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This is the 1/72 Roden Albatros D.III There's been a lot of comment on the fit in this area so I thought I' send a couple of in progress shots before the photos of the finished model. I started building the model at work during the "close-down" days between Christmas and New Year without the magnifier I desperately need to see what I'm doing, so I made a little extra work for myself through gouging holes in the Roden plastic for which Roden were blameless!
I am now committed to building this as Bruno Loerzer's machine.
This is a photo of the aircraft fuselage and empennage with the masking removed but no touchup or correction of edges done. Both colours are Humbrol, painted within two hours of each other and masked with Tamiya tape, removed about 30 minutes after the black coat. I wouldn't recommend doing this in a cold place, but paint dries pretty sharpish in sub-tropical Brisbane
Three photos of the almost completed model. In fact, I thought it was finished until I photographed it and noticed the windscreen was missing. Ooops. This is a very nice kit. It demands carefull attention to cleanup, as the fit around the forward cockpit decking is critical and will cause trouble if not done properly, but seems quite accurate and captures the look of the aircraft quite well with one exception. I found the kit cabane struts to be too long, and was forced to modify both them and the interplane struts to reduce the interplane gap to something closer to correct. That done - I'm pleased with the result on a model finished in around six weeks, which is roughly six months faster than I usually take!
The attached photo is in response to a thread some time back about showing off details of models as we build them. If you'd like to put this on your web site in my area under "Details" or something - please do.
These are mostly scratchbuilt control columns for the Eduard Albatros D.V / D.Va kit. There are subtle and not so subtle differences between the two because of the way the aileron controls work. The grips are out of the kit with the handles fattened up with white glue (and painted in one stick). The rest is plastic and brass rod, aluminium foil, disks punched from plastic card and fragments of card. The pictures will appear about 3 times life size on mosts screens I'd guess - the control column is actually 13mm tall, about half of one inch.
The column on the left is for an Albatros D.Va, that on the right for an Albatros D.V - though the rod behind the wheel has yet to be trimmed to length, and will be the same as the one on the D.Va. Yet to be added - Bowden cables for the two triggers and throttle.
Here are the now painted and almost ready to install sticks for comparison to the part completed ones. The D.Va stick still lacks one trigger cable, and the D.V stick requires shortening to the correct length.
The detail is a little crude, but since they have been installed in the now closed fuselage it is virtually impossible to see most of it anyway. Since no human eye will see it, i have heard this called "Detailing for God"
This is the 1:48 Flashback kit of the Aviatik Berg D.I Series 138
I built it more or less straight from the box for a paying customer, so there were no changes except slight offsets of the controls and control surfaces, a few minor detail additions in the cockpit, and some "bungee cords".
Aside from the necessity of thinning the cockpit interior aft of the seat to near transparency to allow the rear bulkhead to fit, the model went together easily and even the struts just clicked into place without any trimming at all.
Painted overall with Humbrol, the leaf camouflage was done with a "natural" sponge. Weathering was done with watercolour pencils and chalk pastels and is "light" as requested by the owner.
Eduard Dr.1
It looks rather dodgy, but if you view the photos at nearer real size for this diminutive 1:72 scale model of a small aircraft, it looks rather nice. Unfortunately the effect of seeing the streaky finish through the white overpaint is barely visible in the photos because it adds a lot to how the model looks.
This is a largely out of box build of the Eduard NON profipack kit. I've replaced the engine and compass using those from the Roden kit, used Tom's Modelworks Spandau jackets and produced my own serial number and crosses to suit. Aside from that the rudder is slightly offset and the elevator has been cut and posed downwards.
It represents Ltn Has Weiss Jasta 11 machine
Kit: Revell (1:72)
This is the Revell new mould 1/72 scale Fokker Dr.1, built straight from the box with the exception only of etched gun barrels and lead foil seat belts. It's accompanied by a very slightly modified DDS "Pilots of WW1" figure, which was intended by the manufacturers to represent Ernst Udet, but in this case represents an unidentified pilot in a bogus uniform, added to show the small size of Fokkers triplane
A couple more photos from my collection, perhaps mildy appropriate to the PD Decals thread which has come and gone in the 4 days I was absent from my PC.
The model is the DML D.VII, modified to mid production OAW using the existing photos of the Seven Swabians machine. Cowl and tail are chocolate brown (not well captured by my photo unfortunately), gun deck is OAW hand painted green/mauve polygon. Cockpit highly detailed including painted reversed loz, new structure etc, exterior is per kit except the conversion to OAW, offsetting of control surfaces and carved wood prop.
Decals from the PD Decals 1/48 set.
Scans, as previously, by Graham Steel, also of the list
This is the Roden 1/48 Fokker D.VII (Late Fokker built) I've decided to build and paint it as the aircraft of Erich Loewenhardt according to Roden's instructions, despite a few minor disagreements with Greg van Wyngarten's profile in the Osprey book. I don't believe there's any evidence to disprove either theory, and this way I didn't need to modify the kit cowling.
Only one external change has been made - the port expended ammo chute has been carved from the shapeless block provided by Roden.
I'm using a matt paint because I want to do the final paintwork with artists oils, in the same fashion as I'd use on a figure model (if I could still see them!) - a base coat of enamel, overpainted with shaded and blended oils. I'll mask the position of the fuselage cross slightly raggedly, so that with some luck the finish will appear to have been painted around it neatly at first but not perfectly.
With the cross decal in position, I'll weather the whole fuselage and maybe pick out the underlying structure with pastel or pencil or paint. Since I have Humbrol enamel over lacquer it may be possible to imitate worn away paint by rubbing a selected area with a thinner moistened cotton bud (q-tip) - and so on.
Ideas, good or bad, practical or right out of fantasy land, and comments on the build so far will be welcome, including any constructive criticism. I'm doing this to try out a few different ideas but they need not all be my own!
For the sake of completing the in progress build I thought I'd better send some photos to add to my gallery on the website
This is the DML Fokker D.VIII - 1/48 this time
This is out of the box, as defined for a contest entry last year. The struts are thickened to oval section with repeated coats of paint, the cowl edges have been thinned (and it was done in such a way as to replicate the Fokker cowl the best I could manage without breaking the rules) I have also replicated the dimpling of the wing ply surfaces using paint techniques, though this is hardly visible in the photo.
MPM 1/72 Hansa Brandenburg W.29 for which I described my build on list in excruciating detail.
Model is out of the box excepting added cockpit detail, replaced struts, offset controls and correction of the wing gullwing section. I used kit decals except the numbers which were made using a xerox copier onto decal film.
IIRC when the model was photographed I wasn't quite finished since the footsteps on the leading float struts hadn't been reinstated yet.
This is the Pegasus 1/72 Halberstadt Cl.II
I used the kit supplied markings, but offset control surfaces, added a better radiator header, scratchbuilt all struts, replaced the Spandau with an Eduard one and added interior detail. I used Aeromaster 5 colour loz which was given to me, and wish I'd taken the time to replace the rather ordinary Parabellum and gun ring with scratchbuilt ones. But I'm not ordinarilly a 1/72 builder and it's not likely to inspire me to corrections after the fact.