Back to it folks. After the IPMS Nats, finishing a few kit reviews and today a bit of paper shuffling (bills and stuff) its on to this little gem. I had to stop by Caboose Hobbies the other day to pick up some stainless steel wire from Detail Masters (pack #3503).

Here we progress with the cockpit. With these types of kit crashes I need to scratchbuild an ammunition box and install it. Other portions of the cockpit build to be installed next are the rudder bar, compass, fuel air mix quadrant, fuel tank hand pump, rigging, control wires, lap & soulder harness'.


The Roden cowling deck is temporarily inplace.


I will replace the PE kit bracing wires with stainless wire.

WoW.
I'm sitting here having morning coffee admiring work from an expert!!!

Looking awesome so far. I always envy anyone who is able to use Etch so successfully as you have.

Thanks Ben & Stephen for your kind words. Here is a bit more.

While you can work on adding details by just gluing 2 or 3 sides together as the instructions imply. You run the risk of handling an unstable build that is very fragile. No matter whether you do it my way by adding parts to the united 4 sided frame or do it piece by piece it is most important to be deliberate. Use the tools you are familair with abut they must be in good shape. If you buy a set of tweezers that are cross connected don't start a PE project without being thoroughly versed in their use.

The reason I like the Pavala Mercedes D.IIIaü/av is the wiring harness is moulded inplace.

Just adding some colour today and final cockpit parts tommorrow. Gotta send up some Kudos to Roden. With some kits for review they sent along an extra early Fokker D.VII (#415) kit for this build. I guess they are following along!



Dont worry about the sad little wires. I have stressed them as this will be a crashed bird with some shredded lozenge fabric. So I wanted some cables out of tune.

Very nice progress Stephen – I really like the look of this build!!

Mikael

Greetings all,

Just focusing on the frame work for this post. The PoP PE is of course a bit fragile. To answer a recent question, the PE support pieces need to be attached to the motor left & right then the Roden kit chin pan (PP 26 B)fitted to the main frame to spport the whole shape.



The support pieces are the portions that come directly in contact with the motor engine. PE 63 & 64. There are two "U" shaped supports for the underside that PoP does not provide. The corresponding Roden kit parts are PP B 33 & 34. So you can scratch build them or use the Roden kit parts. When you employ the kit (or PE) side cowlings, kit chin pan and radiator, these supports are mostly hidden from sight.

To work with Photoetch you need deliberation and patience.



The floor mounted compass



The throttle / air mix quadrant.

Next carving up the lower wings for damaged areas. Remember it will be a wrecked bird.

When the kit #415 first showed up on the market there was some talk about the front leg of the interplane "N" dtruts being too short. in about 2005 they began replacing the two identiocal C sprues with ones that had the lengthened "N" strut. The short coming was minor but Roden listen to modelers and took time to fix the issue. Just like the first run odf the SE 5a kit. They did a new sprue with the right amount of wing ribs for production SE 5a types.

Here I add the Wood & Wire 1:48 5 colour lozenge decal to the top wing upper surface. Remeber that these are transparent. To lighten or darken the overall effect you simply lay down a base coat of light or dark cream oe light or dark grey.



W&W 5 clr Lozenge set review

W&W reversed 5 clr lozenge set review

Looking good. I'm interested to see how the damaged wing will turn out.

Continuing I decided to keep the stabilizing cables somewhat tight rather than too slack. Using the Wood & Wire transparent 5 colour lozenge decals I find that I am not disappointed. After a few more additions I will add the turtle deck and begin adding remnants of the fuselage covering.





Then the wings get their rib tapes and then the landing gear. From there I finish the rigging. Note I'll be using the Microgroup's Axial Propeller in this build.

Review here.

Ok the spine supports and triangular wood former for the turtle deck are in place.

Now the basic guns are in place. The cowlings painted and the area of the belly I replaced is done.




Next the engine exhaust and intakes. And then rib tapes.

Now the rib tapes.

Now to finish up the spine. Just as a reminder I am using Wood & Wire transparent 5 colour lozenge decal for the outer surfaces. For the interior I used the Wood & Wire reversed 5 colour lozenge. I purchased both sets from Roll Models at the 2013 IPMS Nationals. Since I started with the Part of Poland PE and the Roden 1:48 Fokker D.VII it has been a bout to decide what to do different and still keep it structurally sound.

Here we see the interior lozenge used in a different method than what you might expect. Straight from the decal sheet I flip the decal still attached to it paper backing and use cyano and an accelerator to tack the piece in place. The coat the paper with a was of thin cyano. Use a flex file to sand it smooth and viola!



Next a coat of paint over the lightly sanded surface and you have the interior lozenge securely in place and you can paint to suit your profile or next apply a clear gloss coat with a normal application of the water slide outer surface lozenge decal.

A last look before I close it up.


Creating a pattern for the pilot's left side forward fuselage section.


Dry fitting.


In place pilot's left side.


In place pilot's right side. I gave it a more slack appearance because the exhaust was a low angled item and the heat would tend to wear more.

Now it is almost done. Still need to do rigging, detail up the fabric tears, add some crosses & stenciling and just a bit more weathering to show this is an older bird from Jasta 52.










Primer on Fok. Variants

As a reminder here is a synopsis of the 1918 cross changes by the late Dan San Abbott that ordered by Idflieg.

". . .On 17 March 1918, the Flugzeugmeisterei of Idflieg issued a directive to change the cross style from the Iron Cross form to the balken cross, (balken = beam). An undimensioned illustration accompanied the directive. This caused confusion with the manufacturers and they requested more information. The Field units went ahead and started changing the crosses on the airplanes. This resulted in a wide variety of cross forms and styles as each unit painter interpreted the directive.

On 24 March 1918, Idflieg was a little more specific and stated the cross form should be a ratio of 4:1 length to width and the white border would be 150 mm wide.

On 10 April 1918, Idflieg issued a third order that specified the cross sizes to be used for the rudder, fuselage and wings. The size for the rudder 400 mm, for the fuselage, 600 and the wings 1000mm. The white border was 150mm wide. All these changes created havoc in the field, which resulted in a wide variety of balken crosses.

On 4 June 1918 the horizontal arm the vertical latin cross with an a ratio of 4:5 was introduced. The vertical arm was to be full chord of the wing and full depth of the side of the fuselage. The arm width was a ratio 8:1 of the vertical. The white border width was reduced to a ratio of 4:1 the width of the arm. The horizontal arm was to be the same wide as the vertical arm. The wing crosses are to be placed at the wing tips. On the Fok.D.VII, OAW did this, but, Fokker and Albatros did not.

Finally on 25 June 1918 the final form of the Latin cross was specified, the horizontal arm was to be that 1:1 ( both the same.) of the vertical arm. The width of the arm was to be a ratio of 8:1 of the vertical/ horizontal arms. The white border width to be a ratio of 4:1 of the vertical/horizontal arms. The cross was to be full chord of the wing and side of the fuselage.

This gives you the whole story in a nutshell.
Blue skies,
Dan-San"

Well, I call this one done.








PoP PE set S48-127, Roden kit #415, Karaya brass for the Spandau Maxim MGs, Microgroup's Axial propeller, Wood & Wire 5 colour lozenge normal & reversed (for the interiors), Pavla Mercedes D.IIIaü, decals from the spares to match early production machine from Jasta 52.

Very nicely done Stephen, and a great tutorial on how to do derelict planes!

Congratulations!

Mikael

P.S. The old tyre looks especially interesting, how did you do that?

Hi Steven,

Excellent work! The PE seems to be a lot of work, but definitely worth the effort.



Jelger