Revell 1/28 Sopwith Camel

[swbailey]

I actually started work on my model of William Barker's Sopwith Camel earlier this month, but have been remiss at putting up pictures.  This particular kit, in this particular boxing was the first plastic model airplane that I built in 1967.  Because of it, I have enjoyed a half-century of modeling and a love of aircraft that has lead to a career as an air museum curator.  I owe so much to this wonderful model.  Although the kit is very rough by current standards, it has a real place in my heart and I wanted to build another one to celebrate my 50th Anniversary in modeling.  Hopefully, my skills have improved over all those decades.  (Unlike many who left modeling to discover cars and girls, I have kept building throughout it all.)  

 

I've chosen to build the model somewhat out of the box, but with a few small items to "jazz it up."  I've ordered the Tom's Modelworks etched brass sets for the guns and the interior.  I've read that the kit has lots of issues, such as the length of the struts being too long and the dihedral of lower wing being too shallow, but I'm really not going to mess with that.  I'm interested in doing the old kit as an old kit, just prettying it up a bit.

 

So here goes...

 

 

Edited July 18, 2017 by swbailey

[swbailey]

My first work was to do some fixes to the cockpit, just to dress it up a bit.  I filled in some of the giant ejector pin marks that were standard for kits of this time frame.  The particular one that I am building is a 1973 issue of a kit originally released in 1958; the year before I was born!  I added in some framing using some Evergreen styrene, just to fill the cockpit out when you look in from above.  

[swbailey]

Then I painted up the floor board,instrument panel and back rest to look like wood.  Not an expert on World War I aircraft, I made the assumption that the back rest would not have been leather, but something more like padded canvas for weight, hence the green fabric look rather than what the instructions called for.

 

[swbailey]

Just for fun while the paint was drying on the cockpit, I went in and added valve stems for the tires in the wheels.

 

Edited July 18, 2017 by swbailey

[swbailey]

By the second week in, I had painted the interior and completed construction of the engine.  For the interior color, I used Model Master Armor Sand, as I had seen other modelers use it for World War I British linen fabric and I liked the color.  I painted all of the wood famework with Model Master Wood, drybrushed with Rust for the wood grain.  I painted the forward part of the fuselage interior with Model Master Aluminum, doing this by hand, rather than hauling out the airbrush as it's not an area that will really be well seen anyway when the fuselage is together.

 

The engine crankcase was painted Model Master Steel and Model Master Jet Exhaust to give it a little variation in color.  The cylinders were all painted flat black, and the cooling fins highlighted with a silver prisma color pencil. For some reason (probably the limits of molding technology back then) there was a small piece that went between the push rod tubes at the very end of the tubes.  I cut those cross pieces out and sanded between the tubes before attaching them to the cylinders.  The push rod tubes were painted with Model Master Chrome Silver, and the exhaust pipes on the the backs of the cylinders were done in Copper.  Next, I need to rig the ignition wires.

Edited July 18, 2017 by swbailey

[Trojan Thunder]

Some basic detail goes a long way. Nicely done

[martin_sam_2000]

Looks great. I can never seem to make a WWI bird look good.

 

 Sean

[AX 365]

Nice detail work.  Looks sharp.