I'm sorry if you may have read these post over on the 72nd Aicraft forum before; I'm not much of a cross-poster, but instead of simply copying a link I'm rather have the whole thing over here.
So here are a few posts
back to the future!
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My resolution for 2015 is to build as many of my stalled and half-baked kits as possible... the EP-3B was first, so on to the next two candidates!
A Roden Fokker D.VII and Albatros D.Va.
With Aviattic Lozenge and Pheon Jasta 18 decals.
The Albatros will be one of these four:
The Fokker this one:
The one above it with the skull is also and OAW early, but I did not like the black edging. The one I'll do has wide green stripes on the tailplane. (true green, looks a bit blueish in the picture)
The remaining options (save for the lone Pfalz D.III and Fokker Dr.I) are Albatros mid and OAW Late, neither of which are avaible from Roden OOB. They can be made from the avaiable kits, but will need louvres, cowlings or access panels added or removed)
As I said, my 2015 resolution (modelling-wise) is to finish all my already started models, and besides, both the Lozenge and Jasta Raben decals were birthday gifts from my wife -but not for the same birthday if you know what I mean!
Here's how it stands so far:
Some home-brewed details in the Albatros cockpit. It seems a simpler build than the D.III (Öffag) I completed recently since the fuselage is 1 piece, including tailskid and rudder.
It still has the 3-piece topwing, but after the Oeffag I knew how to tackle that.
Unlike nearly every other Roden kit, the engine fits completely without hacking and sanding! :blink:
The D.VII on the other hand had all the mods done as per my review:
http://modelingmadness.com/review/w1/ger/koend7.htmExcept that I now have the experiences behind me to hopefully make this build go smoother!
I backdated it to an OAW Early since I did not have that kit (Roden does one OOB) and had no intention to buy another...
Removed all cooling louvres and nearly all access-hatches, fabricated a new hatch from thin film and drilled a new hole for the low exhaust. The high hole was stuffed with evergreen, and later removed most of it again when I found out my subject had extra cooling holes in the upper cowling. I also extended the engine shelf and sanded the interiour thinner.
Then I widened the axle wing and lower wing:
As noted in my review, all parts that mate to the fuselage are too narrow (or the fuselage is too big -either way, they don't fit!)
I also made sure the horizontal tailplanes fit and deepened the cutout in the fuselage.
I still need to sand the fuselage on the undersites to make sure the rudder meets the the lower fuselage, but I'll do that after assembly. Most of the hard work is done by now, so hopefully some paint in a few days/weeks!
BTW, the control surfaces were animated by sawing the sides with a fine JLC saw, then scribing between the ringes and simply bend them slightly and fix with a drop of CA and then Tamiya Extra Thin.
All other parts are now also cleaned up and removed from the sprues -quite a lot of work on these kits with their flimsy struts!
The engine mods, to the right is the OOB Albatros engine, on the left the heavily modded Fokker engine. I cut off the oil sump, engine front, and left most stuff off that won't be seen. On the Alb engine I had to make some valves from tiny pieces cut off stretched sprue (due to a lack of a punch & die set) as they were in the sprue gate flash. The D.VII uses the same sprue, but had less flash...
Jeroen