WnW Albatros D.V "Ernst Udet" complete

[gedmundson]

Having this kit sitting in the stash for a while I thought I'd finally put it together, along with the after-market decals I'd bought from WnW a while back to make Ernst Udet's one with the natural wood fuselage. I'd picked up a Proper Plane propeller for it, and the corrected spinner, along with the Aviattic lozenge decals, so I'm all set.

There have been a lot of very nice Albatrii built and shown on this forum...so I'm hoping my effort measures up.

Cheers,
Gary




I always start with the engine, and have added the wires from the magnetos using thin lead wire.


Trying something different for the insulation on the intake manifold here using miniature ship's rigging rope which of course will be painted over.


I added the throttle to the control column with some spare bits, and also glued in some control lines for it, the guns, and the elevator.


Learning a trick from Eric Larsen's build, I've masked the slots for the formers so paint won't build up and interfere when I need to fit everything together.


Even though I did buy the Proper Plane laminated wood propeller (which is bueatiful) I painted the kit prop ....maybe for a future build (since I also have the "Green Tail Trilogy" kit).

[KiwiZac]

That's the kit prop painted? It looks magnificent!!

[gedmundson]

That's the kit prop painted? It looks magnificent!!

Thanks Zac - yes that's the kit prop. I copied the pattern from the Proper Plane one, pictured with it's spinner here.

[pepperman42]

Now this will be fun to watch. Great start

Steve

[AlbertD]

Your off to a great start. That prop looks amazing.

[macsporran]

Excellent start, Gary. I like the rigging rope idea.
Sandy

[TimDEFR]

To me the Albatros' with natural wood fuselage and some nice lozenge wings are among the most beautiful WW1 subjects you could possibly build. Looking forward to seeing your take on it.

Will you paint the fuselage like with your B II Albatros?

Best,
Tim

[gedmundson]

To me the Albatros' with natural wood fuselage and some nice lozenge wings are among the most beautiful WW1 subjects you could possibly build. Looking forward to seeing your take on it.

Will you paint the fuselage like with your B II Albatros?

Best,
Tim

Thanks Tim - I totally agree about the scheme :-)

My plan is to paint the woodgrain in a similar fashion to the way I did it on the B.II, but to make it lighter. I've been taking notes from some of the builds here, and Kensar & Eric Larsen have done some terrific work on their respective projects. I plan to make my woodgrain quite a bit lighter than the B.II build by undercoating with a different base paint, and using more ochre oils in the overall finish.
Cheers,
Gary

[RAGIII]

Outstanding work on  the engine, and that Painted Prop is Gorgeous! I am looking forward to seeing you work your Magic on the wood grain fuselage!
RAGIII

[gedmundson]

Outstanding work on  the engine, and that Painted Prop is Gorgeous! I am looking forward to seeing you work your Magic on the wood grain fuselage!
RAGIII

Thanks for that, Rick 

While getting ready to apply the underside lozenge to the lower wings, I noticed my decals were for an Albatros D.Va, which had the access panel cut-outs for the aileron pulleys The Albatros D.V has the cables in the upper wing. Perhaps I bought the wrong set of decals?? But when I checked Aviattic's website - that's all they had (for the D.V and D.Va). Regardless, I had to remove the access panel surround and patch up the hole (even though the national marking covers most of it). I did end up cutting out a new section of lozenge from another sheet, and put in a patch between the rib tapes.

Cheers,
Gary


Removing the offending access panel surround, and attempting to patch it with a small rectangle didn't work at all.


Using another sheet of underside lozenge, I cut a strip needed to fill the section between the rib tapes.

[RAGIII]

Nice fix on the lozenge. Looking terrific!
RAGIII

[pepperman42]

Nice save on a tricky situation!!

Steve

[gedmundson]

Rick and Steve - thanks for the comments!

Continuing with the engine and whilst studying reference photos I noticed that the 180hp Mercedes had primer cups on the engine cylinders. Not sure why I missed this detail before on all of my previous builds of this type? I had some 1/32 primer cups from an order to Aviattic from my last build, so included them here.

I made spark plugs from styrene rod cemented to bolts salvaged from spare parts of a 1/35 Takom armour model, and added some small tubing from copper wire at the front, coming down from the air pump. The Smithsonian book about the Albatros D.Va restoration has come in very handy for this build, indeed.

Cheers,
Gary

[pepperman42]

Rolling Stones - You Can Start Me Up!!!

Steve

[Umlaufmotor]

I like this engine - you can see, feel and smell the hot oil.
The thin cord around the intake manifolds even looks quite convincing.
I would not have thought that before.
Great job!
It's almost always a shame to let these engines disappear into the fairings never to be seen again.
But thank goodness there is relatively much of the engine visible on the Albatros.

I am currently building three of them at the same time. 2x D.Va and one D.V.
The D.V, which I am currently building, is the first option on the decalsheet in your first picture.

I continue to look over your shoulder Gary.

Servus
Bertl

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