FG Spad XIII 94th Aero

[ghshinn]

I laminate two discs at a time, sanded shiny sides together (1st pic). I add the seventh disc when I glue the whole thing together.

You can see that the tread is very uneven, so I sand it to make it as even as possible using my Dremel Tool (2nd, 3rd & 4th pic).

After the tread has been sanded, I round the edges on each side with a sanding stick. This will allow an apparent balloon affect and gives some realism to the finished product (pic 5).

Using a water-based marker pen from Crayola, I colored the tread with a light grey. I used black permanent marker previously, but didn't like the look. For one thing the tread didn't really show up. And my understanding is that the rubber tires on WWI aircraft were not actually black, as modern tires are (pic 6).

I pasted the printed wheels onto the discs, and used the marker barrel to press the edges so they look rounded. It's rather difficult to see the affect in this picture, but in person it looks pretty good (pic 7).

On the back side I drilled a hole on the center mark to fit the wheels to the landing gear (pic 8).

Pic 9 shows the wheels attached. I used super glue rather than my regular white glue for the wheels. They just stay attached better when the cat decides the play with the model

Garland

[deckape]

Ahoy Garland
Beautiful job on the old Spad, Eddy Rickenbacker would approve. Your doing great and progressing well Tires look great

Boats

[elliott]

Hi Garland

Just wondering if you harden the wheel discs with CA or something like it before you sand them or do you sand them without doing anything to them at all?

[ghshinn]

Thanks, Boats. Your comments are greatly appreciated. I have Rickenbacker's Spad in my pile to do, but I want to do a few more of the very colorful Spads first.

Elliott, yes I usually harden the tread with CA glue before I take my Dremel to the wheels. I've sanded them without CA glue, but the softness of the cardboard tends raise ridges flaring out from the tread. This happens with CA coating as well, but not as much. I use the sanding stick to flatten the ridges.

Garland

[ghshinn]

I finished the Spad up this evening. The horizontal stabilizer and tail assembly went on easily, as did the prop. The next three pics are of the finished product. Now I'm going on to "Shamrock." It was flown by Lt. Leo Dawson.

Garland

[Don Boose]

Belated kudos for this fine model. It really turned out well!

Don

[ghshinn]

Thank you, Don.

Garland