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

[Alexis]

Awesome work on the tail Frank 


Terri

[FAf]

Stunning, as always! It's always nice to see what you have done and how you've solved things.
/Fredrik

[Bughunter]

Thank you all for your kind comments!

After a stroke of fate (hopefully the year 2020 will be over soon!) I tried to distract myself a little by continuing to build on the Fokker.

Air screw

As usual for that time there were different air screw types mounted to the Fokker D.V
Some are very comparable to types I created already but some pictures shows a Garuda. Due to the wide blades those are looking interesting and since there is no air screw shown on my Fokker on the two known crash pictures I will go with that.

As additional references I used the "Fokker Eindecker Compendium 1" (great book!) and the book "German Propeller Makers of WWI: Part One", which includes Garuda. The shape is really complicated so my first try failed. This is the second one.

Front view. I used very wide veneer strips so the grain goes straight through.



The back view:



And the interesting side view. It shows a thicker wood on the back side but thinner at hub.



Dry fitting with cowling and spinner.



The painted airscrew together with the mentioned failed one and the kit propeller.



Not my best to date, but I will use it. The shape of the Garuda is really difficult.

Cheers,
Frank

[Dave Brewer]

Beautiful work Frank, that's an incredible improvement and well worth the effort,
Cheers,
Dave.

[Alexis]

Well , that's a 1000 times better then what my hands would be able to carve up , well done Frank 


Terri

[gbrivio]

Your propeller is great, and of the correct shape. I like it.
Ciao
Giuseppe

[Monty]

That is one lovely propeller! Well done! Marc.

[lcarroll]

    Beautifully done Frank, that shape would be a real challenge with the varied thickness. Very impressive!
Cheers,
Lance

[kensar]

As the others have said, great work on the prop.  Nice to include the thickness detail.

[Bughunter]

Thank you all!

Beautiful work Frank, that's an incredible improvement and well worth the effort,

Thank you Dave, most of the effort was the need of a second one

Well , that's a 1000 times better then what my hands would be able to carve up , well done Frank 

Terri, one day you will also carve your first wooden airscrew, I'm sure!

Your propeller is great, and of the correct shape. I like it.

Giuseppe, some pictures in the Mini Datafile shows machines with that type of airscrew, and the outer part shows mostly straight lines between the layers. I tried to get this lines, but I should have used more layers.

That is one lovely propeller! Well done!

Yes Marc, I want to have this lovely type in my cabinet!

    Beautifully done Frank, that shape would be a real challenge with the varied thickness. Very impressive!

Lance, since I know you also carve your own airscrews your words are even more meaningful for me.

As the others have said, great work on the prop.  Nice to include the thickness detail.

Ken, the reduction of inner thickness is needed to get the right outer shape.

The next detail follows soon

Cheers,
Frank

[Bughunter]

Seat

Of course there is a seat in the kit, but if I look on the reference pictures, there is a big difference. The seat looks very special for a specific reason.
The rotary with 100 h.p. was not very powerful for its time, so the Fokker designers tried all to save weight. The fuselage structure looks very fragile and so also the seat.

It is may be a bit too much work for a detail mostly hidden later, but I wanted to try also the Connecto crosses by Albion Alloy and want to use the seat as prototype for a bigger project. Stephen always try to convince me to do a scratch project and at least I have an idea now.


The pipes are 0.6mm brass, on the front the Connecto crosses are used.



The frame is completed with soldering.



The seat is plugged to the side frames with thin pins. The floor is replaced by a thin layer birch wood.



Also for the seat I glued two layers birch veneer and sanded it very thin.



Tinned in comparison to the kit seat:



After painting the kit frame grey green and the seat black (I know, normally only moving parts black, but the seat frame looks very dark on the photos) I mounted it. The back of the seat is a left over from HGW seat belts - a piece of linen.



I removed some kit details, which where not on the pictures, so I have to add some again. Here a switch on a PE rest and a switch in brass (PE from Parts).



The frame fits in the fuselage halves.



Now I have to add the rest of the cockpit details.

Cheers,
Frank

[Gisbod]

Incredible micro soldering Frank!

Guy

[kensar]

Nice work, as always, Frank.  I think the connectors would be very handy to use.  Thanks for showing us about them.

[Bughunter]

Thank you Guy and Ken!

Incredible micro soldering Frank!

Now it gets even better!

Axle

Today I took a closer look at the photos while having a coffee, among other things a large-sized picture of the front. I noticed the suspension in detail. The people at Fokker welded small cross tubes on the axle and small limiting plates on the sides to prevent the rubbers from slipping. How should I mount it durable? It falls apart again when I solder it!

So I remembered my equipment for brazing with silver solder (a paste with flux, 610°C). Careful, the burner reaches 1300°C!
With this I brazed 0.6mm brass pieces to the axle of 1.0mm piano wire.



This was easy because the axis lies flat on the pieces.



Then I could solder small pieces of thin brass sheet metal on the side with an electric soldering iron without endangering the other connection. I then filed the sheets into shape.



This is how the struts of the kit will look like. If I get caught, I will exchange them as well. 



Actually I wanted to continue building the cockpit to be able to close the fuselage. But I really wanted to see if the idea works and I could get the axle done with brazing.
I love this feeling of happiness when it works!

Ok, I built also a pump for the cockpit.



Cheers,
Frank

[Dave Brewer]

Wonderful detail work again Frank,thanks for the new update.
Cheers,
Dave.