In Progress - 1/48 Eduard Albatros W4

[Bob_D]

Amazing work as usual, Brad! Keep the build pics coming.

[W1NDFALL]

I'm also working on one of these. I use PrismaColor pencils on a khaki (tan) base for my wood effect. I'm very impressed with yours though. I'd like to ask a couple of questions that I have not been able to satisfactorily resolve. First, all photographs that I have seen show this craft with an upper wing mounter radiator yet the kit furnishes the ear types.
Which is proper for later 1917 losenge camouflage aircraft?
If wing mounted, was the radiator mounted on center or offset to starboard?
Secondly, was the single spandau or dual mount machine gun armament more common on later models?
One last nit-picking question. Was the firewall metal clad or wad it plywood?

Best regards,
Dan Smith

[Brad Cancian]

Minor disaster on this project yesterday... I was playing around with more thinned oils trying to get some variation between panels of the wood grain, thinking "the first lot of oils are well and truly dry, I can't hurt em, no need to clear coat first" .... wrong....! The thinned oils softened the dry oils and I lifted a little bit of the original wood finish off on the port side under the cockpit - the more I tried to clean it up and paint over it, the worse it got. Then it started happening on other areas over the airframe...

End result, I cut my losses and stripped the wood grain back to the bare plastic... arg!! *Breathe, place the model back onto the table...* Lesson learned - always clear coat.

I am definately not immune to disasters - at least this will give me a fresh start on the wood grain again...!!

Sigh!

BC

[MerlinV]

So Brad, you are Human afterall. I am dissapointed... I will have to revise the order of the Gods in my Pantheon!
What do you use to thin your oils? I use White spirit my self and yes, I have found that it will not only strip already placed oils that are not quite dry, but will also effect lacquers and humbrol enamels...
I placed a coat of Polyscale Clear over the Struts on my BE after I had oiled them and then still found that every thing needed a week to harden up enough to handle the parts.
I am finding now that modelling is as much about discovery and learning as it is building kits (and our own character).

Yep, put in down, walk away from it and come back after a nice calming cup of tea... or maybe something a little stronger.

Where are the photos of this exercise?

Cheers,

Hugh

[StephenLawson]

Been there - done that. I snapped a paintbrush in my gritting teeth.

[guitarlute101]

Brad,

Great wood paint effect. One of the things I find hard about building a new model is deciding which painting technique to use on a particular part. Thanks for sharing your pics and tips.

Mark

[Brad Cancian]

Ok, let's try again...

I tried to add variation to the panels, and also go for a heavily shellacked look - hence the deep yellow/orange finish - whilst trying to let some of the grain peek through...

Old (pre disaster):




New:




There is aspects of both that I like, and that I don't like... oh well, the experiment will continue on my next kit but for now, I think I will leave it be to avoid any further disasters!!!

BC

[Brad Cancian]

A minor update to prove I am still going with this project - major painting and decalling is now completed. I worked on toning down the "wood" with further oversprays to make the fuselage look heavily varnished:





Everything is still OOB except for the lozenge decals - I did not really like the kit lozenge decal colours (they were quite pink) so I used some Pegasus naval lozenge instead - not sure if it is more accurate but I think it looks nicer. This stuff is very easy to use but is very thin and had a tendancy to curl up on itself but reacted well to microsol and was very firmly stuck to the model when dry. As the rib tapes on the real W4 were made from the same fabric and painstakingly matched to the wing hex patern, I tried to replicate the rib tapes through use of shading (masking over decals was particularly scary for me but due to the firm sticking power of the Pegasus decals, there were thankfully no problems at all ).



Feedback always welcome!

BC

[Scimitar]

Amazing work, Brad! I really like your plywood rendering!!!

[StephenLawson]

Greetings Brad;

If I were you I would use clear decal film for the ribtapes. It may get the job done your looking for. But it breaks that OOB thing. She is a fine build by the way. Most impressive.