Wingnut Wings DFW C.V, Part 1

Next project up we have Wingnuts Wings DFW C.V, Mid Production.

The instructions for a Wingnuts Wings kit are wonderful. They are more like a short magazine with very high quality printing and loads of historic information and period photos.

It is important with these to really carefully review the whole instructions before starting, and to decide what version you will be building. Sometimes, you have to do some later step earlier or else something will be in the way. This is especially true regarding decals. Decals are not a last step with Wingnuts, you have to do them, and seal them, all along.

As seems to be typical with these, construction starts with the interior as a separate module. The detail is fantastic.

Here, I am showing the multiple steps I have been using to create wood effects. These parts were all primered white to begin.

The first two layers are two types of liquid water color, first a light color then a darker one. Both layers are light and uneven. In my limited experience with this, I have found that the quality of the brush makes a huge difference. I tried several.

I sealed the parts at this point with a light layer of matte clear.

Next are hand done details using a fine brush and a few different shades of brown like colors from water color pencils. I did grain, knots, etc.

This step also gets a light seal.

I then washed over the parts with another watercolor, from a tube (with water or course). At this point, a brown, yellow, red and/or orange layer will alter the tone of the wood, depending on what you are going for.

I tried a few things, but at this step it seems like a higher quality pigment helps.

I went over the parts again and again, sometimes repeating some of the steps above for certain parts and details.

Lastly, when it all looks ok, a gloss (in this case) clear coat and a light yellow wash.

Some parts of the wood look better than others, but I am pretty happy with it. A few dark (black and brown wash) areas in cracks and corners and it all looks pretty nice.

Throughout this, I continued to go back and touch up more and more detail. There is so much in the sharp, crisp moldings of Wingnuts parts that it is hard to know when to stop.

I am pretty happy with the look of the leather seat and seat belt.

Here is the interior with the side framing. These framing parts all received the same wood effect treatment. This took days and days and weeks to do.

Following this I also did the various interior rigging and control lines. It's hard to say if there's any point to this as it's really hard to see later, but I figured it's good practice.

The engine does not include many parts, but again the detail is there. It's hard to know when you're done. It's all about the paint.

I did not add ignition cables, etc, but the places to attach them are provided.

Here's the wood effect on the inside of the body. This turned out particularly well. Again, I think beyond the basic procedure, the brush was critical.

All that work is almost impossible to see through the cockpit. Then again, it's sort of cool how the completed model rewards looking closer and closer.

On the wings, I tried a new technique of using putty on small holes as a paint mask.

This worked extremely well! Caution though, I found out on later uses of this trick that on very small holes the reaction of the blue putty with the paint caused it to become a gooey mess. It was hard to get fully out of it holes.

The putty sticks best to itself though, so dabing it with a clean piece helped.

The compass on the wing turned out quite well.

Here the wings are just stuck on, no glue. And actually that is enough. The parts of a Wingnuts kit are so good that sometimes you don't even need glue (I used no glue on some of the engine parts).

With the wings this is nice because they are completely solid and secure, yet I can still remove them as needed as work goes on, at least until the upper wing is put in place.

For example, this plane had gloss on the top flight surfaces. So I did that while making the rest matte/satin.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this project.

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This post is part one of this project. Find part two here.