Friday 21 March 2014

Tiny Halberstadt CL-II

Since I'm on a bit of a tiny-plane jag at the moment, I thought I'd put together and paint some that I've had sitting around for quite a few years.

This one is from Skytrex I believe (though to be frank it's been so long that I've forgotten exactly who the manufacturer was). It's 1:300 scale, with a wingspan of 34mm, and it's supposed to represent a Halberstadt CL-II, a German two-seater fast reconnaissance and ground-attack aeroplane which went into service in the latter half of 1917. The silhouette isn't absolutely perfect, but it's certainly good enough for gaming purposes.

Once assembled and painted, these Skytrex models don't look too bad. However, they do require quite a lot of attention to get to that point. I had to do quite a bit of filing to thin down the wings and tail, and I had to build the wing struts and landing-gear axle from wire.

The wing rib detail is incised into the surface, not raised, so I had to bring out the ribs with paint. That's OK; the scribed detail provides a pretty good guide for painting.

The post it's mounted on is a 1mm thick panel pin epoxied to a 3mm neodymium magnet. Eventually, when the 3mm clear acrylic rod I ordered arrives, I'll make a bunch of magnet-tipped flight stands and hopefully start using all these little planes to play some wargames with.

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