IAN Convey (@firelockg)
I am 100 percent sold on your way of doing this. It seems to be a whole lot easier and this also means faster. Faster is good when I will be making a lot of these for the various builds I have underway. It's times like this one wishes they were building a Fokker Dr-1 or perhaps a D-VII... something with minimal rigging ! 🙂

Thank you SO much for the advice. It will be taken to heart.

It was very nice of my doctor to give me two weeks worth of bench time. I will be OK. I have a good feeling about this. Now I will go find some wood to knock on for good luck.

Thanks again.

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thank you for your compliments, kind words and thoughts. The more I do on these kits, the more I want to do. It's contagious. I was taking some measurements on the width of the fuselage cross braces. Soon I will be gluing the fuselage frames together, starting from the front and working towards the rear. Hopefully I can post some updates soon.

Take care my friend.

Hi Louis (@lgardner): The anchors look like a good idea and seem fairly easy. I don't think the D.VII have many inter-wing wires, so I may be off the hook now.

Today’s episode will feature some interesting experiments.

I started out by spraying the underside of the wings and horizontals with some Tamiya Flat White paint from a rattle can.

I had an idea that I wanted to try out using oils.

I started out by giving the entire surface a very light coat of a pale yellow color. The color I used is called Naples Yellow.

I let this dry for a few minutes, and then I came back using a Tan color that is called Sand. I applied this to the entire lower wing surface area, even where the wing ribs are depicted.

Using a paint brush, (and sometimes my fingers), I gradually blended the two colors together until I was happy with the results.

The final step was to use this last color which is a lighter shade of Brown. The color I used is called Yellow Ochre.

Sparingly I applied it directly on top of the wing ribs and no where else. Then I lightly blended it in along the wing ribs. This gave a darker tone to the ribs and makes it look as if a shadow is there.

This photo shows a before and after comparison. The wing on top has been painted White, but no oils are applied. The bottom wing shows the completed version.

This is a similar photo, but this time the wing has been placed under different lighting. I think this may just pass muster for a "Clear Doped Linen" finish on the undersides of Ball's Nieuport.

I think this will work good enough for Captain Albert Ball's N-17, especially when the upper sides will be in either a French camouflage or possibly depicted as a British repaint wearing PC-10 on the top sides. Ball's plane will be a camouflaged plane, while the other N-17 will have an overall aluminum dope finish.

As always, comments are encouraged.

I would also like to hear what you think about the upper colors used on Ball's Nieuport.

Thanks in advance.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Thank you for the tip ! I will definitely give this a try, because there is always room for improvement. I will have to give these planes several coats of gloss because they appear to be very shiny in the original pictures I have seen of them in my books and online.

Do you know if Future can be sprayed on top of oils ?
Thanks 🙂

Very nice use of oils, my friend @lgardner!

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
I took your advice and boy what a difference it made. It might not look like much of a change, but the speed in which I was able to get this done and the consistency was head and shoulders above my previous attempts.

Thank you so much for the recommendation. Dully noted... I have allowed the oils to dry for several days but I will likely let them sit for about a week before I attempt to spray anything on top of them. Much obliged !

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thanks my friends. John, I do think you will be pleasantly surprised when you give this method a try.

Looks really great, my friend @lgardner!

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thank you my friends. I sincerely appreciate your kind words.