Supermarine Walrus Mk.I No. 700 Naval Air Squadron, 1941
Greetings to all.
Herewith I'm presenting my first ever bi-plane.
Not sure why I finally made the decision to start this build, because I'm not into building bi-planes at all, yet.
But for some reason it did attract me although it is certainly not a gracefull airplane.
I found a couple of Walrus builds here on iModeler and used them as a reference although their quality is a bit above my capabilities.
With this build I also tried to get a bit more into the scratchbuild world.
Using examples found in the beautiful build of our friend Giannis Asimakos (@mfcg), I created some flight controls with cables and also the guidance rails for the machine guns.
Some smaller things are the antenna mast on the tail, which seems to be forgotten by Airfix, the ropes on the side of the fuselage and nose, the seatbelts which I made from masking tape and fine metal wire and drilling the exhaust heat collector part.
It was the first time that I had to cut original parts, the struts, which was required to get the rigging attached.
For the rigging I used the approach as explained by Giannis in his build.
Fishing line with a diameter of 0.23mm was used for this.
At first the wires were applied to the upper part of the bottom wing and next, with the struts in place, to the bottom part of the upper wing.
It did took some years of my life, but in the end the rigging was in place.
Even more wires were applied than indicated by the Airfix instructions.
The real one just does have more cables and I did want to add those as well.
Also spacers were added on the main rigging wires, thanks for the explanation by Tom (@tcinla) and Erik (@airbum)
In the end I'm pretty happy with the rigging although points of improvement are definitely there.
Because of the double wings, applying camouflage is also not that easy as with a single wing plane.
Especially the presence of camouflage on top of the floats and the nacella made it a bit difficult.
Personally I'm not fully happy with the camouflage colors, for some reason I have the impression that they do not fully represent the original ones.
The tone difference between the upper and lower wing however did work out well.
Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and Tom (@tcinla), for explaining why this tone difference is there.
The kit from Airfix is really an enjoyable build, all parts fit very nicely, although I had to follow a different route than the instructions because of the painting and rigging.
To be honest, I'm pretty happy with the end result and that I finally finished my first ever bi-plane, including the rigging.
Not sure if I will start another bi-plane shortly, but two wings do give an extra challenge.
Thanks everybody for the support and encouraging words I recieved in the group build.
This has definitely helped a lot during the construction process.
It was a very enjoyable build and I learned a lot.
Way beyond awesome, John (@johnb). I have been following along as you built this kit, and your result, thanks to your hard work, is impressive.
Thanks George @gblair, it was a pleasure to have you following the build.
Excellent result, John. Great attention to detail. I missed that cable at mid-fuselage when I built mine.
Thanks John @j-healy, when looking at yours as reference, I tended to provide that scheme as well. It looks great on yours. I did try to rig with steel wire as well but was not able to get it as perfect as on yours.
I’m glad you enjoyed this kit, John. It’s right up there as one of my favorite kits of all time
This is an amazing result, out of an amazing build thread!
Congratulations, my friend @johnb, and thanks for the kind words!
It was a joy to follow your build thread.
Thanks a lot Spiros @fiveten, it was a pleasure to have you in the thread. Really appreciate your comments.
Well after watching the build may I say Well Done! Really nice build, and love the finish and I am impressed by the cockpit canopy, it really looks great! Nice work on making the rats nest into a impressive looking rigging, you are far braver than I for tackling that.
Thank you Walt @luftwaffe-birdman, I used Montex masks and they performed very well.
Excellent work John. Great job on the rigging!
Thanks Dale @dtravis, rigging took quiet some time but I'm happy with the outcome.
John you have knocked this one out of the ball park. It looks absolutely amazing. You are real master of the craft. Well done!
Thanks you Morne @mornem, still looking into ways to make them more realistic, especially weathering.
You should be very happy with this John, it’s fantastic. The rigging is exceptional. The camo demarcations look spot on! Really well done!
Thank you Paul @yellow10, patafix did the job.
Your "feeling" to build this kit was sure on the mark...she's a beauty.
Superb work , John. A beautiful, museum-quality representation of the Walrus. You patiently worked through every challenging step of this build and everything came together perfectly. The paintwork, rigging, engine detailing and decaling is flawless. Your chosen scheme is really pleasing to the eye and expertly executed. I really like the wavy demarcation line between upper and lower camo segments. All together a beauty. Very fun and instructive to follow your build sequence. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Thanks for the compliments Colin @coling, now the build is done, I do know that there are areas for improvement or that I could have done certain steps differently, better. Looking at some models presented here, yours for example, then I still need to make some steps to achieve the same level.
Impressive build to say the least!
Beautiful build! Definitely an inspiration for a project, but I would do it in smaller scale because of my limited space.
Thank you Csaba @pikofix, attaching those wires in 1/72 would be a real challenge.
What a nice build you get there John. Your Walrus is very detailed and the paint job is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
I have yet to see one of these Airfix Walrus that doesn’t look good.
Yours John is very well made, and the camo scheme suits perfectly, thumbs up!
Thanks Pedro @holzhamer, Airfix did indeed great engineering and fitting of this model is very nice. No putty required on this one.
Amazing, simply amazing!
Well done!
If you're still feeling bi-curious [BADUMP-TSISS] you might be interested in the Fine Molds Kawasaki Ki-10. It's a beautiful airplane and the kit just falls together.
The Tamiya Swordfish is another one that goes together like an old Hamilton watch.
Thank you Steven @mooplace, my preference is still mono-planes but I might give another bi-plane a try. The Swordfish is beautiful and might be an serious candidate.
Bravo John. I enjoyed following your Walrus build thread from the beginning to the finish line. You say you’ve never built a biplane before but you could have fooled me. And you’ve inspired me to tackle one as well. Looking forward to your next project. Cheers!
Thank you Eric @eb801, it was a pleasure to have you following the progress. Would be great to see yours finished as well. Seriously my first bi-plane but achieved with everything I learned thanks to the helpful modelers here on iModeler.
Ah - there it is! Was enjoying the build thread. You really finished this off nicely - a real beauty.
Thanks Greg @gkittinger, I'm not a fast builder and that second wing made the progress even slower. Took about two months but finally it is there.
heck - it takes me a couple of months or more just to knock off a single-engine WWII aircraft - I guess with some kids still at home, and the sun calling me out to the disc golf course, I probably don't get as much build time as others (at least - that's my excuse!).
Well done John, a magnificent finish to your Walrus and a brilliant build thread which has been both extremely enjoyable and very informative. Many thanks!
Thanks Adrian @adrianstarling, it was a pleasure to receive your positive feedback.
super nice!
Very, very nice John !
I made a tiger moth in 1/72 and that was difficult too !
I have 3 bi-planes in my stash and very nervous to even start!
Keep up the good work.
Thank you Bernard @bernardbedeur, a bi-plane in 1/72 and even a Tiger Moth, that is seriously small. I won't dare to start that one.
Wow, really nice work. First ever bi-plane, very impressive!
Thanks a lot Bob, @v1pro
Although improvements can be done on this build, I'm pretty happy with the end result.
A realistic representation of the Walrus . Nice painting, nice interior, nice symmetry in the welds and an excellent ringing with perfectly stretched wires. Really nice job John. Looking forward to your next project.
Thank you, Giannis @mfcg.
Your build and instructions were really helpful, unfortunately my experience was not sufficient to reach the same level as what you did with the Walrus.
I'm glad I was able to help you. If I helped you a little with my suggestions, you implemented them in the best way and achieved an excellent result. It is good in every model we build to be a small step ahead of the previous one.