I have started by removing all the pieces that need to be painted a wood colour including the two fuselage halves. The detail on the parts is extremely good and some precise painting will be required to pick out the small details. Take care when removing the two fuselage frames from the sprue, they are quite fragile and if not treated careful could easily be broken. I assembled the engine bearers before painting.

The “wood” parts have been base coated using Hobby Color Yellow FS33531, I will be using oil paints to simulate the wood finish. The fuselage of this plane was covered in plywood so the inside of the fuselage will be painted a wood colour. I will try and have some contrast with the colours by using different colour oil paints on different parts of the assembly, the inside of the fuselage sides will be a lighter wood colour while the bulkheads will be a darker colour.

I used Raw Sienna oil paint for the lighter shade of wood colour and Abt 080 Wash Brown from the 502 Abteilung Vehicle Weathering and Effects set. I added a small amount of Liquin to the oil paints to assist drying.

The oil paint was applied thinly then each part was placed into my heat box for 36 hours, the paint was totally dry after this amount of time. I will now paint all the fine details and add other parts.

These pictures show a trial fit of the fuselage bulkheads, fuselage frames and fuselage sides just to see what the fit is like. Wingnut Wings have a reputation of very tight tolerances on their kits but this is not the case here, all internal fuselage parts fitted together and the fuselage sides closed up very tightly without the need to scrape paint away from all mating surfaces. I will still scrape the paint off where glue is to applied to ensure a good bond. I will now add all the extra cockpit details and do a lot of detail painting before final assembly of the fuselage.

Most of the internal components are now painted, I still need to do more work on the fuel tank/seat and the instruments dials need to be applied. The construction so far has been OOB, I will be adding the control cables once the framework has been assembled. Work is still need to complete the observers station, the radio and his seat need to be painted and fitted.

Assembly of the interior is now complete apart from the seat belts. Everything fitted extremely well with no fit issues at all, the tight tolerances did not happen on this assembly which makes modeling a real pleasure. I chose to add two maps to the observers shelf instead of the two ammo drums, The maps were downloaded off the net then resized, printed, cut to size then folded and glued in position with slightly bent corners to add a bit of realism. The flare pistol was painted then glued to the maps, this adds a little more interest. When assembling the fuselage frame each of the bulkheads and the floor fitted perfectly into their allocated positions without any hassles, a small drop of CA on each of the mating areas ensured a strong bond and a rigid assembly.

These three photos show a close-up of cockpit detail and the painting involved. The timber work was painted with Gunze acrylic first then highlighted with oil paints. The entire assembly has been sprayed with a 50/50 mix of Humbrol Matt Cote and Humbrol Satin Cote, this gives a very nice semi sheen finish.

This shows just one side of the fuselage fitted to the frame (no glue yet), it fitted like a glove, no trimming or sanding was needed anywhere to get the cockpit assembly to fit the fuselage side, perfectly engineered and a credit to Wingnuts for their attention to assembly details. I forgot to mention that I used the Wingnut decals for the cockpit as supplied with the kit and they all went on extremely well, I used a small drop of Mr Mark Softer under each decal then after patting down with a tissue I hit them with a blast from a hair dryer.

The fuselage is now closed up, the two fuselage halves fitted perfectly with no clamping needed to hold them together, only a very small amount of filler was needed to fill any minute gaps. There was no tightness at all with the fuselage frame work and the fuselage sides, Wingnuts have eased up on their ultra tight tolerances of the past and made modeling a lot more pleasant. The cabane struts are just sitting on the model for show. So far there has not been one issue with this kit, assembly has been a dream with all parts fitting extremely well, detail is extremely good so I have not had to add any extra detailing. I still need to rub down the filler a little more so once it is done there will be very little evidence of any filler at all. Did you notice that the maps and the flare pistol have virtually disappeared.

I have started work on the engine by firstly modifying the valve springs to make them look more like springs. The process I used for this is the same as I did on my Junker J1 build, click HERE to get full details of the engine detailing. I have added the spark plug leads to the existing moulded spark plugs, they are pretty good and don’t need changing. The plug leads are made from 0.13mm copper wire glued to the plugs with CA then bent to shape and fitted to the ignition lead tubing, the leads were then painted with Gunze Middlestone. The cylinders were painted with Gunze Gloss Black while the crank case was painted with Humbrol Aluminium 27001.

The engine is now finished. I added the ignition leads, ignition lead tubes, throttle linkages and valve springs.

