This is Mirage’s petite and capricious Halberstadt CL.II ‘early’ in the colors of Schlachtstaffel 23b, ca. March 1918. Though lesser known than similar types on the Allied side, the Halberstadt was roughly comparable in many ways to the Bristol F.2B: a two-seater with performance close to that of a fighter, nimble and versatile and with a ‘sting in the tail’ to surprise the unwary opponent.
Mirage’s kit is well-molded and with generally excellent detail and fit…albeit with the company’s equally-rather characteristic challenges of awkward-to-clean-up sprue attachments and truly chaotic instructions. In addition to the plastic, there was a so-so sheet of photo-etched goodies, and a clear sheet with instrument gauge faces. Definitely not a ‘shake the box’ kit, but well-worth the time and effort to show it some TLC.
Please enjoy.
I forgot to do a ‘stock’ shot of the finished build with a penny for size reference, but here she is before her upper wing went on:
And a few detail shots.
Added an old Copper State resin recon camera from the stash, since the kit floor (like the real thing) had a cutout for same:
And the finished cockpit structure, with camera and wireless mounted:
The kit supplied racks for the grenades often carried on the cockpit sides of these a/c, but Mirage does the grenades only as part of a larger (and more expensive) weapons set. I opted to make my own up from bits of rod, sheet scrap and tubing sections:
And a last shot of a neat detail, the wing-mounted compass.
Rigging was off-the-shelf ‘invisible’ nylon sewing thread for wing wires, stretched sprue for tail lines, and EZ-Line for the undercarriage. Turnbuckles are tiny sections of polyimide tubing (the same amber-colored stuff seen in the photo above).
The real Halberstadts were painted at the factory with a singular ‘mottle’ of the same colors used in the familiar lozenge camouflage fabric. That painted finish was patterned in segments that were basically larger free-form versions of the lozenges. Fortunately, the Mirage kit supplied decals to replicate the finish:
Since Mirage decals tend to be a bit finicky…and since the fuselage contours are all compound curves…I applied the decals in sections (over a slightly-grained ‘plywood’ color basecoat):
Fortunately the mottle pattern segments were large enough that with a little care and forethought I could ‘match’ the pattern pretty well where decal edges met:
For the ‘proper’ lozenge camouflage on wings and tail surfaces, I used some of my dwindling supply of the lovely old decals from MicroSculpt. I believe they date back a decade or so, but they went down flawlessly, no difficulties beyond nearly going blind cutting and applying the tiny strips for the wing rib tapes!
Correct. I’ve done a number of their 1/400 ships…I particularly love their line of ‘four stacker’ destroyers…but this is the only one of their planes I’ve ever done. (Actually not sure how many a/c they’ve done…though I know they’ve released the CL.II in several versions. I think they’ve also done the CL.IV)
Excellent work all around. The detailing, the decals, paint, PE, scratch, etc.
Just out of curiousity, why the three different items (nylon sewing thread, stretched sprue, and EZ Line) for rigging? Would EZ Line not have worked for everything?
Yes, EZ-Line would certainly have worked for everything. I love the stuff, and it’s pretty much all I use for 1/32 scale birds.
For 1/48, however, the invisible thread is just closer to scale. And it is literally the largest line that will fit through the AWG 31 tubing, which is pretty close to scale for the turnbuckles.
I did use EZ-Line for the undercarriage, simply because it resists the natural flexing that seems to occur there during my build process. In the past I’ve had both the nylon thread and monofilament get stretched just enough to go slack. Monofilament can sometimes be tightened up again with heat…but the nylon thread, if heated, actually just gets more slack.
As for the stretched sprue…it was just quicker and easier. None of the tail lines was any more than about 1/4"…so cutting all the sections and attaching them with white glue took all of about a minute and a half.
