Roden 1/48 Sopwith 1.B1
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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