MENG 1/24 DR1 FOKKER TRIPLANE

[KiwiZac]

It's crazy beautiful, oh wow! What a gorgeous piece of work!

[kensar]

A very good looking engine!

[RAGIII]

Excellent work on the engine. It looks fantastic!
RAGIII

[dinor]

How the time goes by!..after a long break from the plastic modelling side of things I have started again on the build of the Meng DR1.

Cockpit tub complete, I tried masking tape for parts of the seat harness over the material supplied by Meng and found that it accepted washes and weathering better..at least to my eye.

I'd forgotten how much i enjoy this. 

Less enjoyable is the frustration in trying to recall, unsuccessfully, forgotten techniques and having to relearn them..the number of times I've said ' now how did I do that?' or 'ah yes, of course I'd forgiotten that' !

All good.

[dinor]

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[dinor]

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[dinor]

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[NigelR]

Welcome back! Looking forward to seeing more progress on this one.....

[Monty]

Absolutely super, Dinor! It's great to have you back working on this lovely model! Regards, Marc

[Allan31]

Welcome back, great stuff.

[dinor]

Hello everyone

A quick question for the more knowledgeable...related to the gap between the tailplane and the main fueslage...is that left 'as is' after glueing the taiplane on , with a sgnifcant gap.. I suppose representing the fact it is a different assembly or component or is the gap filled in representing a continuation of the fabirc covering along the entore fuselage length ?

Some completed models have this filled in and some do not...my feeling from photos of the real aircraft is that it should be filled in to represent a continous fabric covering but not 100% sure.

Thanks in advance.

Dino

[acewwi]

Hi Dino,
left the gap as is
http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/v98C7274C/www/products/model_kitsets/32068/archive_photos/Early%20production%20Fokker%20Dr.1%20187~17%20tailplane%20detail%20(0008-006).jpg
http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/v98C7274C/www/products/model_kitsets/32069/archive_photos/Tailplane%20detail%20from%20Fokker%20Dr.1%20512~17%20(0079-36).jpg
Spyros

[dinor]

Spyros

Thank you...and its quite significant as well.

I've also noted that in these photos the evelator is slightly up when in a static position. In other photos I noted that the elevator was down and scribed the elevators in the Meng kit to refect that....good to know both ways are correct so it seems !

Thanks Again

[dinor]

Progress continues on the build...... with some minor challenges...

I put together the lower and middle wings and noticed a slight bow which I could live with. The top wing however, had a very pronounced 'bowing' which was unacceptable.

I have encountered this before on an old relase 1/24 Airfix Spitfire so armed with some experience in fixing that I set to and ground out the inner structure so it could accept a 2.4mm OD length of piano wire as a stiffener.

I laid a line of 4mm carbon fibre weave in the groove, wetted that with epoxy and then positioned the wire onto that with a little more 30 minute epoxy. Paid careful attention to not having any epoxy dry above the height of the rest of the assembly. Weighted the assemby down and just checked on it now..straight as a die and nice fitment with the lower half. Well worth the couple of hours effort.

The wings have caused me some angst I have to say. Mainly around the tabs to which they are attached to the main sprue. They required an inordinate amount of careul sanding after cutting away from the sprue, the plastic was very soft and caused some noticeable 'pitting'. Also the join line on the leading edge required filler in a number of spots, on the lower and middle wings so far, no matter how much I trial fitted and sanded.

I put this down to my relative inexprereince rather than issues with the kit. Its the first serious issue I have encountered and to date it has been a very enjoyable build.

The only other major issue worth noting was that with the motor and cowl trial fitted the motor butts up against the front cowl which is not realistic. 

InitiallyI thought this was cause by part E8 not sitting perfectly flat with the bulkhead so I fixed this but the issue remains...learn to live with it time!

I offer the above points , again not as criticims of the kit, but as points of note for anyone else comtemplating the build.

Its a nice kit and a lovely scale...I am hopeful it will build into something nice....oh how I wish that Wingnut Wngs had progressed with their proposed range of 1/24 models 

[NigelR]

Interesting. The warped wings are a common issue with the 1/32 kit but the two folks I know that have built the 1/24 kit didn't have any issues with warped wings. It looks like you have solved the problem well.