Looking through the shelves after finishing the Junkers, I happened on this:
I thought it would be nice to build it, after it had waited so long. I toyed with the idea of doing it as a sort of 'retro build', matched to the Harleyford drawings that were current when this kit came out, but since I did want to do an early example at Verdun, and found the case made for a yellowed linen appearance in an older thread preserved over at the Aerodrome convincing, I decided that since such a finish would go against familiar grain, it would be only right to follow in the footsteps of our IanB and bring the old thing up to scratch.
https://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2230https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=6965.msg127967#msg127967However, in looking through the Windsock, I looked closely at the revised drafting for the Roland D.I at its closing, and was struck by how various portions of the C.II fuselage pieces matched up to portions of the D.I profile.
Since I had in hand a second Airfix C.II kit, of much more recent vintage:
I decided it would be possible to make a D.I fuselage out of its C.II fuselage. Whatever difficulties presented themselves would fall short of those presented by crafting such a rounded fuselage from sheet. I felt like setting to some major plastic surgery, and pitched right in to this.
With the aid of a fortuitously sized strip come on amid a box of scrap, the first step was to get everything plugged:
Then smoothed down:
The observer's hatch is not filled in because the observer's cockpit is to be sawn out.
Taking out the observer's cockpit opens a gap of eleven or twelve millimeters, and the fuselage should by the drawings only be shortened by some 8mm. The difference is made up with strips of 1mm sheet, again plucked from the scrap.
Here the halves are tacked together for mutual shaping by 'salon sticks':
Penciled mark indicates likely location of the pilot's cockpit.
Not only will this have to be opened, but arrangements for attaching the wings prepared. The upper wing's location is pretty close to where the C.II's attaches, but the lower wing is directly below it, not staggered back. At this point the nose is a whole separate animacule, that can be dealt with at leisure.