Eduard 1/48 Oeffag D.II conversion

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A while back, when I came under the spell of Rowan's spectacular Oeffag D.III trilogy, I knew that I had to build quite a few of the equally lovely Eduard kits to justify the purchase of all three sheets.  Besides, there are so many variations to build: round nosed, pointy nosed, blunt nosed, winter cowling, no winter cowling, buried guns, exposed guns, sworl camo, sponged camo, no camo, etc.  And all variants of the 253, 153, 53 and the lone D.II.  After building this one...

...I decided I needed to do the D.II next. 

After all, I have the markings, have a spare 253 kit, a spare Albatros D.II kit and it looks so simple.  So why not.

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My primary concern with this conversion was how to attach the bottom wings since the Oeffag kits and their Hunnish brethren have completely different bottom wing attachment methods.  Any of you who have built these kits or have them in your stash know that the German Albatrosen have a one piece bottom wing and the Oeffags have two bottom wing halves that basically butt-join to the fuselage.  In order to make sure that the interplane struts line up correctly, you need to measure the fuselage width at the wing roots, then transfer that measurement to the D.II wing and cut out the center section.








I used brass rod to pin the bottom wings to the fuselage, and the strut holes line up perfectly.








Now that's out of the way, I can start on the interior.
Cheers,
Bud

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I had originally intended to cut out the Oeffag radiator, then cut a hole for it in the D.II wing:


...but the Oeffag wing is nearly a full millimeter thicker than the Albatros wing.  So (Scott, great minds do think alike), I decided to split the radiator horizontally, then sand it to fit the contour of the wing.  I used the wing as a sanding block.


They came out nice and thin...


...and I glued them to the upper and lower surfaces of the wing.




Now I've got to remove the ailerons from the new wing, add balance horns and their corresponding slots, and reattach them to the wing.



Cheers,
Bud

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Got the balance horns done, pinned the ailerons and restored the hinges with Aizu masking tape CA'd in place.








Now for the cockpit.
Cheers,
Bud

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I got the underside of the wings done.  We had a break in the weather so I was able to do some painting.





Cheers,
Bud

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Well, the engine's as finished as it's gonna get.  I decided not to add ignition wires since you won't be able to see them anyway, what with the intake and exhaust pipes and the Schwarzlose blast tube blocking the view.  It's a lovely engine and I would really love to dress it up.  I'll have to do another one of these with the top cowlings off.

Cheers,
Bud

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Back in April I had painted the wood grain interior, then set her aside to work on other projects.  This past week I finished the cockpit and now I'm about to close her up.  Here are a few shots of the innards before I close up the fuselage.







Just a little something to keep me busy until the next GB.
Cheers,
Bud

[Fokker boy]

This is 1:48 scale? Wow, looks great, Bud. Incidentally, I have all three of the Japo books referenced, and they are pretty cool.

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Thanks, Kevin.  This is without a doubt Eduard's best kit.  Definately on a par with WNW kits.
Cheers,
Bud

[Checkers67]

Sweet build Bud. I dragged out all my A-H albies and my D.II kit. Your ideas will be helpful. There so many cool AH markings to do. Have you picked a certain D.II? Earlier this month I finally obtained JaPo's Oeffag booklet. Fantastic resource of photos and info. Good luck! Looking forward to your next post.

Steve

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Thanks, Steve!  Maybe, with your JaPo books, either you or Kevin can shed some light on the appearance of the D.II cowling and metal panels.  Were they plain, bare metal, sworled like the Eindeckers or painted grey? 
Cheers,
Bud

[rhallinger]

Wow Bud, you work fast!    This looks very impressive.  Great work!  I want to do all of the A-H Albatri in 1/32, some day . . .
Your initial point is so true, there are so many great schemes and variations for the OEFFAG Albatri. 

Regards,

Bob

[Whiteknuckles]

Wow Bud, you've been a busy man!!
Nice work on the wings  - using them as the sanding block for the radiator is such an obvious solution and something I would never have thought of

Looking forward to the woodwork on the fuse and how you'll go about it.

Andrew

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Wow Bud, you work fast!    This looks very impressive.  Great work!  I want to do all of the A-H Albatri in 1/32, some day . . .
Your initial point is so true, there are so many great schemes and variations for the OEFFAG Albatri. 

Regards,

Bob

Thanks, Bob.  I actually started this project back in April, but lost interest and set her aside in favor of a few other projects.  Everything you see up to the last photo update was done back then.  This should go fairly quickly, now.
I would love to see some A/H aircraft in 1/32 scale and the Oeffag series would be the perfect starting point for WNW.  Cheers,
Bud

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Wow Bud, you've been a busy man!!
Nice work on the wings  - using them as the sanding block for the radiator is such an obvious solution and something I would never have thought of

Looking forward to the woodwork on the fuse and how you'll go about it.

Andrew

Thank you, Andrew.  How many times do we have to make a wing radiator conform to the top surface of a wing.  Not too often, I'd reckon.  I'd be willing to bet that you'd have thought of it if faced with the issue.  Prior to this, I never thought of it.
For the woodwork, I plan on experimenting with the HGW decals designed specifically for this kit.  I've read some negative things about them, but I want to try them for myself before condemning them.  If they fail, I can always fall back on Uschi decals (I know they work) or just use oils.  We'll see how it goes.
Cheers,
Bud