Pulp Plane Library

[carlos marighela]

I've built one or three old Smer kits in my day. It's unlikely that you would be entering them into an IPMS competition without serious work but they are great gaming models. Simple kits that look the part. Part fit on the ones I've built has been reasonable and little if any filler used. Flash and fit probably varies from kit to kit. Most are from masters/mould dating back to the 1950s/ 60s. If you want new pilots there are enough out there in 1/48 after part world and Copplestone does a range of Great War/ Interwar pilots.

I currently have my eye on their Mig-17 kit. My Egyptians need air support.

[Constable Bertrand]

The price was the main reason I picked up some as well, and the planes available were more pulpy than a few newer kits.

The lack of aerials and thin bits of plastic is nice for a gaming model. I had a laugh at how thick the sprue was! Between 5-10mm!   The wings and rudder follow with being quite thick, as long as the landing gear is sturdy it should be ok.

So Mark's pro tip: just add a little shading.

How hard can that be? I may even try adding maskingtape seatbelts to the empty seats.

Yeah I am not sure I want a pilot anyway.. it depends how the plane gets used. Parked scenery doesn't need a pilot, but a taxying plane does.. perhaps some kind of push in pilot could work with a nice head. (Artisan or copplestone)

Cheers
Matt.

[tin shed gamer]

  yep!
Always shade,otherwise it sticks out like a sore thumb,compared to your worked miniatures (that's just my personal taste)and don't just use a darker shade of the base colour,try completely opposed colours,greens on yellow or red Browns ,blues on greens,and browns and so on (you get the idea  )it'll give a far more pulpy feel.
It works even better with a double shading of a darker version of the shade colour in small areas on the bits around struts and in the corners.
There you go Matt a tip

[Constable Bertrand]

 

Do you have any pictures of your pulpy SMER conversions to post in here Mark?

[tin shed gamer]

 
I knew you'd ask that.
No is short of it,As the last pulp project I did was an airship,Since it's you I'll put my money where my mouth is,and do another one,as I've a use for a waterlined sea plane. I did intend on making it out of card but I might as well chop up a kit.

[Constable Bertrand]

Cracking! 

Thanks Mark.

You really should keep pictures of the things you do then sell you know... It could save you the hassle of doing it again. 

Cheers
Matt

[juergen c. olk]

I saw this and thought ,Wow!

[carlos marighela]

Wow as in 'Wow I'll need a much bigger table and I should think about reinforcing the floor if I ever build one for 28mm figures'? 

[Constable Bertrand]

As in wow. That will need more thrust to fly?

though!

Cheers
Matt

[YPU]

I'll leave this here:

https://www.facebook.com/TheBugatti100pProject/videos/vb.261574317253048/843683509042123/?type=2&theater

EDIT: Hrm, I tried to get he video directly on here, but it didn't work. If your at all interested in the Bugatti 100p do check it out tough!

[dampfpanzerwagon]

I'll leave this here:

https://www.facebook.com/TheBugatti100pProject/videos/vb.261574317253048/843683509042123/?type=2&theater

EDIT: Hrm, I tried to get he video directly on here, but it didn't work. If your at all interested in the Bugatti 100p do check it out tough!

Fantastic project and one that was new to me - I had heard of the airplane, but not of the classic re-build.

Thanks again for the link (actually links).

Tony

[FramFramson]

So I was wondering, does anyone know of any open cockpit biplanes of the era (which are available as 1:48) and which were quite small? See, I've had one or two 1:48 planes and they're BIG! They just don't match my cars or buildings and I'm about to trade my last one off and so will have no planes.

I've been wondering if I could do what I did with cars: use a common, popular model scale (1:48), but look specifically for things where were originally smaller than average (and so look like a smaller scale). Alternately, maybe I could use a 1:72 model of what was comparatively a very LARGE biplane of the era.

There's a couple of key reference points I've noticed that make a biplane look "right"

1) The leading edge of the lower wing should be around waist or chest height
2) Assuming a propeller mounted centrally on the fuselage, the propeller hub will be somewhere between head height, or a head above head height
3) The edge of the cockpit should be at roughly head height, give or take a bit (assuming the usual position just behind the wings).
4) Propellers should be roughly the length a man is tall
5) Overall height is variable, but always less than double a man's height (average seems to be one-and-a-half men tall at the leading edge of the upper wing)

Here's some sample reference images to show what I mean:







So, are there any 1:48th models which actually work like this? Cheap die kits or plastic kits, whatever works.

I also suppose the same rules work with single-wing planes, just ignore the references related to the upper wing.

[tin shed gamer]

I'll be honest I've only a couple of flying boats/sea planes by Smer and a few scratch builds,for gaming . But id be tempted to go with Smer kits they're a lot chunkier than airfix and similar scale modelling companies .But they do sit well with white metal sculpts.In fact if you treat them as white metal rather than plastic kits when it comes to fit and flash then your not going to be disappointed.For me they're just tough kits that weather gaming quite well.
As I mentioned I've only seaplanes' by them(I'm sick of seeing them on the forum so I'm not going to bore you with a comparison shots but they fit fine for me.)
As for price ,on eBay some kits go for as little £3.99 plus p&p.( Camel and Piper spotter plane.)They do have a good selection of single wing planes,and biplanes including a couple of very usable seaplanes' round the size of the fairy swordfish. So I'd say they're worth a pop .
Mark.

[FramFramson]

Are you talking about 1:56th?

I know there's virtually no 1:56th models, so I'm trying to see if there's ways to still use oversized 1:72 or undersized 1:48.

[gweirda]

The Hawk range of air racer models in 1/48 has one biplane, the Laird Solution:


The others I have (waiting to be built) are a good size, though not biplanes:


You could do like this toy I found (based on the GeeBee) and stick another wing on them:



Another option is to modify kits.  I chopped the wings and fuselage of this old Lindberg Jenny kit to bring the size to something manageable: