forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com
WW1 Aircraft Modeling => Under Construction => Topic started by: Dirigible-Al on July 11, 2022, 05:12:30 AM
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HURRAR!! The Special Hobby Fokker B.II has arrived.
Firstly a big thanks to Special Hobby for giving this kit to our forum and of course another big thank you to Dave for nominating me to build it and mailing it from the Gold Coast. I intend to build this as close to OTB as possible because I think it would be unfair to Special Hobby if I did something wierd with their kit (plus it would be a lot quicker to make) so no AMS. On inspection the kit appears to be well cast and crisp. There are also resin parts for the interior and a PE fret. The kit has two build options, a trainer and a fighter. I will most probably go with the trainer version because I think most people will build the fighter plus the trainer version would be a more plausible option for a diorama I plan to build. The Special Hobby Giveaway also included two tools. I have never had a razor saw but have seen them used often on other people's builds so I will be looking forward to using it. I didn't care much about the sanding stick because I have a lot of nail files in the tool box but when I saw it I was pleasantly surprised, it has four different grades of cut on it so I can see myself using this as well.
I will get started later this week, this looks like it will be an enjoyable build.
Alan.
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Congratulations again Alan, I'm excited to follow along with your build! I know precious little about Fokkers other than The Big Four so I'm keen to learn as well as enjoy your model.
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Cheers KiwiZac
Sorry there had been a bit of a delay, I had intended to push ahead with this but just after the last post we were hit with some really nice weather and I made the most of that. I have now done the interior and closed the fuselage halves, a milestone I enjoy getting to. I removed the detail inside the halves because this is replicated on the resin parts provided. I have on my workbench a pane of glass with various grades of sandpaper stuck to it. I used that to take off the excess resin on the two interior side walls and they then fitted fine (I broke the end off one by mistake but did not bother to repair it as it cannot be seen). Other parts were a bit fiddly but I got around this with my old trick of sticking plasticine on the side of a mug of tea so it is nearly
Iiquid then using it to hold the bits in place. It goes stiff quite quick I made some paper supports for the chair. I have a lot of shrunken pictures of dials made on a photographer, I cut a couple of them out for a couple of the dials. I will put three of the four seatbelts in later and hope I haven't given myself an impossible task for later. On seeing a couple of other builds a copper wire runs from one of the starboard dials towards the stern. I copied this on a whim but wish now I didn't because now the fuselage is closed it gives an optical illusion that the gap between the seat and the side is narrower there. I might mask this later with one of the seatbelts. Internal wires were just drawn on with a pencil and I am glad I did it that way because you can't see them now the halves are closed. All paint used was acrylics, Citadel grey and silver. Tamiya gold mixed with Citadel bronze for the tank. Wood effect was many thin layers of paint mixed with Klear. For the linen I mixed paint from about four or five different pots, my understanding of German linen is it is a bit darker and a little greyer than British and French aircraft but if I am wrong it is a bit late to change this now.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Excellent progress Alan, she's shaping up very nicely!
Sorry there had been a bit of a delay, I had intended to push ahead with this but just after the last post we were hit with some really nice weather and I made the most of that.
And you call yourself a modeller?! ;D
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Congrats and wow great start!!
Steve
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Cheers Steve
KiwiZac - A while ago I did try to do both but never again. If you think the carpet monster is evil the grass monster is in another league! It also has some sort of arrangement with the wind monster.
Alan.
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KiwiZac - A while ago I did try to do both but never again. If you think the carpet monster is evil the grass monster is in another league! It also has some sort of arrangement with the wind monster.
;D Oh dear!! I'd never dream of it!
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Looking great Alan!
Cheers,
BC
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Excellent interior work. I look forward to the next update. Hopefully you will have Lousy Weather :o
RAGIII
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Looking good! I'm awaiting mine, but there is some sort of customs related issue for the time being, so it's good to see you build yours!
/F
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Thank you Brad and RAGIII and Faf for your kind words.
