Ola Guys and gals

I have been looking into purchasing etch sets to dress up my Roden Fokker D.VII Early and Pfalz D.III and was trying to read up on how the sets were. I have used 1:35 Part PE sets before and they are quite nice allthough a bit over-engineered sometimes. I could not find much in the way of reviews so I was wondering if anybody could give me some pointers where I can find pictures of the Roden kits with the Part stuff in place so I can get an idea of what it will look like. They are tremendously detailed looking at the pictures of the etch set.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Here's a Roden Felixstowe built using the Part set, a lot of scratchbuilding and a heaping helping of minor insanity. There used to be English translations of the build available on the Aerodrome site, but I can't seem to find them these days.

Here is my Roden Camel with Part PE build. The PE is very good, but if you want to use the full length of the internal structure, you have to thin the sides of the kit. You can't see much when it is closed up. Some of the external bits, like the prop hub, gunsights, control horns, etc make a bigger difference and are quicker than the interior. I don't think I'll use a PE cockpit again for 1/72 unless the cockpit has a large opening.

Ola People thanks a lot for your replies

@Jessica
That looks indeed very intricate. Pitty I wasn't able to find some in progress pics of that built as it must have been a load of work. Thanks by the way for bringing the Aerodrome to my attention again. Did some searching there and found some in progress builts of 1:72 Roden Aircraft with Part PE sets. They really look cool.

@ Ben
Thanks for sharing your built of the Camel with the Part PE set. Very nice work. You mentioned thinning the sides to fit the internal frame. As did others on the Aerodrome. I guess Part made the frame to the specs of the original instead of to the internal space of the Roden fuselage. Which is of course the right thing to do. But then my question is how much need the plastic parts be thinned for the internal frame to fit in?

I also have been looking at some of those (half) open structures that Jackflash posted here (sadly did not found enough for my taste) and have to say that that looks pretty interesting as well. And it is an awesome way to show off that internal frame. But that will probably mean I will have to scratchbuilt the linnen fuselage pannels because the thick plastic sides of the Roden kit will make it look ridiculous. Does the Part PE also have the mounting points for the engine on the frame? I noticed the set for the D.VII comes with the engine access panels as separate parts which is pretty neat. But that probably means more work is involved to get everything correct and right and in their place since everything is visible. Are there any books that could be of use here?

More with my 1:48 Aerobase / DML Fokker Dr.I kit crash and its stripped down brass frame I used decal flim to apply over half of the fuselage frame work to simulate fabric. The original was displayed after captured like this. And the 1:48 Fokker D.VII I am doing now, will simulate fabric covered airframe using decal film as well.