Official Morane Saulnier painting thread

[flash]

These are repaints of a pair of Ares Morane Saulnier Type N into British markings - Red: 60 Sqn; Black: 1 Sqn RFC
Well, I couldn't let the French have all the fun could I !!
Overall repainted with GW Bleached Bone, remarked with Doms Decals & Satin coted.











Only had them a day !

[Linz]

Bloody 'ell
We ain't even seen them yet and you're doing repaints.
Soooooooooooo jealous.
Lovely paint job well done.
Linz

[Guntruck]

Pfalz - a licence-built Morane - does that count?

[144sram]

Pfalz E.II, a licence-built Morane too:


1/144 SRAM resin kit

[alkis21]

Fantastic planes, all of them! Bravo!

[Boney10]

My Moraines N type & L Type




now I see where to touch up

[Flying Officer Kyte]

I now have an Ares one like that Chris.







Rob.

[gully_raker]

Great work fellows! Especially the Sram one.

Here are my two.
The Ares one just re-decaled, rigged & jazzed up a bit & the Parasol is of course a WSF Shapeways.

WGF Morane 60 Sqd 2.jpg  Views: 512  Size: 118.1 KB  ID: 60884" class="thumbnail" style="float:CONFIG" />

WSF Morane L rigged A.jpg  Views: 515  Size: 193.9 KB  ID: 60885" class="thumbnail" style="float:CONFIG" />

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Like your rigging Barry. I have been toying with that idea myself after doing my Fokker, but can't make my mind up.
Rob.

[gully_raker]

Like your rigging Barry. I have been toying with that idea myself after doing my Fokker, but can't make my mind up.
Rob.

Go on Rob, be a devil. Rigging maketh the wing warpers!

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Yes Barry. But where does it all end. You rig one and pretty soon you've got to rig em all.
Then you look at all your other planes and eventually you go for all the wrong reasons.
Rob.

[Fat Wally]

60 Squadron RFC, Summer 1916. WoG repaints.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Once again very professional work Kev.
This is a unit that I intend to do once I get the time.
Rob.

[Timmo UK]

They look great Kev.

[Fat Wally]

Cheers mate. There's something so awkward and wrong with the look of Type N's it just makes them all the more appealing.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Here are my first two from 60 squadron Smith-Barry and Wainwright June '16.














Rob.

[Ravenlord]

Nice Moranes and Pfalzes.
For my self I like the Pfalz-planes best, so I´ve done two Eindeckers.

Pfalz Parasol P.43 (later designated A.I 15/xx) from FA 9b and Pfalz E.II:











Matthias

[Baron Rolf]

Very nice planes chaps

[johnbiggles]

Not realy repaints, just over decalled (Doms Decals)

60 squadron.
I saw a picture somewhere of the one with the french and british roundel, but I cannot remember where!

[Ravenlord]

Another Pfalz:

Pfalz E.IV - by ICM 1:72 - not WoG compatible



Black stripes are self made decals. Wire bracing - 0,2 mm modelling-wire.

[Teaticket]

Pfalz E.II, a licence-built Morane too: 1/144 SRAM resin kit

Fantastic!

[Prodromoi]

When I first got interested in WoW, almost three years ago now, I initially thought it would be fun to collect some planes from the more unusual theatres of WWI, namely the Eastern Front and the Near East/Palestine. Having returned to the game after a break where following a house move my (up to then still unflown) planes had been sitting in storage, I reevaluated this idea and chose the saner approach to stick to the Western Front where planes and opponents were more readily available.

But what to do about some of the planes I'd bought with this initial aim in mind? In my rag-tag collection were a couple of Morane-Saulnier N in French colours, and a couple of Fokker E.III Eindeckers; Immelmann's in German markings (obviously!) and Buddecke's in Ottoman Empire markings, which was perfect for the Near East concept.

Aha, but the RFC flew a few Morane-Saulnier Ns didn't they, calling them Bullets... The plan sort of wrote itself! I'd bought some of Dom's RFC decals around the same time too, which would serve nicely.