Faf - I hope you get yours soon, customs can be annoying as I found out a while ago after buying a low value item online which they held.
Another nice sunny day today but I got some work in. I hoped to finish the wings today and post them but I brushed the last but one layer on and the paint reacted with the layer underneath so I have had to start the painting again. My fault for letting it dry but not letting it cure.
In order to get something done I put the engine together. The kit has a nice resin cast engine which went together fine. Although I said earlier I will try and make this out the box I decided not to use the kit's PE rods because I felt it would be easier to drill 7 holes and slide 7 lengths of copper wire down them. I also added short lengths of copper wire to the spark plugs though they probably won't be seen once in the cowling. It was painted with Citadel Silver then a thin wash of Citadel gunmetal was added, then a thin wash of blackboard paint.
Thanks for looking in. Alan.
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Nice work!! You're shaming me into starting my forum win....
Steve
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Lovely work and great start - I have thought about this kit myself from time to time so will follow with interest
Regards
Dave
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Alan , you are rocking this build so far , a pleasure to follow along .
Alexis
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A very good start Alan: I have much respect for those who can work with resin kits and parts - I do use some parts occasionally but generally I avoid the stuff. Looking forward to further progress.
Stephen.
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Nice work on the Engine!
RAGIII
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Thanks for your comments Steve, Dave, Alex, LM and RAG.III
Weather is still nice so progress is slow. Managed to paint the wings though. The ribs on the tops of the wings look a bit heavy but I thought I would use this to my advantage. Using acrylic paints as that had gone past their usable quality as filler I plastered enormous amounts over the rib detail first in silver, then yellow then beige. Using the file stick I sanded down to the rib detail. I then used wet and dry paper of a very high grade to sand over the whole thing. What I finished up with was a gentle version of starved cow ribs with the actual ribs being far less prominent. I have done this before but by using copper wire glued over a smooth surface and that technique hasn't let me down yet. I was happy how this one turned out. On the bottom I just shaved the ribs down a bit. Next I pencilled in the wing structure that can often be seen from underneath and drew two crosses. With beige/brown acrylic thinned with Klear I brushed several coats over the pencil marks until the detail looked right. All ribs top and bottom were coloured with light beige artists pencils and a little bit of shading was also done between them and the spars. This was then covered with Matt varnish. Although I am happy with the result my frustration boiled over today when I tried to photograph it. You unfortunately just have to trust me that all the ribs are a lighter shade and the spars and crosses are just visible underneath. The coloured pencil also worked well doing the lighter shades between the other detail but this can hardly be seen in the pictures.
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Here are the final pics of the wings. The fuselage will now get the same treatment.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Looking great!
RAGIII
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Cheers RAGIII
I have moved it on a bit more. The fuselage had the same treatment as the wings. I painted heavily over the raised detail and sanded back. Once painted over with dark beige I pencilled over where the detail was and brush painted several layers of watered down beige until it could just be seen like a shadow. The engine cowlings went on fine though they needed a fair bit of thinning on the inside. The machine effect was done by drawing squiggles with a black Sharpie then once again brush painting with thinned down acrylic silver several times until I was happy (though looking at the pictures which show more than the eyes there are a few small spots that need another coat). There is a PE strap that goes around the cowling and the instructions tell you to paint it black. On looking at archive pictures the outside of the strap appeard metallic and the inside a darker colour except for one where it appears white. I took a punt and ran a black Sharpie down the middle and painted the raised edges and buckles in silver. If anyone thinks this is wrong please let me know.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Wow , that is looking really nice so far Alan , nice work on the metal paneling :)
Alexis
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Excellent start Alan. Looking very nice!
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Lovely work Alan, I'm watching excitedly yet patiently.
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Thank you Alexis, Tim and KiwiZac for you nice comments.
