forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com
WW1 Aircraft Modeling => Under Construction => Topic started by: Grant on November 25, 2021, 01:27:29 AM
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I have been looking at the 1/16th highly detailed Albatros D.Va kit from Model Airways for along time and finally bit the bullet. The Model Airways kit will challenge my modelling skills with over 184 basswood, birch and plywood parts, most laser cut. Over 100 Britannia metal parts for building the 180 HP six-cylinder Mercedes-Benz motor. Over 200 copper, aluminum, steel, rubber and Britannia metal parts used as turnbuckles for guy wires, suppression bars, pulleys, wire support brackets, ailerons, stabilizers, struts, flight instruments, wheels, tires and more.
My first challenge to tackle for this project is gathering accurate reference material in the form of books, photographs, drawings etc. to help aid in construction of the most accurate model of this beautiful aircraft I can produce. The jewel of my research has produced a book written by the Smithsonian Institution in 1980 after they performed a full restoration on an original Albatros D.Va, the well known "STROOPP". This book is absolutely amazing with tons of pictures and documentation on everything you could imagine, it will be an invaluable asset during the build.
I will post updates here but a more detailed build log will be located on my website for those who are interested in following along: https://aeroplanemodeller.blogspot.com/ (https://aeroplanemodeller.blogspot.com/)
Thanks,
Grant
(https://i.imgur.com/ClsZM88.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/CTjb2n2.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/AVHQOCz.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/O9w6dSk.jpg)
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I am Really looking forward to this build. A challenging kit for sure!
RAGIII
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no images
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no images
I am using Chrome and they show up perfectly 8)
RAGIII
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For me also no images! Not in Chrome and not in Firefox.
Those are Google Photo links. As I explained in his other post, Google do not allow external linking with Google Photos. The links are constantly changing.
I have also done that in the history and I have now a lot of postings without pictures :( Please do not make the same mistake.
Rick, I guess if you do a deep reload with Shift-F5 the images are away for you too.
Cheers,
Frank
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Bughunter,
Yes those were google photos and I saw your post on the issue, I will have to look into the other method.
You can go to my website to see the progress there as well until I get this issue figured out.
Thanks!
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I just tried posting the pictures with Imugr, can you see them?
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I just tried posting the pictures with Imugr, can you see them?
The only change for Me is I now see one more photo ;D Total of 4!
RAGIII
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Well that is good, hopefully I have it moving in the right direction!
Thanks for everyone's patience's and help on this.
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Looks good Grant. You're off to a great start. I remember picking up the Smithsonian book on "Stropp" when there many years ago. Like you say, an invaluable resource with all things considered. Although the wings are different from the original aircraft when it was in service.
Cheers,
Gary
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Grant, as you know from your Introduction post I'm very excited to follow this build. I am, understandably, extra excited to see it in your possession and to learn of your plans.
The book on the Smithsonian example sounds fantastic!
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Looking at the photos, I can't help but wonder how many of those 184 Timber parts are just jigging for assembly of the actual frame work!
Looking forward to seeing your Progress!
Cheers,
Hugh
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Thanks everyone, glad you all can see the pictures! Back to inventory task for now and then on to the fun stuff.
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I finally finished up the part inventory so onto the construction of the upper wing.
I removed all of the upper wing ribs and organized them per the plans and the instruction booklet. The kit is really well done but you just have to make sure and read everything several times to grasp the order of construction, it's a lot of fun to work on.
(https://i.imgur.com/1KprglZ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/0jEE6Jp.jpg)
Engine Block, pretty nice casting but clean will be required for sure as mentioned in the manual.
