Roland C.II - A scratchbuild in 1/144 scale

[MR Bentley]

As my half of the 1/144th scale buddy build with William Adair, I will be scratchbuilding a Roland C.II (early). The Roland is one of my favorite WW1 airplanes and I built the WnW model a few years ago, which means I already have loads of reference. I also chose the Roland because of its lack of struts. I figured that sine this is my first scratchbuild, avoiding fiddling around with tons of struts was a good idea. I've only ever built a handful of 1/144th scale models, so this build will be a good challenge.

This buddy build is to promote Williams' book. He and I met when we were each given the opportunity to write a book on WW1 modelling. Williams book is titled First World War Aircraft In Scale - Scratchbuilding in 1/144th scale and is already available to preorder. My book is titled First World War Aircraft In scale - The Pfalz D.III and D.IIIa and is still a WIP.

[MR Bentley]

Unlike Williams Taube, my build (thankfully) started quite smoothly. The first step was to piece together a set of scale plans using profiles from both the Windsock Datafile and Roland Aircraft of WW1 books, pictured here with the customary coin for scale. The plans pictured are actually for a late-production C.IIa which I hope to build when the C.II is finished.



The building started with the fuselage. I glued six layers of 0.5mm styrene together with the profile on top to guide the rough cutting. At the tail, the innermost layer is 0.25 styrene, rather than 0.5. This is because I wanted to leave a slot for the vertical stabilizer later on.



An hour or so had the starboard half roughly shaped


One the exterior was roughed in, I began gouging and carving out the interior and windows.




After a few hours of work, the halves were mostly complete. There is still a little shaping work left to be done around the nose, but I will wait to do that once the fuselage is glued together.




For the next Roland, I will definitely get either a solid block of styrene to carve or at least use thicker sheets to avoid splitting the layers apart during the carving stages.

[AngryJazz]

You 1/144 scratch building guys are nuts 

Im very impressed with your skills! Looks great already!

[andonio64]

Beautiful!

[NigelR]

More tiny scale madness! And more amazing modelling skills.

[William Adair]

Nice one Max, this is great to see!   
I love the Roland C.II and have such fond memories of the Airfix kit.  Looking forward to seeing it progress!

[DaddyO]

Wowzer. That's great progress - it's looking like a Roland already

Paul

[ondra]

Great, another WWI scratchbuilding project! Very nice so far, I will be following with great interest!

Cheers.

Ondra

[macsporran]

Another 1/144th crazy man - welcome, you'll fit right in here!
Great start.
Sandy

[lone modeller]

We now have three  Braille Scale scratch builders on the forum! Welcome indeed. Looking forward to seeing this one being built - you have made a really first class start.

Stephen.

[Flamingo]

Three scratch projects in the tiny scale - how nice for us to follow!
144 the new 32?
Joachim

[Davos522]

The level of skill on this forum just keeps going up and up... it's inspiring stuff. Keep it coming!

Dutch

[RAGIII]

I am gobsmacked by the Sudden surge in Skillfully and Beautifully executed 1/144th builds!! Looking forward to more of your excellent build!
RAGIII

[MR Bentley]

Thanks for all the kind words, guys!

[MR Bentley]

Moving on to the interior bits. In general, the interior details only need to be suggestive as the pilot and observer figures will obscure the majority of the interior.

 I created the seats by carefully heating a small piece of 0.25mm styrene over a candle and then bending it around a 3.2mm drill bit. It wasnt the most elegant or consistent way of making this part, but it served the purpose.




The curved section was then glued to another piece of styrene and cut to shape.




The fuel and oil tanks were carved from several sheets of styrene glued together. I had to shave off the corners of the oil tanks for it to fit in the fuselage.



Unlike William, I made each engine cylinder individually as I've never tried casting and don't have the materials for it.
Each engine cylinder was shaped from 1.1mm diameter styrene rod. I drilled the intake/exhaust manifold holes before shaping the top of the cylinder. If I was satisfied with the piece, I cut it to length and repeated the process. As the rear portion of the engine is buried in the fuselage, I only made 5 cylinders.




The cylinders were then mounted to a strip of styrene. I then added the various pipes using 0.3 and 0.4mm brass rod. The rocker boxes are 0.6mm cubes of styrene with a channel cut into them so they could fit over the 0.4mm timing shaft and the valve 'springs' are bit of 0.2mm rod. The water pipe on top of the boxes was fashioned from 0.3 and 0.5mm brass tube.







The final engine:





On to painting!