First decision - what squadron and colours to choose? I had one red- and one black-nosed plane, so at least one would need to change! Black goes over red much more easily - but my concern was that would result in a rather 'heavy' front, whereas a red cowling would give a nice contrast with the blacks and greys of the wheels, gun, engine, etc. But red over black? Dammit, I'm making it harder for myself before I even start!

I can't just stick the RFC decals over the French markings either, as one of the planes (Gilbert) has a name down the side of the fuselage instead of a roundel. OK, so that's going to need covering up before the RFC roundel goes on.

This 'quick and easy' job was looking more complicated each time I looked at it...

So, I did all three planes as a single job, turning both French MS-Ns into 60 Sqn RFC planes, and Buddecke's Ottoman-marked E.III into a rather nondescript German-marked one that could fly with the Immelmann plane. The post regarding the E.III repaint is here.

First step, once I'd assembled the paints and other stuff I needed was to get the decals off. On went the MicroSet, and I waited. And waited. And waited. They weren't showing even the slightest hint of shifting so I can only presume the decals on the Ares planes are well varnished down. Next option - very carefully get them off with a scalpel. I used MicroSet again when only tiny bits of decal remained in the hopes it would get underneath, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Oh well - eventually I got it all off.

To my pleasant surprise, the red paint covered the black cowling far better than I had expected. Three or four thin coats of Vallejo red (or flat red, I can't remember now!) did the job nicely.

With the decals off it was even more apparent that the fuselage colour of the Moranes wings and fuselage didn't match. The wings are molded in a CDL sort of colour, but the fuselages were painted and didn't quite match. I mixed up a match that was closer to the fuselage colour and painted the wings so the CDL colour all over the plane was a better match.

One of the sources I'd found for the markings of 60 Squadron showed something interesting for 2/Lt. Wainwright's plane as having blue-coloured elevators, which was a perfect way to distinguish the two otherwise identical planes. Admittedly I'm not too convinced by the accuracy of this from this source alone, as it states "...was the dark color of the horizontal stabilizer. It was either dark doped canvas or it should had been (sic) painted by blue color." It's highly likely this was sourced from a black and white photo where the elevator is clearly darker but it's impossible to be sure of the actual colour. In the absence of certainty, I went with the blue for aesthetic reasons. (I intended to put the blue elevators on the plane that previously black-nosed plane that I'd painted red; however I grabbed the wrong one when I did the tail. Oh well.) I experimented with adding the oil stain to the side of Wainwright's plane (shown in the same source) but ultimately decided against it. At this scale I just couldn't make it look convincing, and it kept looking like I'd botched up the paint job rather deliberately added signs of wear and tear!

Then came the bit that I'd been dreading - the red, white and blue tail flash. I'd removed the French tricolour tail decals from one Morane (to repaint totally) and left the other on (to paint over). I'm not sure that there's much of a difference in the result. Both needed a bit of tidying, and while I'd like to have achieved a neater result, it's good enough.

The areas for the decals got a couple of coats of gloss varnish, then on went the decals. I'd cut the decals very tight to the designs so there wasn't going to be much carrier film spare around them. I used MicroSet again in applying the decals, although I'm not sure I noticed any difference in how they went on to how I expected it to go!

It was at this point that I noticed that somehow I'd failed to paint the upper cabane struts of the previously black-nosed plane red! Dammit! So, being extremely careful of the decals, I now went back with the red paint to fix this.

Once dry I put MicroSol on one of the decals but frankly still saw no effect. The decals seemed to have bedded in just fine as it was so I didn't bother doing the rest and just added another coat of gloss over the decals to seal them.

In hindsight I rather wish that I'd painted both cowlings red rather than leaving one in its natural red plastic, as it looks a bit plastic-y. But I'm not going back to change that now!

I didn't attempt to add the aircraft ID numbers to the tails. They're gaming pieces rather than intended to be museum-grade models, so I'm just fine with this omission. Similarly I didn't even consider doing the rigging!

So, at last... the result of my first repaint:





The difference in appearance of the 'original plastic' and repainted noses is clear here.


And with their custom aircraft cards...






The three repaints of this project, plus the 'out-of-the-box' Immelmann.


One of the sources I used for the 60 Sqn colour scheme decision, originally from this website

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Very splendid they are too.
Here are my 60 Squadron machines with some French friends.