I will be off the workbench for about three weeks now, on the holiday I tried to have three years ago. Thought I would do just one small update. Managed to do the prop. The propeller S.H. tell you to use has no boss on it, the other one has quite a nice one cast on it. I first looked in the PE spares box but there were none there. Rather than scratch build it I decided to save time and I carefully cut the cast boss off the unused prop and glue it on the other one. Prop was painted white then I ran a brown marker pen along it for the darker stripes. It was finished off by putting several layers of acrylic ochre, orange and tan all diluted heavily with Klear.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Have fun on your holiday Alan, and what a great note to leave on - lovely prop job!
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Very nice progress Alan. I really like the turned metal cowling. I’ll have to try this if I can find a marker small enough for 1/72. Your prop looks great as well.
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Cheers KiwiZac.
Tim - I think a Sharpie would be fine enough but if it is not, one thing I have done in the past is trim the end of a permanent marker with a scalpel to suit the size or shape needed.
Alan.
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Nice work!! Your rib reduction process made me a bit nervous but it turned out perfect!!
Steve
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Cheers Steve
I had a go at moving this on this weekend and today. I hoped to get the top wing on today but this will have to wait until the next session. On putting one of the seatbelts in it fell inside the fuselage and I couldn't get it out. Fortunately it cannot be seen. I made a replacement out of masking tape and silver foil. The overlapped foil seen on the pic was tucked behind the tape. Other than getting the holes in the end bit a little skew wiff due to poor eyesight I am happy with the result. Special Hobby provide a windscreen. I modified the shape a little by putting a round edge file to it's base thus making it sit at a more sloped angle. Thin strips of sticky backed foil ( lightly sanded to make it less shiny) were stuck around it. Having done this I have noticed ( on the archive photo) it is a split windscreen so I have missed a bit, just as well the top wing isn't on! A couple of other things I noticed on archive pictures is that the shape of the metal sheet behind the cowling is different from the trainer to the fighter version. Having seen other people shave a little off the rear bottom edge of this i was myself all prepared to copy this but luckily noticed that on the training machines it does in fact curve in an arc just like the S.H. kit. No alteration needed here. I believe the top wing is also correct for the version I am building, again another thing I have seen others change for the fighter version. The rigging instructions are correct for the fighter version but not the trainer. Once again looking at archive pictures there's an extra wire running from the fuselage to the top wing, this forms an 'X' shape with the forward wire which exits the metal plate behind the cowling (on the fighter it doesn't exit the metal plate because as mentioned earlier this doesn't curve back, it exits just behind that). For the training version this needs to be added, that said there is normally a wire there on other biplanes and mirrors the Rumpler C.I which also crosses 'X' style. I came to a difficult decision on the struts. There are 4 bands around them which I guessed were metal. Although I said earlier I want to make this as close as possible OTB I decided to make the cabane struts out of copper wire. This will not only look better but will be easier to fit anyway. I made this decision when I test fitted the top wing and saw them sat on the forward fuselage. Bottom wings were just glued straight onto the fuselage with polystyrene cement. Gaps were then filled with super glue, I did it this way because I am impatient. The best way to attach the bottom wings is to copy Macsporran and use a metal rod or styrene strip to bridge them and then slot this into a pre made groove ( https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=13387.0 ) There are guide marks on the fuselage sides but these are out slightly as the leading edge is lower and the trailing edge like most biplanes drops noticibly below the fuselage. This actually gave another reason to use copper wire for the cabane struts because the different position of the lower wings put them out enough to warrant them altered. With cabane struts made and cotton thread glued to them so they don't fall inside the fuselage like the seatbelt the top wing is ready to go on. Rigging is part done in prep using a mix of ezline and monofilament.
Thanks for looking in. Alan.
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Good progress here Alan, this is really taking shape now. BTW I do like your high tech jigs!
Stephen.
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It's definitely taking shape!!
Steve
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Cheers Steve,
L.M. - the hi tech rig has just got more tech!
