A few Johan Scherft birds

[Erik Zwaan]

Thanks David!

The third bird is the bluethroat, which is a very colorful bird in flight and with its beak open. I intend to attach it to a thin steel wire with a mount, rather than the suggested mobile option.
Again printed on 120 grams paper, with a back-up copy for restoration purpose on 80 grams A4. Use the 10cm ruler as a scale mate to ensure the size of the model is correct.

As for the flycatcher, I sprayed a light coat of satin varnish on the sheets before starting to cut and paste.

First, as usual, the body and tail section, then two skewer parts to be inserted that are the "main wing spars". A bird resembles an aircraft, or is it the other way around ?

Cheers,
Erik

[Erik Zwaan]

Next are the wings, which came along quite nicely. The artwork is very precise and realistic, the actual trailing feathers are thin and light shines through, which is beautifully captured by Johan.

And then all of a sudden things took a wrong turn. I slid and glued the wings over the wooden spars but although I carefully glued the tabs on the body for some reason I never achieved a good snug between body and wings, a certain gap remained.

Then I built the head and used the former that provides the outline of the beak and its lining. Although the beak went well, also here I wasn't satisfied with the result, by using the full extent of the former the head became somewhat long and narrow at the base and this didn't result in a satisfactory fit to the body. Finally I managed to get a good fit, but only after cutting away the inside former to a great extent.
Then came the shoulders, which gave me a hard time and I couldn't make them fit without seeing a lot of remaining grey of the gluing areas and gaps at the wing root.
To make things worse, the thin paper started to buckle due to the many dry-fits. And last but not least, the fact that I had varnished the model before starting the build had a serious negative impact on the paper-glue bond.

And finally....., the metal wire I used to hold up the bird wasn't positioned properly. I had figured that the center of gravity would be right underneath the center of the wings (as in airplanes) but this proved to be wrong. The whole thing kept on tilting backwards when placed on a stand. Adding small weights to the inside of the head didn't make much difference.

So, this was the end of the bluethroat . It's really been a long time I crushed a model out of frustration while building....

Anyway after a deep breath, no time to admit defeat without a new try. Fresh new print, recapitulation of events, a true lessons learned session and there we go again. Perhaps too many consecutive bird builds?? To be continued.

Erik

[birder]

Ugh. that is disappointing but I think more than one go is required for me to get stuff worked out.

[Erik Zwaan]

Thanks Glen, and this time things worked out well.

1. Don't varnish the sheets before starting the build, some gluing tabs are too small for a good bond. Especially white glue holds better on untreated paper. Varnishing can be done afterwards, upon completion.
2. When installing the wing spars, only glue them to the tabs inside the body, and not to the body itself. This allows better fitting of the wings later on.
3. Don't use the full former inside the head, only use the part that is used to shape and hold the beak. This leaves the shape of the head flexible at the rear, which is needed for proper gluing onto the body
4. Glue the head first and then the wings. Proper fitting of the head is critical. To glue the wings snugly to the body and be able to apply a bit of pressure to the body, I reinforced it with scrap paper glued against the inside, opposite of the areas of the wing tabs.
5. The metal wire is best to be protruding through the body at its lowest point, aft of the brown collar.

To cut a long story short, this time no fitting issues and within a matter of hours the build evolved into a beautiful bluethroat.

Small corrections at the shoulders and head were still required to close remaining narrow gaps and fill up excess grey gluing areas.

The beak needs filling up with glue to get a smooth surface. I used construction glue for this, as it is thicker and can be applied in one go. Then dark grey to paint the beak, with lighter grey dry-brush as finishing touch. Finally a coat of satin varnish .

Next will be pictures of the finished model.

Erik

[abhovi]

Very good to see that even you experience failures, Erik. I thought I was the only one. :-)
Also very good to show them here. It makes the. Rest of your work easier to appreciate.
Ab

[Kevin WS]

Bad luck on the wire issue.

For the bird wires, I use piano wire. I glue in place as per instructions and then if the C of G is out, I find that with fine nose pliers I can bend the wire close to the body. Being piano wire it holds the bends.

Don't bend the wire again if can you avoid it as I have found piano wire snaps if the bends are restressed too much.

---------------

Erik - Your builds look great, and I have been following with interest. Still have to finish mine, but the COVID stuff has really thrown me out - I seem to have no free time now. I think working from home I just put it too many hours - and consulting and working for myself does not help!

[amateur]

Nice second try. I have mine hanging by a thread.
I like the others also. As for birds on a piece of wire, I can also vouch for the 'putter'. Was a very close call, but I did it in one go.
(Same problem as you had with the bluethroat, the wire was slightly out of position to get it stable, but I managed to get it right with some bending and twisting....)
Actually, I like al the Scherfts: most of them not to difficult, (I only needed three go's for the Kingfisher )

Jan

[birder]

Very nice !
The paper you use is quite brighter than mine... I'll have to try a shinier finish paper..

[romanmodels]

good work Erik frustrating to start again but less than looking at a model not quite right

[Erik Zwaan]

Goodday gents, herewith the pictures of the finished bluethroat. With a small trick (thanks to Paint), the bird can actually fly . The colors of the bluethroat are beautiful and I hope this brings out well in the pictures.

Ab: Mistakes are inevitable but most of them can luckily be corrected in time!

Kevin: Good idea to use piano wire (we have one at home....) but I found a nearby hobby shop that sells steel wires in various thicknesses and I use them for all kinds of purposes. Bending the wire in the first attempt didn't work out

Amateur: Those Scherft birds are indeed works or art. I built the finch in 2016, the thread is on this site, as well as the robin. Also the ones published by Schuijt, already dating back from the mid-nineties (sparrows, starling, barn owl, blue and great tit, kingfisher) and a few free downloads (a.o. the wren)

Glen: It's the paper, somehow the 120 grams that I use is very smooth and a bit shiny. But once the model is varnished the shine disappears a bit, even when using satin, which is more realistic. Also less reflection when taking pictures.

Well, so far for the blue throat. The next and last build will be the wryneck so please stay tuned .

Cheers,
Erik