Beautiful work!
Those red and blue turnbuckles(?) create very interesting and eye-catching "spots". Painting looks awesome overall.
A question: In this build you use brass tubing and in other builds it is nickel-silver tubing instead, why different kinds? These are blackened, aren't the silver ones blackened perhaps?
Cheers
Fredrik
Hi Fredrik,
It seems that Fokker Eindecker aircraft used a colour-coded system for identifying the correct locations for the various turnbuckles.
This was because the aircraft were regularly stripped down for transport by road or rail.
The propeller was secured on the struts of the landing gear, the engine covered and the wing rigging wires detached.
The wings were removed from the fuselage and attached to the sides of the fuselage.
When refitting the wings and rigging, it was important that the correct turnbuckles were fitted to their associated rigging wires.
Therefore, the turnbuckles were colour-coded and instructions for the aircraft mechanics were marked on the wingtips.
The capture report of Fokker Eindecker E.III 210/16 stated that the turnbuckles were coloured as follows:
Starboard (right side) were coloured Red
Port (left side) were coloured Green
Fuselage and landing gear pylons were coloured Blue
It’s interesting to note that it seems they did not use the present day convention of Port (Red) and Starboard (Green).
The assumption is that this was common practice on all versions of the Eindecker aircraft.
Brass and Nickel-Silver tubing can be blackened with weathering solutions - I use 'Black-It' but there are others available.
Normally I'll use Brass tubing, as it's easy to anneal (soften) and soft solder to shape.
However, if the final finish is to be shiny metal, such as engine push rods, I'll use bare Nickel-Silver tubing.
Either can be primed and painted,
Mike