I painted and fitted the two magnetos and added the ignition leads, these leads lead to the ignition lead tubes. The throttle linkage will have another link connected to it once the engine is fitted to the airframe, the link will run through the firewall. I sprayed the entire engine with a 50/50 mix of Humbrol Matt Cote and Humbrol Satin Cote, this gives a low sheen finish.

The engine has now been fitted to the airframe, it mounted extremely well with good locating lugs and plenty of glue surface. I painted the fuselage using my airbrush, the paint is Gunze (Hobby Color) Dark Green H73 thinned slightly with lacquer thinners. I have also painted the engine cowls because once fitted masking of the engine would be extremely difficult due to the tight fit of the cowls. I will now fit the cowls then give the fuselage a coat of full gloss clear so I can apply the fuselage decals.. There have been no issues with this kit so far.

The cabane struts have now been fitted, they located very well. I painted the radiator in the colours called out in the instruction book and then mounted the radiator to the two brackets on the cabane struts. I also fitted the engine cowls/covers, they went on fairly well but need a little filling along the longitudinal join with the fuselage. The tail is trial fitted, the tail plane and elevators fitted very well but the locating lugs on the bottom of the fin need to be thinned down to fit the slots in the fuselage and tail plane. I have given the sides of the fuselage a coat of Humbrol full gloss varnish ready for the decal application.

The decals ave now been applied, they went on extremely well and adhered well to the full gloss varnish finish. I did not need to use any decal set solution but after patting the decals down I gave them a blast with a hair dryer, this makes them really hug the surface. After the decals had dried I sprayed the entire model with a 50/50 mix of Humbrol Matt Cote and Satin Cote which leaves a very nice low sheen finish.

The streaking on the tail and fin was done with an air brush using the same paint as I used on the fuselage. About ten minutes after spraying I gave the paint a light rub using 0000 steel wool, enough to rub the green paint slightly but not to touch the cream paint. I will give the tail surfaces a coat of the clear coat mix.

A trial fit of the bottom wing, the wing locating lugs needed sanding a little to allow them to fit into the slots in the fuselage. It is quite a large wing span.

The wings are painted using Humbrol No.78 with the rib shading being done with a mix of olive drab and white. The top wing streaking was done using the same method as the tail, with my air brush using the same wing green over the Gunze yellow. After spraying the green streaks I waited about an hour then rubbed it back with 0000 steel wool.

The wing struts have been painted using Humbrol No.95. Each strut on one side of the wing has a unique mounting foot so it makes it impossible to fit a strut into the wrong position, the same applies to the opposite wing, this is a fool proof system engineered by Wingnuts and in my opinion is excellent. I still need to paint the metal brackets on each strut and fit the rigging eyelets.

As can be seen here, the ailerons have been painted with a CDL colour with the ribs highlighted in white. A patch of new linen has also been added to the top wing again with the ribs highlighted in white. The undercarriage has also been assembled apart from the wheels and is trial fitted at this point.

The top and bottom wing decals have now been applied and as with all the Wingnut decals they went on beautifully. I used Humbrol full gloss varnish as the base for the decals and I also applied a few drops of Mr Mark softer onto the surface before the decals were applied, a blast from a hair dryer after the decals are patted down really seals the decals in place.

The wings are now fitted, the bottom wings have excellent locating lugs which fitted perfectly into the fuselage. I fixed the struts to the bottom wings and also fitted all the in-wing turnbuckles. I fitted eyelets to the underside of the top wing and fitted the top wing, it fitted perfectly onto the struts with very positive locating pins. I have now started to rigging with the inner bay already completed. I am using 0.12mm monofilament and once fitted it is painted with Mr Metal color. The elevator and rudder control cables are done by using 2.4mm spring steel wire cut to the exact length then CA’d into place. The undercarriage has also been rigged which was a necessity as the undercarriage was quite weak once the weight of the wings was added. The struts are quite fine and do require careful handling or breakages could occur.

The rigging has now been completed, there is quite a big space between the top and bottom wings so this made rigging a lot easier. I always start my rigging from the inner most rigging then work my way towards the wingtips, each set of stagger wires are done as I reach that stage while working outwards.

Completed model

Wingnut Wings have again engineered a remarkable kit, the fit of parts is exceptional with their ultra tight tolerances from previous kits not evident here. I was most impressed with the way the struts fitted into the bottom wings, this is a fool-proof system, and the fitment of the top wing was amazingly simple. Even though the struts are quite thin once the top wing is fitted and glued the whole assemble becomes quite solid. The rigging is not at all complex and because there is a large space between the wings rigging is relatively easy. I built this model virtually OOB with only a few minor additions to the engine. I highly recommend this kit.