Author Topic: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII  (Read 1610 times)

Offline ebergerud

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 44
1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« on: July 27, 2020, 03:34:13 PM »
RolandColor by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
0rt-r-low by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

Eduard 1/48 Roland C II
Paints: Golden High Flow
Weathering – oils, Iwata Com.Art paints. Rigging – EZ Line “fine”

This kit is my third straight biplane and first in 1/48. I spend a lot of time of painting and weathering – anyone interested can check the “In Construction” forum.

It was one of Eduard's first WWI aircraft – new tool in 2000 and now out of production. I did the “Weekend Edition”, gladly giving up the PE. The kit shows its age. There's a lot of flash and very thick sprue gates. There were two seperate tail sections to chose from, but now clue at all as to what should go with what so I stuck with the parts asked for in the instructions. There were pieces that had holes but no pegs. Most pieces fit well enough, but there was a lot of fiddling involved. Decals were very fragile and some badly cut. There were no predrilled holes for rigging – all of my previous bipes had that – not sure what is the norm. In any case, I did miss them. I'm not accustomed to the biplanes and lack the ability to see down the road several steps to best incorporate rigging into the build process and made some build errors that wasted time. I used EZ line here. I've only used it for antennas before, and chose the “fine” diameter because I feared that the thicker variety might put extra pressure on the very small CA glue points. That was a mistake. Eduard wanted the equivalent of 2lb mono – and the EZ is a long way from that. As noted below, I had pretty good data on the plane and it turnbuckles are not easy to find in photos of real Rolands so the EZ Line might have been good history. In terms of build, I'd much rather use eyelets, sleeves and mono. Things didn't work out exactly as planned and there was some driver error. But, I'm having fun with biplanes (just got the very neat ICM 1/32 Gladiator for my birthday) and look at every build as a learning experience. Hopefully I'll be a little wiser next time out.

I had three sets of instructions – the Weekender set in the kit, a download of the more elaborate Profipack and, best of all, a set from Wingnut Wings. It was WNW that gave me good options for a paint scheme. That was good because I was not going to paint my model purple and I wasn't going to give it a face or scales. (I have an eccentric alergy to shark's teeth on airplanes – so whale faces are out too.) Turns out that there were lots of Roland's without purple or faces and WNW had several examples. The one that was very interesting to me is in the pic above. Apparnetly the crew did not like the national marking, with a white background, placed between the two windows and providing a perfect aim point for enemy aircraft to use to kill crewmen. So they over painted the fuselage to the rear of the cockpit with a glaze and put on a new marking (obscured by a crewman above). WNW doesn't claim certainty on the colors here, but their best guess is that the lower wings were clear linen with matte varnish, a semi-gloss pale blue and a matte glaze of either olive green or a light brown. I chose the light green. Do note that the surface tone on the glaze is clearly quite irregular. One reason that I went with the green is that sometime in the future I want to take a crack on that very neat, but very complex olive green streaking camo seen on some Triplanes. 

Actually this was a very interesting subject. Considering the spring 1916 debut for the Roland (I put a front gun on mine – that probably means early 1917) it was a very advanced plane. The thing had a monocoque fuselage – a feature not common in planes built five years after Bleriot flew the English Channel. It was built with plywood natch, and Wikipedia claims the technique was similar to that employed on the formidable WWII Mosquito. The innovative airframe allowed for the absense of cabane struts.  It could crack 100 mph and served as reconnaissance plane and fighter. (Apparnetly Richthoven was an observer in one.) It was a big plane for the time (the 1/48 scale worked out okay) and not known for being nimble. It was, however, faster than an Eindecker or Bebe. Like the Mosquito it was a hard plane to build which led to the Roland being a temporary dead end when retired after a year's service. It carried the Benz 6 cylinder inline which pushed out a good 160 hp. (If you want to see this engine up close check out Jay Leono's Garage on YouTube and search “1921 Benz-Mercedes Rabbit-the-First.” The car is a racer based on a prewar Benz roadster powered by a Benz aircraft engine. Leno's engineer goes over the huge engine in detail and shows why a few tons of oil were needed every week or so. Neat sound.)

Pics below:
Eric
 
 
1left-r by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
2 left by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
3lft-ft by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
4lft-r-ab by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
5front by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
6underneath by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
8rt-ft-ab by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
9rt-r2 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
rear by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

Offline GazzaS

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1193
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2020, 08:10:09 PM »
Very nice job with in interesting finish!
There are only two states to be in:  Queensland and blotto.

Offline Alexis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7947
  • Love the self
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2020, 09:25:00 PM »
Really nice job on your Roland  :)


Terri
Hurra ! , Ich Leben Noch
Body and life is a vessel we use to travel the planet . Femininity is the gift , The miracle comes from what we do with it .

Offline RAGIII

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18793
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2020, 12:07:31 AM »
Terrific results and an unusual scheme. Well done all around!
RAGIII
"A man has to know his limitations": Harry Callahan

"Don't slop it on" Lynda Geisler

Offline lone modeller

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5300
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2020, 02:37:47 AM »
That looks like a well used and worn aeroplane. The finish is very good indeed - clearly a great dela of time and thought has gone into that. An interesting and different scheme too.

Stephen.

Offline smperry

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 932
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2020, 07:32:42 AM »
A worn and grubby aircraft tells how much pressure there was to keep the spotters and recon planes in the air and doing their thing. You have captured that aspect perfectly here. Great piece of modeling.
There is something fundamentally amiss with a society which forces it's modelers to work for a living.

Online macsporran

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1657
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2020, 05:25:11 PM »
Great model and very interesting subject.
S

Offline gbrivio

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1681
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2020, 06:40:58 PM »
Very nice, interesting scheme and highly realistic weathering.
Ciao
Giuseppe

Offline dr 1 ace

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2340
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2020, 03:51:18 AM »
Ditto all the above !

Ed
Life is short, enjoy it, nobody gets out alive.

Offline Dave W

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 1608
Re: 1/48 Eduard Roland CII
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2020, 10:02:47 AM »
Well that's an impressive build and my thanks to you for posting this. I have an Eduard Roland in the stash and it's been "almost the next project" so many times before some other shiny thing distracts me! You have rightly focussed some attention on the Roland C.II so many thanks Eric.

Interesting re the EZ Line. I've used it for aerials on WW2 subjects but not in WW1 kits. I still slog away with fine wire.

We'll be very interested to see your next project.

cheers

Dave Wilson
Gold Coast
Australia
Owner and Administrator of ww1aircraftmodels.com and forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com