There is a thread on this site that warns us of the longevity of EZline (which I saw after committing myself to it on this) but I have discovered another great use for it. I made two cardboard posts and glued them either side of the wings and stretched some Ezline between them. The line was set to the correct height of the top wing and represented the positions of the four forward attachment points for the struts. This was then moved back to get the position of the rear cabane struts (inter wing ones were already done). It was just so easy to glue the cabane struts up to the EZline.
Top wing is not on yet but the test fitting shows no problems. I just need to clean up a bit of battle damage before it is glued in place.
Alan.
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Looking Fantastic. Very clever idea to use the wire to get the struts lined up!
RAGIII
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Cheers RAGIII
Top wing is on. I used a mix of mono and EZLine for rigging, the reason for using the EZline is because I decided to use thier turnbuckles and felt it would be harder to use them with the stiffer mono. To make the turnbuckles more three dimensional I put a blob of thick paint on each side of them using Tamiya gold acrylic (although I have since noticed in the photos I missed the two buckles between the cabane struts).
For the undercarriage I sanded the wheel struts thinner then drilled and fixed pins into them. For the pins I used broken 0.3mm drill bits cut down. Thier holes in the fuselage were 0.5mm to give a bit of wriggle room which I filled with epoxy resin. The colours I am not sure of. I went with the kit instructions and painted the metal parts silver/aluminium, I also saw other modellers had done the same but I have a niggly feeling that they should be black. Right or wrong they will now have to remain silver because the cabane struts are coloured the same and they would now be too hard to rectify. I did not like the axle just being glued to the struts so I added bungee cords using cotton thread soaked in superglue, now they are not going anywhere.
For the rear skid apparatus I discarded the kit parts and used copper wire. This is because I just prefer to burry their ends into the fuselage for strength (plus it saves me standing them down). The skid itself is stretched sprue and I wanted this to go into the fuselage too. I noticed on a photo a strap of some sorts going horizontally across so this was added using metal foil. There is also a vertical rod linking the skid to the very rear of the fuselage, I will add this later.
Nearly there now.
Alan.
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That is good progress! And isn't it nice to really secure parts that otherwise would be really flimsy?! 😀 Good work on that landing skid.
/Fredrik
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Fantastic, the undercarriage and tail skid look so delicate and detailed.
Richie
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Excellent progress. The rigging looks great and just in case I failed to comment before the Squiggles on the Cowling are Awesome!
RAGIII
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Taking great shape. Looking forward to your rigging
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Cheers Fredrik, Richie, RAGIII and Tim for your nice comments but I have made a boob.
I noticed on a Fokker Eindecker the tail skid does not have the metal brace I put on mine (the perils of looking at black and white archive photos), it is in fact bungee chords and the wooden skid does not go inside the fuselage. I have rectified as best I can this by putting in the bungee chords and filling in the hole I made in the fuselage. As seen from the side you would not know the difference, you can only spot the error when looking at it upside down. As this will be in a diorama this angle will never be seen so I can live with it. One bonus is, because my own skid still goes into the fuselage it is a lot stronger. as it turns out the kit tail skid would have been better to use in the first place because it has a hook at the end which I thought was an error on their part but it was in fact the attachment for the bungee chords. That's Karma paying me back for saying earlier I would build it mostly out the box and then succumbing to AMS. Otherwise most of the decals are on and this is nearly done now.
Alan
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End of the day report after some sparodic building.
All the major bits are now on. Just the control wire rigging left to do which will be done with fuse wire. Next job will be the cock up covering operations and general tidying up. Hopefully the next post will be to show the finished thing.
Alan.
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Wow, well I am very much looking forward to seeing the finished item. LOTS of photos please Al, it already looks amazing!
Richie
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Beutiful work on your Fokker!
AGIII
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Hi Alan,
your Fokker has turned out nicely! When will kit manufacturers visit museums to study fabric covered surfaces?
Your remedies are really good, but unfortunately necessary. Will try to machine like you did.