And just vanishing into the cloud base.




Rob.

[Dom S]

Very nice chaps. Clearly I need to get mine finished....

[Flying Helmut]

If I ever get finished with 1918, this will serve as a great guide to repainting my own spare bullets - thanks, all!

[Prodromoi]

So, as I gradually add to my modest collection of 60 Squadron aircraft, here’s a couple from the first days of their formation, the Morane-Saulnier BB and the Morane-Saulnier LA (from Shapeways, jbmacek and colinwe respectively).

If I was to say they were problem-free paintjobs I would be lying. Before starting these I’d experimented with a new sealant for Shapeways models (a slate/tile sealant) that would work better (i.e. be thinner) than gloss varnish. The test pieces seemed to work just fine, but when I started putting paint on these it was apparent that the sealant wasn’t sealing at all as the paint was just flooding into the models’ porous skin! Much cursing followed, and I ended up using varnish as a sealant over the part-painted models before I was able to continue! Tip of the day – don’t bother trying tile sealant.

Both aircraft were two-seaters – the LA tended to have a forward or rear mounted gun but seldom (if ever) both, presumably because of inadequate power and lift. It seems most often to have been used for spotting and for agent insertion. Technically the Shapeways model is actually a Morane-Saulnier P, but the differences at 1/144 scale are really nothing that I’m going to worry about! While the LA is strictly a development from the L, the P is an excellent substitute since the LA has the rounded fuselage of the P rather than the box-shaped cross-section of the L (the stats of the type L are close enough, so I’m going to use those).

Quite straightforward colour schemes and markings as was the norm at that part of the war; mainly CDL overall with the noses of the biplanes a shade darker although this is barely noticeable in the photos. The red spinner happily makes distinguishing the two BBs easy. Decals were a combination of Dom’s, mehusla’s and my own.

Strictly the biplanes should have a very thin red stripe down the upper part of the fuselage on each side; on the real plane there is a raised ‘shoulder’ aft of the rear crew position and the red stripe was positioned at the join of this raised shoulder and the fuselage. The model of the BB doesn’t have this shoulder unfortunately, and trying to add the red line just didn’t look right without the contour for it to follow.

I ended up having to omit pilot figures as the amount of room to get a pilot figure (or more accurately, half a pilot) into the cockpit seemed so fiddly as to not justify the hassle and grief! Most of the time it won’t be noticed; one can only see the cockpit when up close and looking under the top wing anyway, so I just put in figures for the observers (and again the head of one of the FUD figures broke off when measuring up the positions required – I must get some better crew figures!).

The markings are those of the following 60 Squadron planes, June/August 1916:
M-S BB 5182 Captain A S M Summers (observer unknown)
M-S BB 5181 2/Lieutenant L L Clark & Sergeant A Walker
M-S LA A.143 2/Lieutenant C A Ridley




The absence of the cockade on the fuselage feels wrong, but the photos clearly showed that it didn't have them.


The slightly darker shade for the nose is just about visible here...






There should be Lewis atop the wing on the LA; I'll add one when I eventually get one from Shapeways - I wasn't buying a whole sprue for just one gun!


I'm rather glad they're done and I can now move on to other things. I found the CDL colouring quite dull overall, and initially it looked too crisp and neat, so I 'scruffed' it up a bit, without wanting to overdo it. I had planned that the SPADs that are waiting to be worked on would also be CDL colour schemes (to join the two 19 Sqn SPAD VII I repainted a while ago) - but now I'm thinking about changing them to a different squadron with more appealing markings!

[flash]

They look very nice Alex

[Boney10]

Nice Alex, I also have a pair of MS BB also from John M, I have a couple of cards made up if you need them

[Prodromoi]

Nice Alex, I also have a pair of MS BB also from John M, I have a couple of cards made up if you need them

I appreciate the offer Chris, thanks you I've got cards already to go, however, and just need to print them when I have the chance. You can see them here.

[Captain Chum]

Nice work Alex and end result on your planes......I know how hard it is to work with the shapeway material.

[Rusty Tin]

Scale rigging has always defeated me but I had a go on a Morane. Typical avoidance ploy to save doing something else more important.
Here is my type N for number 1 squadron. I printed the serials on my inkjet and they are just about OK.

