1/72 scale Pfalz D.III/D.IIIa

[Rip Van Winkle]

Just finished these two. Ltn. Lenz Pfalz D.III and Ltn Busso Alvensleben Pfalz D.IIIa.  The D.III is a Roden kit; the D.IIIa an Encore kit (Roden). Not much is known about either pilot. Lenz survived the war and Alvensleben did not. Lenz's D.III is well represented with many plastic model manufacturers.

[Rip Van Winkle]

!st the D.III. This was a straight forward build and presents with some issues. Namely a lot of filling and sanding and struts that easily break. The decals are sometimes not the best.

[Rip Van Winkle]

I had to make the water pipes and the gravity tank lines from scratch. Needed to replace some of the inspection panels with PART photo etch. I had to touch up the top wing decals with black paint because of the wing cables. I removed them on the D.IIIa build.

[Rip Van Winkle]

I did not realize that standard Pfalz top wing crosses had two sizes. The Roden kit gives you only one size. Lenz's aircraft may have had the smaller version. I used what I was given. The same goes for the fuselage stencil decal. I used what I was given. I used 2 parts XF 16 to 1 part XF 19 for the silbergrau.

[Rip Van Winkle]

Now the D.IIIa. Another out of the box build. The tail slot had to be enlarged for the D.IIIa tail. Also the machine guns appear to be too far forward. By the time I discovered this I was too far into the build. I used photo etched machine gun s for the first time. You really can't see it on such a small model. I will save my photo etch guns for monoplanes where the are more prominent.

[Rip Van Winkle]

Colors used were XF 18 Tamiya semi gloss black and X2 gloss white.

[RAGIII]

Two superb builds of the Classic Pfalz fighters! I Love them both! Well Done all around!!
RAGIII

[Rip Van Winkle]

Thank you for the nice reply. In the future I may use a MAC kit for the D.IIIa and Roden for the D.III. Rigging for both kits was .0059 Nitinol wire.

[lone modeller]

These two models are superb especially as they are in God's Own Scale. Looking at them I really thought that they were 1/32 - the detail and propellors look so good that the models really could be very much larger.

Stephen.

[coyotemagic]

Superb!
Cheers,
Bud

[Rip Van Winkle]

Thank you for the nice comments. Roden kits can be very frustrating but also can look great with a lot of preparation.

[Alexis]

Two very excellent little builds !

I do give these the Pfalz stamp of a approval , well done sir 


Terri