Fokker D.V, Special Hobby 1/48; Update 21.12.20 Finished

[Dave Brewer]

Yes Frank, there is a Santa Claus! It's coming up an absolutely gorgeous build by the way.

Cheers,
Dave.

[Monty]

Lucky escape with the lamp, Frank! 2020 has been bad and a lot of setbacks all round, so great to hear your projects are going so well, that undercarriage is superb! Regards, Marc

[gbrivio]

I was Really Concerned when I read the subtitle! I thought 2020 had claimed yet another build [...]
RAGIII

Ditto 
Glad it was just the lamp, cast alloy parts are untrustworthy as much as plastic ones. Btw congrats for your mixed media landing gear, it's really brilliant.
Ciao
Giuseppe

[Bughunter]

What great comments, thanks Dave, Marc and Giuseppe!

Rigging

Possibly I am a little crazy since I decided to fix a problem. The model is far from perfect ( I will never reach the 100% perfection of the kit inside the box, what Fredrik mentioned). But since I noticed that the distance between upper wing and fuselage is to big I will always see that mistake if I look later into my glass cabinet. This is a typical property of this aircraft so I had to fix it.

The requires to remove the upper wing completely. With the metal struts that is somehow possible. The problem was mainly, that the pins go out of the prepared holes during glueing.



After modification of the slots in the wings for the struts and shorting the outer struts I mounted the wing again and rigged the wings using the great daylight today.



Hard to take good pictures without the missing lamp.



I had also to cut some brass sleeves, because the prepared ones were not enough.



Also half of the aileron control cables are done. Two are missing, which I will add after mounting of the undercarriage due to needed PE parts on top of the wing.



I do not have before and after pictures, but here is a older one.
In the side view there should be only a space of 5mm between upper wing and fuselage, but it was 6.5mm.  An error of more than 20% is conspicuous!



Now it is only a little bit more of the expected 5mm. Here are also 2 rigging wires missing.



The new undercarriage is primed and now painted to be mounted soon.



There are still enough things to do, but this was a big step towards the final album.

Cheers,
Frank

[RAGIII]

Great looking rigging and the gear continues to impress!
RAGIII

[FAf]

What great comments, thanks Dave, Marc and Giuseppe!

Rigging

Possibly I am a little crazy since I decided to fix a problem. The model is far from perfect ( I will never reach the 100% perfection of the kit inside the box, what Fredrik mentioned).

I suppose the next philosophical question is whether there is a model in the box at all until you open it?! 😃

Lucky call with the lamp! I'm glad you can continue to improve the model and move closer to the 100% perfection. It looks fantastic!
/Fredrik

[Bughunter]

Thank you Rick and Fredrik!

the gear continues to impress!

Rick, not yet! I have done a second round of correction cycle on the gear! I just checked not careful enough before mounting and made again the mistake to trust the kit parts

I suppose the next philosophical question is whether there is a model in the box at all until you open it?! 😃

Exactly!
I try to improve it, but with additional fixing cycles it is not easy. One error is fixed, but for the price of paint is destroyed on the connection points.

More in the next update ...

Cheers,
Frank

[lone modeller]

This model may not be 100% as per in the box Frank, but then I do not know of any model that is! Yours though regularly reach 98% which is considerably better than what mine do.

Excellent recovery in lowering the wing - I am sure that when the paintwork is carefully touched in, a blind man would like to see the results.

Stephen.

[Monty]

Great fix on the upper wing gap, looking really good! Regards, Marc.

[Bughunter]

Thank you Stephen and Marc! I will show a side view with the final pictures.

Finale

After the paint was dry I glued the struts into the fuselage. The axle was inserted and I tried to add the suspension, made from stretched sprue. It was not easy, because the axle rotates. The solution was a temporary fixing on the other side with copper wire. After that I added the gear rigging and plugged the wheels on.



What is that?! I don't like the overall impression, looks much different to the pictures of the real bird.



According to the drawing the axle should be in front of the wing and the distance between axle and fuselage is too big.



I cut the rigging, removed the complete gear again (with intact suspension), removed the pins of the front struts. With soldering iron to the pin, very quick to leave the paint intact. The I filed down the front struts by more then 1mm. After glue in the pins the hole gear could be readded. The axle is now moved forward.



Also the distance between axle and fuselage is according to the drawing. I like the impression now!
There was no drawing of the gear without angle, so I used the size of the kit struts.



The kit provides a windshield, but it is much to big. So I made a new one, below.
Another problem: the Spandau is in real much wider.



The gun should sit more right side (to late to correct), so I modified the windshield slightly.



Air screw and spinner was added now. I tried to apply my 1/48 version of Garuda logos, but they are much to big! Need to look for the 1/72 version.



The gear rigging is completed again, now also with a rope below the axle. This special kind of rigging looks nice!



The tail plane is now also mounted.



The soldered step added now. Please note the open side of the pipe.



On lower surface I had to fix the paint around the strut mounts.



The Fokker factory plate was as decal in the kit, but I used a nicer on from my spare box and applied this to bare metal foil.



Found also some Eduard Fokker serials, printed in a way, that you can't read the number.



I also masked the wheels and painted the tires in a flat grey.



The final view of this little Fokker Jewel (title of the Windsock article). The rigging is already metalized. Now only two PE parts and two control wires are missing and weathering needs to be done.


My model 8 of 2020 will be finished soon.

Cheers,
Frank

[RAGIII]

Your attention to details is always impressive Frank! To go back and fix/change things to make them more accurate is admirable to say the least. The results are a Beautiful replica of an interesting aircraft!
RAGIII

[Gisbod]

Super job Frank,

The axle is sublime!

Guy

[kensar]

Good work on the corrections, Frank.  I look forward to seeing this in the completed section.

[Bughunter]

Thank you Rick, Guy and Ken!
It is easier to do the fixes earlier, but without the mounted axle and wheels plugged on I have not really noticed the problems during dry fitting.
Some newer Datafiles shows things like struts, tail booms and so on in real size, which is very helpful.

Cheers,
Frank

[Bughunter]

Finished


Today I made new metal parts for the lamp: the two parts in the middle. Not perfect, but works for now.



As last parts I added two bows for aileron control on the upper side, going into the wing cut. Here the bows are connected to a "one end" turnbuckle so the aileron is under control by this "V" of wires.



The last picture of this build report shows the weathering, mostly some oils below the engine. Here you can see the rotary through the cut outs.



So again a model is finished! I really like the outcome, mainly due to the Fokker streaking and the scratched parts.
More soon in completed section.

Thank you very much for watching and your comments!

Cheers,
Frank