booths that are used today! My experiment of “aging” the Solartex by staining with cold tea has failed; a great pity, I like to get away with using “free” materials! The fabric just wouldn’t take up the colour, perhaps it has to be a natural material such as silk, it’s a long time since I read the article and I honestly can’t remember details. Looks like I'm going to have to use paint and "fork out some readies" I might as well use the warbirds "linen" paint; it will ensure that there's no reaction with the rest of the paint.

The windscreen is quite an elaborate affair consisting of a wooden base to which the screen is fastened by adjustable side brackets and then just to complicate things further the side brackets have metal fairings! The base is from 1/32 and 1/16 ply, the brackets are tin plate with cut down servo mounting grommet bushes soldered in place and the acetate screen has a litho plate edge. The complete unit will be glued permanently in place after the fuselage has been painted. Then I’ll have the problem of the fairings! Probably another “plunge moulding” exercise. The 20swg bracing wires have ends made from brass tube, a time consuming job as there are 40 required all together. This is where the vast majority of the drag comes from but on the plus side also a great deal of strength. As the bracing wires need to be included for scale effect I see no reason not to make them functional. I’ve had to move to the conservatory for this job (the cat’s non too pleased), there is just not enough room in the shed to work comfortably with the wings in place. The bracing wires are held temporarily with pins; they will be labelled and removed, then attached permanently after the model is painted.

The tops of the undercarriage legs are filled to fit to the fuselage “hatch” and then have the litho plate added. Once again it was quite difficult working from the side view to get the correct shape to wrap around the legs, they’re still not perfect on the inside but that won’t be easily seen. The large rivets were embossed using a pop rivet, before it’s been snapped off, and a sharp tap with a tack hammer. The nut and bolt used to attach the undercarriage to the fuselage is too big to be embossed so I moulded them. I made the mould using a suitably sized bolt pressed into plasticine. There’s no fine detail so a mixture of epoxy and micro balloon is OK, if there is fine detail you'll just have to bite the bullet and buy casting resin and proper mould making material. Once the epoxy mixture is really hard the plasticine can be easily removed and the “bolt head” tidied up. The one on the right has a slight imperfection but a dob of filler soon cures that! A short length of plastic rod converts half the mouldings into nuts. The mouldings are then cyanoed to the undercarriage; only one coat of paint at the moment just to check they don’t need any more filling.