(https://i.imgur.com/5hg3mOm.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/KJOJOTx.jpg)
The first order of business is to glue the rib vertical supports onto the ribs. After spending sometime reviewing the vertical wing rib supports supplied by the kit, visually, they appear too thick in width and are made of balsa, the originals were 3ply Birch wood. I reviewed the rib information and drawings in the Smithsonian book on the Albatros and they are indeed not to scale. The balsa sticks supplied are 5/32" wide, they need to be 1/32" to be in 1/16th scale and of course made out of 3ply Birch wood, so off to my handy wood scrap bin to see what I could find and sure enough, I have a sheet of 3ply Birch plywood that is 1/32" thick, now I just have to cut it into 1/32" support strips to replace the kit supplied ones. After several attempts the results were much more convincing and look way more in scale, so this it what I will do for all the ribs. This will take a lot of extra time but well worth the effort and I'm in no hurry. The kit balsa is of good quality and looks great so I'm not knocking the kit supports, just want my Albatros to be as accurate as possible. I scanned the original drawing from the Smithsonian Albatros Book and then took that into photoshop to size it to match the 1/16th scale ribs, this will give me a good build reference to work off of.
Balsa support is on the left and the 3ply support is on the right.
(https://i.imgur.com/sPnnDcn.jpg?1)
(https://i.imgur.com/9ZFOLPq.jpg?1)
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hey!
this sure will be a show!
you efforts will pay off for sure as have already done for the ribs!
ciao
edo
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+1!
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Fantastic. No pressure Grant, I'm just happy you're sharing this adventure with us.
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Impressive start to what will be a beautiful model!
RAGIII
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That looks complicated. I have built two models showing internal structures in 1/32 scale but this one looks very much more detailed. I will be following with interest to see how things are put together - always on the lookout for ideas!
Stephen.
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Today was mostly spent figuring how to make the 12 upper wing ribs that create the middle of the upper wing look more realistic, being this is a bare bones model. The ribs are missing wood at trailing edge as described in the image below. Model Airways ribs are really well done and I'm sure they did not fill-in the trailing edge per the original drawings as laser cutting that small would be very difficult. So my goal was to try and make the ribs look a little more accurate when compared to the actual Albatros D.Va drawings in the Smithsonian restoration book #4. I feel good with my efforts today to create the look and now I can start to work on finishing up the remainder of these ribs. This will add a lot more time to the build but the upgraded ribs should look pretty convincing.
(https://i.imgur.com/mqD94lq.jpg)
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Nice work Grant - that's the sort of detail I'd have missed, especially without such good references.
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KiwiZac,
Thank you sir!
The Smithsonian book on the Albatros D.Va is outstanding, so much detail is provided. The hard part is knowing when to stop adding things to the model so one can finish it one day :)
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KiwiZac,
Thank you sir!
The Smithsonian book on the Albatros D.Va is outstanding, so much detail is provided. The hard part is knowing when to stop adding things to the model so one can finish it one day :)
I know the feeling - I have a Nichimo 1/20 Hughes 500 helicopter being built as a deer recovery machine and the urge to add every detail must be overcome at some point!
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Thank you for reposting the images. I can see this is going to be amazing!
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Outstanding attention to detail. In this scale and uncovered I am sure the extra work will pay off!
RAGIII
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jamieg,
I'm glad the pics are finally working correctly and thanks to everyone's help on getting that process figured out.
Update on my progress, still a lot of research going on ::)
I have decided to turn this project into a 50% box and 50% scratch build mostly due to the information that I've gathered from the drawings provided in the Smithsonian book, I feel I want to take the extra effort to make my Albatros as close to the real thing as my skills will allow me. The Model Airways kit is fantastic, and pretty darn accurate model from a box kit of this kind as they do have to keep a balance between cost of creating the kit and production time, build time on the user end etc. so I'm not faulting the kit in anyway. If you want to see one built pretty much stock and extremely well done, here is a link to Brian Colton's Albatros build. His was the inspiration to get me rolling on building one of these kits, very talented builder! He has also done nice build logs on the Model Airways DR1 and Camel.
