Zenrat's Flying Circus

[zenrat]

Do you remember when model sailing ships came with "rubberised" rigging and netting ?

Yep.  As hard to glue as vinyl tracks.

Picked up the Drag-Rap thisarvo and demasked it.  Some more touching up needed.
Dragon Rapide WIP 11-06-2021 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

[Flyer]

Looking good tho

[NARSES2]

Looking good tho

Tis indeed 

As for that rigging ? First time I heard my dad swear with one of the Airfix ships, Endeavour ? The tracks - I got my mum to sew them. Family modelling 

[zenrat]

Thank you gentlemen.

Speaking of rigging...

Drag-Rap WIP 13-06-2021 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

Heller make it fairly easy by having pre moulded holes in the wings for some wires and trapping others under interplane struts.  The kit is actually designed for single pieces of line to be fed in and out of holes before the upper and lower wing halves are joined.  However I can't see how I could have done that and then painted it.  Nice idea but not completely practical IMO.
As can be seen I built it except the struts and then rigged it and fitted the unpainted struts at the same time.  I could have prepainted the struts but there is always a level of touching up needed after I have rigged a biplane (Superglue to be hidden) so I left them unpainted.  I did start painting them thisarvo but immediately disconnected one end of one of the X braces between the inner interplane struts and so had to stop.

[NARSES2]

Well done mate 

[zenrat]

Not too much to go now.  Re-attach the loose thread, paint struts, attach floats, paint props, and its done.

I may have started (I cut some parts off the sprues and glued the back of the bang seat to the front) on the next thing - a Trumpeter Xiaolong FC-1 Fierce Dragon in RAAF scheme.  I opened up the box and found someone had added an aftermarket PE set.  Not sure how much i'll use.  A lot of it seems over the top and there is already a Trumpeter one in the box.  Engraved surface detail on the kit looks nice and fit seems good.

However, having typed that i've just remembered that the Drag-Rap was supposed to ease me into building some of the WW1 stash so I may put the Fierce Dragon away again tomorrow and get out something from that box.  Fokker Triplane maybe, or a Bristol Fighter.

[NARSES2]

  Fokker Triplane maybe,

Minimal rigging 

[zenrat]

Just looked it up.  Very minimal and thus a good start.
I do like this scheme but Eduard have a lot of choices in the box.

[DogfighterZen]

The Dragon Rapide's rigging...

[zenrat]

Drag-Rap's rigging was complicated by both wings being attached to the fuselage.  My usual technique is to attach rigging lines to the lower wing before attaching the upper wing.  Couldn't do that in this case.
Today I repaired the rigging I broke yesterday, painted the struts and attached the floats.
Drag-Rap WIP 14-06-2021 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

[ericr]

 

[zenrat]

Thanks Eric.

As far as the FC-1 goes I put it away and after a bit of umming and ahhhing and opening boxes and looking at schemes I got out a 1/72 Eduard Fokker D VII.  Mainly because it has, like the DR1, minimal rigging but also because it has lozenge transfers for the wings.
It also has an individual transfer for each rib tape, on both sides of each wing.  Someone must have thought "during WW1 there were hardly any stencils on airframes to drive modellers insane.  How instead can we achieve that aim?"
I have started it.  I thought an Eduard FW190 was fiddley.  I was mistaken...

[NARSES2]

I have an Eduard 1/72 Albatross that I occasionally look at and then put back again, but I think the Dr I is even smaller ? 

[zenrat]

Dr 1 is indeed tiny.  I keep looking at the Albatross kit.  Nice looking aircraft.
There is a lot of detail inside the D VII.  Including a complete engine and lozenge transfers for the cockpit sides.

Back on the tools today.  I dug three holes for the posts of the Perzebo (or Gagola) and then concreted galv steel stirrups into the holes.  Not as easy as it sounds as two of the holes are through crazy paving.
Because of that I didn't get much bench time.  More painting on the 1WGB build but that was about it.
Mrs z and I then went and got innoculated.  I await with interests any side effects.

[Old Wombat]

I felt incredibly lethargic 24 hours after having the AZ jab, which lasted most of the day but wore off by about 9pm, with a matching very dull headache just hovering at the edge of perception.

My offsider at work today (a Welshman) had his yesterday &, also, felt lethargic today but not, it seems, as badly as I did.