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Roden 1/48 Sopwith 1.B1
 

Roden 1/48 Sopwith 1.B1

By Tom Solinski

Introduction

Hi, this is my first full build review for IM. I did a classic kit review on the Aurora X-18 a while back, and thanks to Matt Bittner, I've had this chance to look at a new kit in detail.

Before we get to the review let me tell you about a journey from, and a continuing battle with, AMS. I first heard about Advanced Modelers Syndrome (AMS) in an IPMS newsletter back in the early '80s. I wondered how in the life of a modeler one could find it too hard to build a model. Well...in the last 10 years I have started at least that many models that still sit in dust unfinished. My AMS came heavily into play at the start of building this model. I started out wanting to build this to the best of my abilities and I had a strong desire to "improve" everything that might be less than completely accurate with the kit along the way. To this end, I read several reviews here on IM, in MM (Modeling Madness) and ARC (Aircraft Resource Center), all of which were full of "Oh this is wrong and that is wrong." This was followed by diligent purchases and examinations of the three most available sources, Profile Publication #121, and Datafiles #34 and #80. After being mired in data and discovering what was wrong and what needed correcting, I also discovered the source of my AMS. Once again I had gotten myself lost in the details and forgot the fun of building a model. So I decided to try to go back to the days of "just build the thing for the fun of it," and try to avoid drowning while trying to improve the accuracy. This would also add to the review of the kit because, unlike so many reviews out here today, you will get to see the results of a complete, stock OOB kit.

History

The Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter belongs in that unique family of airplanes that comes out of every era of aviation. It sits in the company of the Phantom, the Mosquito, and the Ju-88. The Strutter was a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. It began its life as a two-seat observation scout for the RNAS, and ended up in at least five configurations. Two-seat scout, two-seat fighter, two-seat bomber, single-seat bomber, and single-seat "Comic" night fighter. It is one of those unsung heroes of the Great War. Hundreds of them soldiered on doing a yeoman's duty, even long after they had been made obsolete. Rarely do you ever hear of them except as targets in the book "Under the Guns of the Red Baron." This kit is Roden's second issue #Ro 411, the single seat French 1.B1 bomber.

The Kit

I get a little smile when I look at a Roden kit. They are a bit of a "set piece" for the kit collector to enjoy, with a little toy feature thrown in for the kid, followed by a lot of relatively difficult building. By "set piece" I mean that if you look at the parts individually things look absolutely beautiful. Lots of apparently accurate detail found in lots of parts. BUT... when you try to put them all together, ummm, something disappears, that being the cohesion of all the detailed parts. It is as if each part was designed unto itself, and there was no intention of them mating up after they harden on the sprue. As for the toy features, Roden still gives you a shaft, support tube and end cap so that you can install the motor and wheels so that they can rotate when the model is done.

As with typical reviews this started with assembly of the interior. Roden provides a very nice PE instrument panel, and well detailed trim wheels, control stick and seat, but when you start assembly one promptly falls on ones face. There are no clear illustrations or locators to show how far forward or aft the floorboard is supposed to go or where the seat is to sit on the floorboard, or how you clear the trim wheels that are glued to the interior fuselage sides. You can't use the cockpit opening because it's on the upper fuselage that you add later. My solution was to place the part with the cockpit opening on the fuselage, and mark where the opening began and ended. I then positioned the floorboard with the attached instrument panel in front of the front of the opening. After that dried, I placed the back of the seat in line with the back of the cockpit opening. This got the interior in place but it prevented the installation of the trim wheels and other side mounted cockpit details. But since this cockpit is firmly under the top wing, you will probably never see the interior again.

The rest of the assembly went according to the plans. The only other significant problem is that the shaft molded to the engine does not fit the tube that will allow it to rotate and the shaft is ever so slightly off center. I drilled out the mounting tube some and scraped a little off of the engine shaft. Also the PE in this kit is for the other versions of the aircraft, and so the pushrods on the PE sheet do not fit the engine in this kit. I stopped assembling the model with the completed fuselage, with attached wings and tail surfaces to paint the entire plane Testors aluminum enamel. This is based on recent conjecture and evidence that the French built Sopwiths were treated to France's common finish of overall doped silver.