Build by Brian Colton, Piccadilly South Australia
https://albatrosbuildlog.tumblr.com/ (https://albatrosbuildlog.tumblr.com/)
Last night I was cross referencing the drawings that were created at the Smithsonian Institute during the restoration of their Albatros D.Va. I took the drawings and resized it to 1/16th scale and printed it out to see how the overall rib outline and the camber on the bottom of the wing matched up with the kit ribs. The kits ribs have a different camber but the shape is correct. On the real Albatros the two top wing center ribs were found to have a slightly different camber, most likely due to the radiator located up in that wing section to make the wing match it better during the covering process.
Here is a picture of the 1/16th scale Smithsonian Drawing that I will be using, very well done and really the only actual drawings that exists taken from a real Albatros D.Va.
(https://i.imgur.com/I5shScB.jpg?1)
I also learned that the ribs of the original were made of solid Basswood, no plywood was used in the rib sections. Upon leaning this nugget of information, I will now have to recreate all the ribs out of solid basswood as the kit provided ribs are made of a 3 ply material and they are to thick as well. I started to create rib templates out of styrene that match the new drawing so I can make the rib sections a little faster and consistent in shape.
(https://i.imgur.com/AxR5hlU.jpg?1)
(https://i.imgur.com/efWoTSi.jpg?1)
Here you can see the rib camber difference between the kit rib and my new template rib.
(https://i.imgur.com/Gzk6z8V.jpg?1)
Here is a picture showing my new rib template laid out on the plans to check for accuracy, don't want to have to this twice!
(https://i.imgur.com/Z8oOnbg.jpg)
This is a shot of the middle rib sections I mentioned above that have the different camber to allow for the wing radiator.
(https://i.imgur.com/9V84ghJ.jpg?1)
Not sure if anyone has used this material before so my apologies if this is old news. I found a supplier online sometime ago that sells paper made of wood. Here is a picture of some 0.010 thick wood paper, short and long grain Birch, the stuff is amazing!
(https://i.imgur.com/KQ1pUkp.jpg?1)
(https://i.imgur.com/AAya7uy.jpg)
Here is a link to the supplier, just ordered some 0.026 for my wing ribs, should look amazing once they are cut, shaped and stained. Excellent customer service, have used them for sometime now and they mail your items out asap.
https://www.realwoodpaper.com/ (https://www.realwoodpaper.com/)
One other item that I will be adding for a little extra eye candy will be the rib numbering system that was applied at the Albatros factory. The Albatros had numbers and location stamped on the ribs to help aid in the assembly process. Each rib was stamped with the rib location, factory identification stamp, and signed by the inspector. I just had to attempt this as well and here are my results after playing around with original photos in photoshop creating them to the correct resize so they look correct at 1/16th scale.
Numbers were stamped on the wings starting from the center out the left and right with the numbers being stamped on the outer side each wing rib facing the wing tips. The process was 1 O.L, 2 O.L, 3 O.L etc.
(https://i.imgur.com/GsLu2Is.jpg)
Here is the factory stamp and inspectors signature taken from the original photos so they are legit!
(https://i.imgur.com/PZEaj5H.jpg?1)
Hope this update was not to long or boring, just wanted to catch up on my progress so far.
Now off for a class of wine and a book on Jagdstaffel 2 that I just got in the mail, should be a good read.
(https://i.imgur.com/PMtr9S3.jpg)
Thanks!
Grant
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I have decided to turn this project into a 50% box and 50% scratch build mostly due to the information that I've gathered from the drawings provided in the Smithsonian book, I feel I want to take the extra effort to make my Albatros as close to the real thing as my skills will allow me. The Model Airways kit is fantastic, and pretty darn accurate model from a box kit of this kind as they do have to keep a balance between cost of creating the kit and production time, build time on the user end etc. so I'm not faulting the kit in anyway.
Grant, this is inspired. And I thought I was excited when you were just building the kit! This is a fantastic idea and I applaud the effort you're putting in.
