Model Airways 1/16th Scale Albatros D.Va (Slow Build)

[jeroen_R90S]

+1!

[KiwiZac]

Fantastic. No pressure Grant, I'm just happy you're sharing this adventure with us.

[RAGIII]

Impressive start to what will be a beautiful model!
RAGIII

[lone modeller]

That looks complicated. I have built two models showing internal structures in 1/32 scale but this one looks very much more detailed. I will be following with interest to see how things are put together - always on the lookout for ideas!

Stephen.                       

[Grant]

Today was mostly spent figuring how to make the 12 upper wing ribs that create the middle of the upper wing look more realistic, being this is a bare bones model. The ribs are missing wood at trailing edge as described in the image below. Model Airways ribs are really well done and I'm sure they did not fill-in the trailing edge per the original drawings as laser cutting that small would be very difficult. So my goal was to try and make the ribs look a little more accurate when compared to the actual Albatros D.Va drawings in the Smithsonian restoration book #4. I feel good with my efforts today to create the look and now I can start to work on finishing up the remainder of these ribs. This will add a lot more time to the build but the upgraded ribs should look pretty convincing.

[KiwiZac]

Nice work Grant - that's the sort of detail I'd have missed, especially without such good references.

[Grant]

KiwiZac,


Thank you sir!
The Smithsonian book on the Albatros D.Va is outstanding, so much detail is provided. The hard part is knowing when to stop adding things to the model so one can finish it one day 

[KiwiZac]

KiwiZac,


Thank you sir!
The Smithsonian book on the Albatros D.Va is outstanding, so much detail is provided. The hard part is knowing when to stop adding things to the model so one can finish it one day 

I know the feeling - I have a Nichimo 1/20 Hughes 500 helicopter being built as a deer recovery machine and the urge to add every detail must be overcome at some point!

[jamieg]

Thank you for reposting the images. I can see this is going to be amazing!

[RAGIII]

Outstanding attention to detail. In this scale and uncovered I am sure the extra work will pay off!
RAGIII

[Grant]

jamieg,

I'm glad the pics are finally working correctly and thanks to everyone's help on getting that process figured out.

Update on my progress, still a lot of research going on 

I have decided to turn this project into a 50% box and 50% scratch build mostly due to the information that I've gathered from the drawings provided in the Smithsonian book, I feel I want to take the extra effort to make my Albatros as close to the real thing as my skills will allow me. The Model Airways kit is fantastic, and pretty darn accurate model from a box kit of this kind as they do have to keep a balance between cost of creating the kit and production time, build time on the user end etc. so I'm not faulting the kit in anyway. If you want to see one built pretty much stock and extremely well done, here is a link to Brian Colton's Albatros build. His was the inspiration to get me rolling on building one of these kits, very talented builder! He has also done nice build logs on the Model Airways DR1 and Camel.

Build by Brian Colton, Piccadilly South Australia
https://albatrosbuildlog.tumblr.com/

Last night I was cross referencing the drawings that were created at the Smithsonian Institute during the restoration of their Albatros D.Va. I took the drawings and resized it to 1/16th scale and printed it out to see how the overall rib outline and the camber on the bottom of the wing matched up with the kit ribs. The kits ribs have a different camber but the shape is correct. On the real Albatros the two top wing center ribs were found to have a slightly different camber, most likely due to the radiator located up in that wing section to make the wing match it better during the covering process.

Here is a picture of the 1/16th scale Smithsonian Drawing that I will be using, very well done and really the only actual drawings that exists taken from a real Albatros D.Va.


I also learned that the ribs of the original were made of solid Basswood, no plywood was used in the rib sections. Upon leaning this nugget of information, I will now have to recreate all the ribs out of solid basswood as the kit provided ribs are made of a 3 ply material and they are to thick as well. I started to create rib templates out of styrene that match the new drawing so I can make the rib sections a little faster and consistent in shape.




Here you can see the rib camber difference between the kit rib and my new template rib.


Here is a picture showing my new rib template laid out on the plans to check for accuracy, don't want to have to this twice!



This is a shot of the middle rib sections I mentioned above that have the different camber to allow for the wing radiator.


Not sure if anyone has used this material before so my apologies if this is old news. I found a supplier online sometime ago that sells paper made of wood. Here is a picture of some 0.010 thick wood paper, short and long grain Birch, the stuff is amazing!



Here is a link to the supplier, just ordered some 0.026 for my wing ribs, should look amazing once they are cut, shaped and stained. Excellent customer service, have used them for sometime now and they mail your items out asap.
https://www.realwoodpaper.com/

One other item that I will be adding for a little extra eye candy will be the rib numbering system that was applied at the Albatros factory. The Albatros had numbers and location stamped on the ribs to help aid in the assembly process. Each rib was stamped with the rib location, factory identification stamp, and signed by the inspector. I just had to attempt this as well and here are my results after playing around with original photos in photoshop creating them to the correct resize so they look correct at 1/16th scale.
Numbers were stamped on the wings starting from the center out the left and right with the numbers being stamped on the outer side each wing rib facing the wing tips. The process was 1 O.L, 2 O.L, 3 O.L etc.


Here is the factory stamp and inspectors signature taken from the original photos so they are legit!


Hope this update was not to long or boring, just wanted to catch up on my progress so far.
Now off for a class of wine and a book on Jagdstaffel 2 that I just got in the mail, should be a good read.



Thanks!
Grant

[KiwiZac]

I have decided to turn this project into a 50% box and 50% scratch build mostly due to the information that I've gathered from the drawings provided in the Smithsonian book, I feel I want to take the extra effort to make my Albatros as close to the real thing as my skills will allow me. The Model Airways kit is fantastic, and pretty darn accurate model from a box kit of this kind as they do have to keep a balance between cost of creating the kit and production time, build time on the user end etc. so I'm not faulting the kit in anyway.

Grant, this is inspired. And I thought I was excited when you were just building the kit! This is a fantastic idea and I applaud the effort you're putting in.

I seem to remember The Vintage Aviator Limited having some involvement (all?) in refurbishing the Australian War Memorial's D.Va D5390/17 in 2008 and as part of the project 3D scanned EVERYTHING. I imagine they generated drawings also - it could be worth dropping them a line to see if any such information is available, but to be honest given you have the Smithsonian work I imagine you're quite content with that!

[lone modeller]

This is truly stunning what you are doing. I intend to have a front seat to keep up with the action here.

Stephen.

[Grant]

KiwiZac,


The Smithsonian book mention's the Australian War Memorial's D.Va as it was restored from an original as well before the Smith's was. I believe these are the only two original aircraft in existences. I followed your link and WOW, love it! More great photos and information, very much appreciate the link, pictures are worth, well you know the expression. I will most defiantly be spending sometime on their site to see what insight that comes to light.


Thanks again Sir!


 

[Grant]

Lone Modeller,


Thanks for the encouragement and I really like your forum name, great choice.