Building the 1/72 Revell/ESCI SE5a with the Roseparts Resin Upgrade Set
By Steve Perry
Introduction
The SE5a is a very well known aircraft and its illustrious history has been well documented, so I will spare you my rehash of that story and proceed to describe my build of a 1/72 scale SE5a using the new Rosemont resin conversion kit.
When Bob contacted me about doing the article, I shot over to the Rosemont web page and looked at the photo Barry has provided. The image had barely loaded when I minimized the browser and fired an e-mail back to Bob with a big YES!
My donor SE5a was a mix of broken parts from an Esci and a Revell kit. These were salvaged from a bunch of broken up kits, but that is another story kids. I decided to do one of Joe Boudwin's planes. Boudwin was an American who flew with Sholto Douglas' 84 Squadron of the RFC and later with the 45th Aero Squadron of the USAAS. He flew an SE5a in both outfits. Boudwin's account of his experiences can be found in the book Child Yank Over the Rainbow Division, 1918.
While waiting for the Rosemont resin kit to arrive, I began to fix up the wings. The lower one was made up of one panel from the Revell kit and the other from the Esci joined at the center. I carefully sanded down the rib and fabric texture detail and noticed that the two panels had different ailerons. Longer span & thinner chord and shorter span & wider chord. The upper wing was whole and had the short/wide ailerons. No problem I simply filled the engraved separation line of the offending aileron with CA, sanded it down, re-scribed and patted my self on the back for being so alert.
I went on to re-scribe rib tapes at each station (two lines per rib). Filled in the strut trenches with plastic & CA, painted the lower surface CDL, drew watercolor pencil lines with a straight edge on each lower station, misted with more CDL paint to almost cover the pencil marks, painted the top PC-10 and cut out and repositioned the ailerons.
I was sure pleased with myself until I noticed that one lower wing tip was blunt and the other one was raked....
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