I seem to remember The Vintage Aviator Limited having some involvement (all?) in refurbishing the Australian War Memorial's D.Va D5390/17 (https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RELAWM04806) in 2008 and as part of the project 3D scanned EVERYTHING. I imagine they generated drawings also - it could be worth dropping them a line (https://thevintageaviator.co.nz/contact) to see if any such information is available, but to be honest given you have the Smithsonian work I imagine you're quite content with that!
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This is truly stunning what you are doing. I intend to have a front seat to keep up with the action here.
Stephen.
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KiwiZac,
The Smithsonian book mention's the Australian War Memorial's D.Va as it was restored from an original as well before the Smith's was. I believe these are the only two original aircraft in existences. I followed your link and WOW, love it! More great photos and information, very much appreciate the link, pictures are worth, well you know the expression. I will most defiantly be spending sometime on their site to see what insight that comes to light.
Thanks again Sir!
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Lone Modeller,
Thanks for the encouragement and I really like your forum name, great choice.
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Thanks again Sir!
You're more than welcome, Grant! I'm glad I can help your build, even in a small way.
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Grant, You are a brave man! - I have this model in my stash, with a badly warped engine block, and after checking the parts and plans (also using the Smithsonian book as my main reference), understood that 80% of the model would have to be scratchbuilt. Please note that the Albatros D.V had no upper and lower longerons in the fuselage structure, so you will also have to fill the slots provided for them in every cross section or cut new (and thinner!) ones. A will be keeping an eye on your build an if you need any 3d printed part to replace kit parts (if may memory don't fail, the radiator was horrible), drop me a note. 1/16 Spandau guns are available from Gaspatch.
https://www.gaspatchmodels.com/machine-guns-1-16/ (https://www.gaspatchmodels.com/machine-guns-1-16/)
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Beto,
Thank you so much for the 3d print offer, I may just take you up on it. All metal parts look pretty good, rough forsure, but ok in my kit, but like you mentioned I will most likely scratch build most items. I did order the machine guns already from Gaspatch and thier turnbuckles, should arrive in 2 weeks.
Thanks for the heads up on the Fuselage, haven't dove into that item yet, one problem at a time 😀
Thanks again Beto,
Grant
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Finally had a chance to work on the ribs for the Albatros. I'm starting with rib 3L on the upper left wing panel and working outwards to the wing tip.
Here you can see the thickness difference from the kit supplied rib and my new 0.025mm rib, looks to be more in the proper scale.
(https://i.imgur.com/yq9MBmM.jpg)
Here is a picture of Rib 3L getting the vertical supports installed, these really added some strength to the rib as the 0.025mm thick wood is really thin!
(https://i.imgur.com/J2Zunfn.jpg)
Rib 3L matched up to the original scale drawings to make sure I'm on track.
(https://i.imgur.com/67XMlye.jpg)
Now I will start on Rib 4L next. The first rib took me about 3.5 hours to construct, each rib has 17 parts to it so this is going to take me sometime to create the ribs but I'm very pleased with the results so far.
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I expect - based on my incredibly limited laser-cut balsa experience and 1:1 bits - the time per rib will come down as you do more. It's great that you're documenting each step like this. It could be a great reference for any future builders.
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December 19, 2021 Quick Update
I have spent 33+ hours coming up with a method off cutting out new more accurate wing ribs that have the same consistency in appearance, I can’t count the number of ribs I’ve cutout and thrown away.
The ribs are going to take a lot more time than I figured but I want them to look good, as they will be one of the main focal points on the model.
To keep my sanity and to feel like I’m making some progress, I decided to start on the elevator and stabilizer.
