Saturday, July 13, 2013

Bleriot XI completed

The 50 years old kit, assembled without replacing any components, OOB, in all its beautiful clunkiness.
It does make a nice representation of the Channel Crosser.
My friends Andrew and Keith stated that after all these years of scratchbuilding and deep modifications and adaptations, I finally entered the mysteries of kit building.
The step-by-step process is described in the post that immediately precedes this one.






















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10 comments:

  1. Diego FernettiJuly 13, 2013 at 6:47 PM

    Wonderful! looks very much like a copy of the ancient "Brifaut" kit of the Channel crosser.

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  2. gabriel sternJuly 13, 2013 at 9:52 PM

    Wow, gracias Dieguito, I wasn't familiar with the brand and spent a good time looking online at their old kits. I saw a couple going for $100! Yes, the have a resemblance, also with the old Pyro and Entex.

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  3. gabriel sternJuly 13, 2013 at 9:56 PM

    Diego, there are some interesting similarities -a few parts seem identical-, but it is a different kit, see here:
    http://fighters.forumactif.com/t36428-bleriot-xi-brifaut

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    1. Diego FernettiJuly 15, 2013 at 4:54 AM

      Indeed... sometimes it's fun to see how different kit manufacturers copy and re-use earlier designs, and how some small quirk of the kit gets transferred to each new mold, even if that's not a real feature of the prototype. One example that comes to mind is the odd wingroots seen on the Esci Albatros D.III, exaggerated after some small extrusions on the Revell molds, and never seen on the real aircraft!

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    2. gabriel sternJuly 15, 2013 at 12:04 PM

      Yes, and a contemporary outcome of that are those kits made exclusively of flash :-)

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  4. AnonymousJuly 13, 2013 at 10:50 PM

    Hello Gabriel: Nice as always; Have you seen the 1/72 kits of the Bleriot from Blue Rider - vacuform - or Choroszy Modelbud - resin?, Any comments?. Armando.

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  5. gabriel sternJuly 13, 2013 at 11:23 PM

    Hola Armando
    I am not familiar with them. For what I can read on the Net the Blue Rider is depicted as having the flying surfaces vacuformed and the rest as photoetched and white metal parts. Choroszy's offer is of course resin with photoetched details. Both seem to represent military versions, which I do not model. It would be interesting to see photos of the Blue Rider kit contents.

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    1. Diego FernettiJuly 15, 2013 at 4:57 AM

      I also have a Bleriot XI two-seater vacuform kit, by a French manufacturer... it's a poorly molded kit, little resembling the actual airplane, that directs you to make the rear fuselage out of sticks or cutting strips of the backing sheet.

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    2. gabriel sternJuly 15, 2013 at 12:03 PM

      Ah, I see, the dreaded "kit for you to sratchbuild your own kit" school of kit-making...
      oh dear...

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  6. HudskitJuly 14, 2013 at 6:35 PM

    Hello Gabriel:
    I had the Blue Rider kit - as you has suggested it is entirely photo-etch which had a certain 2 dimensional quality to it that didn't appeal to me much so I passed it on.....
    Beautiful as always , Gabriel.

    Best,Keith

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