Struts and rigging prep and decals
Each of the wing struts where fixed in place next and the rigging holes were slightly enlarged in order to take Gaspatch Models RFC Turnbuckles. I now looked at the engine whilst the struts dried in placed.
This is quite a simple affair but with some careful paining, weathering and the attachment of ignition wires it can be made to look very realistic. The aileron horns and associated wiring can also be fixed in place at this point. You can probably notice by the pictures that I had also applied the decals during this stage of construction. As with every set of WNW`s decals I have used they performed flawlessly – that said I did have a little bit of creasing in the white band as it wrapped around the front of the cowl, this was hardly noticeable but my OCD made me remove the offending decals and the stripe was painted on this.
The top wing is a one-piece moulding and it was finished off using the same process as I used for the lower wing – the ailerons were again pinned in place for robustness. The kit supplies a checkerboard decal for the upper wing which was common on later inter-war biplanes but it is unknown whether the Snipe had this marking but I decided to add it to my model as I think it just looks great. The upper wing can then be dry fitted in place – the fit is good and once I was happy Tamiya extra thin glue was very carefully capillaried into each strut/wing joint. This is then left for a good 24 hours to dry.