The laser cut ribs on the stabilizer look very accurate except for the wood rib F048. It has square lighting holes cut into it and they should be round as shown here in the Smithsonian Albatros restoration project. I’m going to clean up all the laser cutting black marks from all the wood parts prior to assembly. After looking at the soft metal (and I mean SOFT) elevator that’s supplied with the kit, it looks very close to the original except for some missing bracing. I have decided to reproduce the part in brass to give it a more substantial feel and look.This took me around 4 hours to make and here is a picture of the freshly soldiered stab, still need to clean it up and add the missing bracing parts.
(https://i.imgur.com/8PkNfx4.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/A0v5yKq.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/iG1FZ9R.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/CeAtun5.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ut9ox2E.jpg?1)
(https://i.imgur.com/PytkArj.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/bbwQoOt.jpg)
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Looking good Grant, and good catch on the incorrect rib.
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Thanks, this going to take a long time as its turning out to be a 90% scratch build. May have to build a few plastic kits along the way to keep from getting burned out on it.
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Great build to follow! Amazing effort to correct things and you're really just using the model as I guide it seems...
/Fredrik
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Fredrik,
I was really looking forward to just building this kit right out of the box but started finding things that were not correct. So much detail goes into a build like this, to finish it incorrectly would just bother me. Now it has most definitely turned into a kit for reference build. Im trying detail the kits inaccuracies for anyone looking to build this kit, just so they are aware prior to purchasing it.
If I have the fortitude to push on an finish it one day :-)
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Grant,
Your attention to accuracy and detail is without equal. I've thought about giving one of these a go but I'm not sure I have the patience. Let alone basically using the whole kit as a rough guide to scratch build everything to exacting duplicates of the real thing! Please keep posting. I find your work fascinating.
Stuart
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Please keep posting. I find your work fascinating.
Stuart
Hear hear!
If I have the fortitude to push on an finish it one day :-)
I hope you do, Grant. It's disappointing to hear about the inaccuracies but exciting to see your approaches and techniques to better replicate the original, but I totally sympathise with a large exciting project turns out to be more work than planned. I hope you can stick with it when you're ready ;)
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You are a Madman but I think that's what it takes to do a kit like this justice. The brass elevator looks awesome
RAGIII
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Thanks everyone for the kind words and encouragement! This one is definitely going to be a marathon and not a sprint forsure.
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Following along Grant :)
Alexis
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Sorry for the long absence, was sick with covid for sometime but im on the up swing now an feeling stronger each day. As far as this build goes im going to put it on my "to do later list" just not up to it. I haven't built a plastic kit in 20 years so I think all jump back into this aspect of model building, something a little more relaxing.
Anyway, just wanted to give you an update.
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Grant, I'm so sorry to hear of your recent illness but very glad to hear you're well on the mend. Welcome back!
I know the feeling of jumping into a big exciting project only to become disheartened that my skills weren't up to the task. I know you'll be be back on this in due time, and I'm excited to see what builds you share with us in the meantime :)
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I am happy to hear you are recovering from your COVID Bout! Sorry you have gone through it however!! I Look forward to wen you feel up to continuing this excellent build!!!
RAGIII
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Great to know you're out of this nightmare Grant, I wish you a fast recovery!
Antonio
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Thanks everyone and it definitely feels good to be healthy again.
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Good to hear your recovering from your covid infection. And sometimes the best decision is to let something rest until you feel like it again. We'll be here waiting.
/Fredrik
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Sorry for the long absence, was sick with covid for sometime but im on the up swing now an feeling stronger each day. As far as this build goes im going to put it on my "to do later list" just not up to it. I haven't built a plastic kit in 20 years so I think all jump back into this aspect of model building, something a little more relaxing.
Anyway, just wanted to give you an update.
Got exactly the same feeling about this kit when I bought it. Studied the plans and started thinking "99% of this stuff will have to be scratchbuilt" - And put it into long-term storage. Plus, in my example, both the engine block and the oil sump were badly warped.
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Good decision to take a break Grant, and glad to hear you've recovered from the dreaded COVID. Enjoy a plastic Kit or two and return to this project when the "fun" is back!
All the "Very best"!
Lance