A rigging odyssey: looking for a good solution for WWI/I aircraft.

Since the dawn of flight until the jet age, aircraft feature exposed pieces of wire, taught or slack, alone or in a profusion of places, acting as structure, structural reinforcement, or radio antennae, or all 3. Done well it adds accuracy and realism.

(1/48 Halberstadt D.II using EZ Line)

My journey has led me to try a number of different materials, but only one I'll recommend going forward.

Early on, you usually use what the kit provided or recommended. All thread ends up, to my eye, looking both oversized and fuzzy. It doesn't stand up to closer inspection.  As a result of my high school shop classes on electricity and electronics,  I've always had a box of wire and bits lying around. Antennae were wire, so why not use wire? But getting wire to scale would be a challenge. Eureka! Unwind wire from a transformer. Its very thin yet strong and ductile. Pull a few feet off the coil, chuck it in a vise, grab the loose end with a pliers, and give it a tug, it straightens out nicely! Cut to length, secure with the glue of your choice. 

(1/48 Albatros D.V with transformer wire rigging)

Drawbacks: it doesn't take paint well; but the biggest issue is the same ductility that made ot easily straightened also means if you bump it even slightly....it stretches. Permanently.  And you will bump it eventually. 

Fast forward a few years, I find myself preparing to rig a vintage Aurora 1/48 Gotha. Lots and lots of rigging,  flying wires, control cables. I have a roll of fine gauge fishing line.

Perhaps?

By pre drilling strut ends before assembly,  I arrange it so I can use single long pieces of line, "sewn" through strut after strut.

I used ACC cement for all attach points. Glue the loose end down, wait to dry. Run the free end through the next attach point, weigh down the free end with a hemostat, dangled over something to maintain constant tension, glue, let dry, repeat. Tedious, but effective.  Mostly.

Advantages: reasonably scale appearance, great structural strength. You can pick up this large model by the outboard wingtip, no sag!

Drawbacks: takes paint less well than copper wire. And the structure that was tight when I completed becomes seasonally loose in warmer weather.

The search continues. 

A nicely detailed 1/48 Halberstadt kit for a bargain price falls into my hands. Time to try something new...

I got a recommendation for a product called EZ Line, an elastic material available in several colors and diameters. My approach to installing was the same as the Gotha: pre-drill, but in this case, after the initial end was glued down tight,  it could be threaded through all remaining  holes / attach points, put under slight tension, and all attach points glued. 

Advantages: withstands touches, bumps, etc. and springs back, remaining tight and straight. Will take paint, although I recommend acrylics, as solvents can soften it unpredictably.

Drawbacks: provides no structural benefit.

How well does it work on smaller scales?

The subject here is a 1/72 Pfalz D.IIIa, portraying the craft of the fictitious Bruno Stachel of Blue Max fame.

The kit struts were too thin for drilling out, I would need to attach point by point. Also, due to the covering of all surfaces with decal, drilling through and gluing would be impossible to hide.

For a start point, a hole was drilled to create an attach point, but not all the way through. A self-closing tweezers was propped up allowing the EZ Line to just touch the attach point, and glue added by the point of a pin.

Caution: with no tension on the line, ACC can cause the loose end to curl. I started to pre-glue the tip and let dry before attaching to the wing.

We then move from point to point, using the tweezer and tension method one at a time. In cases where the last point was on a flat surface (no strut or fixture), similar to the above, pre glue, dry then using a weight, stretch the line a small amount, but leaving the free end at the attach point. When dry, and the tweezer removed, there should be enough tension to straighten and remain taught.

I recommend EZ Line for all your rigging needs!

The Old Airfix Challenge - 1/72 Douglas Dakota - September 2022

Oldmodelkits.com is a source to obtain out of print/rare, wood, or other hard to find model kits.  I tend to gravitate back to my youth at times in search for kits.  I am enticed by the offer of moving parts and optional displays.  When I found this C-47 kit and read the description that it was inventoried as complete and in a good box I jumped.  Although my Brother Bob warned me that the old 60s Airfix are not like the current Airfix.  I quickly found out how true that is.

The fuselage halves did not fit that well and there was a noticeable mold flaw which I would have to deal with.  As I dry fit I realized I would have to go to the store for new plastic putty.

I anticipated that the 60s decals would be unusable (and lack detail).  I sure was not disappointed on that score😁.  I went online and ordered from a reliable source a set of decals for the "Drag-em-oot" of the 87th Troop Carrier Squadron.

Despite the contention of completeness, my inventory check revealed that one part was missing - number 62 - the Windscreen!!  Yikes!  More on that later.

The troop carriers were typically devoid of creature comforts and the online photos showed me the interior detail that the old kit lacked.  Note the forward bulkhead into the cockpit.