The biggest obstacle that I hit was the dreaded "How do I get the struts on this thing?" dilemma. A suggestion from my friends on the WW-I modeling list provided one solution to the problem. Use the side view in the Datafile as a rigging tool to properly align the outer struts, add the wing then add the inner complicated "W" struts. That didn't sound hard at all. But then if my goal is to build the model OOB, how can I help you build it OOB if I have to rely on the Datafile? So back to the instructions. The good news is that regardless of scale, angles are angles - the relationship doesn't change. So I used the angle formed between the front struts and the fuselage upper decking forward of the cockpit. Making this angle stay was made easier by the fact that the main "W" shaped struts have enough friction to hold location while the glue dries. So the final solution was to use the angle of the main strut relative to the fuselage on the instruction paint drawings to make an angle gauge to get the front struts at the correct angle. From that, dividers are used to position the rear struts, then the wing is attached, and finally the outer struts area added. Now you can repeat this process at home.

PE for the first timer.

This is the very first model I have ever tried to build using photo etched parts. Roden does a phenomenal job of making parts in this manner. My first lesson in this was you do not cut PE parts off the sprue on the living room coffee table. The carpet gnomes take them off to places unknown. Fortunately I have the two-seat version of the kit so the PE from there became a donor to this kit. The disappointing news is that the PE in both kits is identical and it is generic and not really made for the 1.B1 variant. Specifically the PE pushrods do not fit the engine in this kit, and the Strutter is double rigged. That is the main flying wires have two wires running closely in parallel at the front and rear locations. The Roden PE fittings for flying and landing wires only allow a single line. An alternate solution is to discard the PE fittings and rig by drilling for your own double wires.

An experiment in rigging.

After the wings and tail planes were in place it was time to start the true fun of almost all WW-I models; rigging. For the faint at heart this model took six hours to rig in three two-hour sessions. For both 1/72 and 1/48 models I use 0.005-inch diameter "invisible" sewing thread. That may sound small, but it works out to 0.24 inches in diameter in 1/48, which is TWICE as large as most common wires used in rigging.

One problem with "invisible" sewing thread is that it is translucent, and thus is really only easy to see if the light hits it just the right way. On this model I used Prismacolor brand paint pens to paint lengths of "invisible" sewing thread both a silver color and a dark metallic gray.

Since the Strutter was rigged with RAF wires the silver is the more appropriate color. But just for fun the left half of the plane is in the dark rigging and the right is in the silver. Painting of the thread was accomplished by trapping the thread between the paint tip and a block of balsa wood. Enough paint would soak in to the wood to coat both sides of the thread. Three passes gave good solid color. Where provided, the PE fittings were used as rigging points, and where the wire would end in plastic a hole was drilled with a #65 drill bit, the thread was inserted in the hole, this was secured with a small drop of instant setting CA. I also chose to use rigging thread to replicate the control cables. Roden provides some PE parts for this if you prefer.

After rigging the wheels, gun and propeller were added and the final photos taken.

Good things about this kit.

  • It is a fairly dimensionally accurate representation of one of the Great War's overlooked workhorses. In light of other WW-I topics this is a fairly simple build and rigging exercise. The only aircraft with fewer rigging wires are the Fokker D-VI, D-VII and D-VIII.

Things that could have been easier to do or done better in this kit.

  • Interior placement. As stated above, you are left up to your best guess at to what is accurate placement of the interior. On the other hand, you might never see into the cockpit again, once the top wing is on.

  • Fuselage upper decking fit. The poorest fitting part in the whole kit was the fuselage upper decking. It took a considerable of effort to get the sides to line up and a lot of scraping away of excess plastic to hide the evidence of all this rework

  • Rigging diagrams. Roden actually does a better job at indicating the correct rigging on this aircraft than the illustrations in the Datafiles. However, they leave several of the wing rigging wires off of the diagrams, these can be seen on the box art.

  • Decals. It seems that Roden decals are hit or miss. These stayed together and went down mostly without problems. They did not like deep trenches or high points. The upper wing roundels would not lay down in the aileron gaps. To fix this they were sliced with a sharp knife, and a third soaking of decal solution got them to finally lie down properly. Each decal had to be sliced to fit over the flight control horns.

Conclusion

I am most satisfied with my venture back into finishing a WW-I aircraft, and highly recommend this kit to someone looking to improve their modeling skills. I'd like to thank Matt Bittner for the kit and the opportunity do this review