Joachim
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Cheers Richie, RAGIII and Joachim
Since the last post the only bit left to do was put on the two pulleys that carry the wing warping control cable. The instructions show they go on the rear centre of the top wing but are quite vague as to what possition they should be in. Assuming that they just attached to the top wing I left them till last for fear of knocking them off. They actually don't attach to the wing, they are attached to a horizontal metal tube that in turn is attached to the two rear cabane struts. At this stage of the build this presented quite a problem. I tried to cut the centre section of the wing as far back as the cabane struts but had to stop part way because of damage I was accidentally inflicting on other parts of the plane. I think I did enough so much to say that only a modelling critic with acute AMS would notice this. I drilled holes in either side of the opening and put a length of copper wire in. Attached to the copper wire are the two PE pulleys, the pulleys were housed in spare PE from the engine rather than the PE supplied for the job because it was sturdier.
Weathering was done with coloured pencils, I am happy with the wings but the method was not so effective on the fuselage. Exhaust and oil stains were done with kiddies water colours because I didn't want to cock this up and ruin the machined metal effect already made. The beauty of watercolours is it doesn't cure so i can just wash it off at any time. The crosses on the wings have an enormous amount of carrier film which for the first time ever I managed to remove with a scalpel. I have however reached the point where I undo as much work as I do on this so now is the time to stop before I bugger something up I can't fix.
Now to list the mistakes. The worst one is with the paint. I mixed in an empty pot what was supposed to be a 'cardboard brown' colour to replicate Central Powers doped linen. After it was applied to the Fokker it somehow morphed into a slightly green version of what I wanted. To my frustration the paint still in the pot is the same colour I made. In future I will not mix paint but just use or buy a manufactures one closest to what I need. Another was the error I made with the tail skid mentioned in the earlier post (although this was a happy accident as it will not be noticed and is sturdier). I am still unsure of the colour of the steel tubing used in the undercarriage and cabane struts. In archive pictures some look black and in other pictures they appear to be a lighter colour. I do know the undercarriage of the eindeckers are black so maybe I should have gone with that but instead I copied what most of the other modellers did and painted them silver.
The kit has marked where the lower wings should be but this is slightly out. Admittedly the possition suggested is easier because more of the wing is in contact with the fuselage but looking at archive photos both the leading and trailing edges are below the fuselage. There is a recessed panel line on the panel behind the engine cowl that should be filled. This same line continues raised along the length of the fuselage and needs to be removed. It is worth noting that the rigging diagram in the kit instructions is correct for the fighter version but not for the trainer. To the contrary the metal panel aft of the cowling is cast correct for the trainer, it's training edge forms an arc, but on the fighter it is more straight and a little surgery is needed for this version.
To sum up the SH Fokker B.II kit this was a nice one to build. The shortcomings mentioned can be easily overcome and the only difficulty I had was due to my own making or lack of forward planning. With no AMS you could actually make this out the box. The best thing about the kit was the fact that all the parts went together well. The suprise was the PE turnbuckles. I thought these were too 2 dimensional but used them anyway. With just a dab of gold paint on each side they looked the business. This was my first Special Hobby build but I look forward to building the SH Lloyd C.V I have in my stash.
I apologize for the crappy fotos, I tried both indoors and outdoors to take them yet they still don't show the weathering and other details (through at least you can't see the mistakes so well). I just need more light and hope to rig something up for the completed models section. Thanks to all that followed my build.
Alan
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Great looking Fokker Alan.
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This is really good work, Alan -
Great turned metal effects too
Regards
Dave
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excellent build! I also Love the turned Metal effect!
RAGIII
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Thank you Allan, RAGIII and Dave for your kind comments.
I am a bit miffed about the pictures posted, after taking another load of them under several different conditions today I came up with one good one. This shows the weathering. I am not sure if it's purely me or if coloured pencils are camera shy in the same way as some varnishes are on archive pictures. In any case I will get someone else to take the pictures for the completed models section.
Alan.