I can see the flaws now.

Tim

[johnbiggles]

the camera is brutal, happily the human eye tends to be less so, it looks great to me.
Well done

[Captain Chum]

Looks good to me....well done Tim!

[Teaticket]

Nice one Tim, love the rigging!

[Flying Helmut]

Magnificent!

Bet you catch plenty of flies in that web!

[Rusty Tin]

Thanks for the nice comments guys.
Last Friday I took it along to our monthly WoW game at our club but it didn't get a game being elbowed out by a BE2c / Albatros B.1 recce game and a Bristol fighters v Fokker Dr.1s and Albatros D.V game. My Voss triplane enhanced it's legendary reputation with a Brisfit kill. Moranes are top of the flighing program next month.
Sadly most of the players could not see the rigging with the naked eye. Sic transit......

[Carl_Brisgamer]

Two French Morane Saulnier N doubles I converted to RFC and Russian Imperial Air Service aircraft.

The RFC aircraft is that of Sgt Tone Bayetto of 3 Squadron. Bayetto's father was born in Italy and migrated to England in the 1880's. Tone Bayetto was a pre-war racing car driver and civilian pilot. In 1915 he volunteered for service in the RFC and was sent to France in September of that year. He was posted to 3 Squadron RFC as Sgt. 4808 on 27 November 1915. Whilst with 3 Squadron he flew at least one patrol with Sgt. James McCudden. On 2 March 1916 Bayetto was flying Morane N 5067 when he claimed a Fokker shot down OOC. Commissioned in the field Tone Bayetto was credited with 4 victories before being badly wounded in the crash of his Sopwith Pup in late 1917. He recovered from his injuries enough to be cleared for home duties and was posted to training and demonstration units. On 28 July 1918 whilst serving with 29 TDS Exhibition Flight Capt. Bayetto was killed whilst flying Sopwith Dolphin E4449 when wings folded back at 200 feet and he dived into the ground.



The RFC roundels and white discs are Shed decals.

The Russian machine is the Morane Saulnier N flown by NCO pilot Ivan Smirnov with the 19th KAO. Smirnov was flying this aircraft on 2 May 1917 when he was credited with shooting down an Albatros C series west of Zavaluv. Smirnov survived the war and the Russian Revolution with 11 victories, served with the RAF and continued to fly in civilian life. He passed away on the island of Majorca in 1956 at the age of 61.



The Russian roundels and rudder skull and crossbones decals are homemade.

[Barkmann]

These look incredible aswell Carl! You uploaded a lot of good stuff today. Good job!!! Can't give you more REP, unfortunately.
Thanks


Nick

[Stumptonian]

Those both look great, Carl.
I especially like the death's head tail on the Russki.

[Carl_Brisgamer]

Thanks gentlemen. I particularly like how the Russian roundels look on the Morane.

[Captain Chum]

Those both look great, Carl.
I especially like the death's head tail on the Russki.

Indeed! I might have to paint up the Russian. Great work Carl!.....Liked the story behind them as well.

[Zoe Brain]

Morane P
Suitably weathered and beaten up, as were most aircraft on the Eastern front.

[Carl_Brisgamer]

Nice weathered look Zoe

[Teaticket]

Here's a Shapeways Parasol. My first rigging attempt. I don't like the look of the wire going into the wings. Might have to drill a smaller hole next time. I also didn't get a pilot into it as after 20 minutes of trying I gave up! Not easy, for me anyway!

[Teaticket]

A second Parasol, this time a bit weathered. These two will be used in my upcoming Verdun game at Cold Wars.

[Flying Helmut]

Top pair of Moranes there Peter!

I'll use them as the benchmark for my own ones (when I get around to them!)

REP!!

[Teaticket]

One thing I noticed on these models was the outlines for ailerons. I didn't realize some of these had them!

[Carl_Brisgamer]

I can't REP you any more than I already have right now Peter, great work on all your early war Frenchies. Nothing like a looming con to focus the mind.

[Teaticket]

Thanks much Carl. Yes, the pressure of an upcoming con does wonders on the painting queue.

[Captain Chum]

Nice rigging Peter.