It gave me the idea to use my trusty wine bottle foil to simulate impressions on the backside....

.....to show up on the front side.  I also had to provide my own instrument panel (the backside of a panel I had in my stash from a 1/48 scale fighter that I modified with some paint to add dials etc.)

Now you can see the front of the panel.  It is very easy to see the lack of interior detail of this mold.  Just a platform for the two included pilot figures to sit.

Speaking of pilot figures - there are two and they are rather crude and identical.  I painted them as best I could (co-pilot shown) and the pilot has blue tint sunglasses I tried to paint on.  I had to give the boys a "booster seat" of folded foil so that they can see out the windscreen (opening).  Ok, now I can state very positively that I contacted Oldmodelkits and they were responsive and apologetic and found a replacement windscreen and shipped it out - Thanks Alan!👍

The archive photo of the C-47 interior shows the fuselage ribs the width of the windows.  I used the 0.02" styrene rod in my stash, bent to fit and glued in place and painted all forward of the rear bulkhead and floor supplied in the kit.  As with the cockpit area the requisite interior green is applied (although the photo shows more olive color).  I am adding this detail since the jump door will be open.

The inventoried parts did include the clear sprue with the window strips along the fuselage.  I did not like their look so I turned to the Testors Window Glue (seals small openings opaque but dries clear).   Applied from the inside, the glue does the trick.

Though not very visible I attempted to add control yokes and wheels for the pilots.  Cut and bent sprue pieces and foil are used and glued to the interior walls.

With interior work completed it is time to close the fuselage halves.  The jump door frame and cargo door are glued in place. 

Some of the moving surfaces are next each composed of two halves carefully glued together after attaching around the the hinge pins molded to the fuselage.

After attaching the bottom center wing section it is finally time to employ the new putty I purchased.

The top seam has a similar looking line of putty.

So, to the spray of Light Aircraft Gray on all bottom surfaces.  While that dries lets work on the engines and landing gear.

The cowls are molded with the motors as a single piece (common in old kits).  This shows that the motors have been painted with flat black, gun metal and silver highlights.  The props are painted and simply sitting in the motor shaft holes to dry.  The masking is not for the common yellow tips, but rather for white with white strip.  I looks cool when spinning.  Those pod looking things are the bottom halves of the nacelles!

Time for Testors Olive Drab.  Everything gets hand painted except for the underside aircraft gray.

The top half of the wings are next to be attached.....

.....and the interior given the interior green.

Time to assemble the gear.  The retractable gear is rather clever.  The rear yoke has pins that sit in receiving holes at the back of the bottom nacelle half.  The two pieces of the forward gear leg are inserted into the wheels (wheels are two pieces that I paint with a black/gray mix).

The bottom wing halves are glued to the top halves with the movable ailerons in place.

The bottom halves of the nacelles are inserted into the wing and carefully lined up before applying thin cement.  The front gear legs are squeezed slightly in order that the pins on the top of the legs can fit into the receiving slots in the nacelle.  The rear leg yoke then slides over the wheel and the pins on the end of the yoke snap into the holes in the wheel hubs - TA DA!  Now to retract the gear one simply squeezes the front gear legs (releasing the pins at the ends) and pushes them down into the nacelle.

With gear in place the props are added and cowls/motors can be attached (the props are inserted and held by a retainer ring inside the cowl).

This is the actual aircraft for which I ordered decals.

Nope - not decals - hand painted invasion stripes top.....

.....and bottom.

Just like the wings I mask for white and hand fill in the black.  Once dry I can apply decals.

First I masked and painted the lead edge bladders on wings and tail surfaces.

The decals are great and go on easily, but this photo also shows some DIY under the cockpit. A bit of sprue, a piece of wire and.....

......lengths of monofilament to complete the antenna.

I add some silver paint to the monofilament.

This also shows additional DIY with the Pitot wires added.

Oh yea, the windscreen finally arrived - and IT FIT!

Of course I had to paint framing first.

Not too bad, so I window glued it in place.

The radio wire from the dome to tail is added.  There was a convenient hole behind the dome into which I inserted the end of a monofilament thread.  I drilled the edge of the vertical stabilizer and inserted a small antenna (gauge 26 wire) then looped and glued the monofilament to the wire..

Close up showing DIY and touch up of windscreen paint.

An early operation was to paint the paratrooper figure.  I attached a simulated static line (wire) to his chute pack and cyano glued the wire inside the jump door.  I found some thin leaf stem outside at our complex pool and further thinned it out for used static lines of previous jumpers and cyano glued it to the troop static line.

The C-47 "Drag-em-oot" is done.