Crossing a DIII with a DH9a

[NigelR]

Did a few yesterday and popped it on the radiator overnight so hopefully that will keep things ticking along.

Hopefully you didn't have the heating up too high.......

[DaddyO]

Did a few yesterday and popped it on the radiator overnight so hopefully that will keep things ticking along.

Hopefully you didn't have the heating up too high.......

Well it's not melted yet . . . 

[DaddyO]

Couple of progress shots to mull over -

Because I decided not to engrave the separate wood panels I needed to come up with a way of painting them individually. The way I did this was to mask off the edge of each panel and brush a layer of acrylic against the edge of the tape which left a nice sharp ridge 

Albatros DIV panels by Paul S, on Flickr


It was then on with the trusty old oil paints for the woodgrain. Once everything is thoroughly dry I'll add a varnish coat with a touch of colour in it to tie everything together

Albatros DIV woodgraining by Paul S, on Flickr

Popped that back on the radiator for a few more days to avoid any damage. In the meantime I wanted to work out a way of adding the individual blades to the spinner so they didn't look 'stuck on'. I used the pegasus prop as a starting point; removed the blades and reshaped slightly then a bit of time with a new scalpel blade and my best magnifier gave me some cut outs that allowed the blades to appear to fit the spinner (I later painted the area below the blade in a darkish grey to help it disappear into shadow)

Albatros DIV spinner by Paul S, on Flickr

A lick of paint on the spinner and some superglue on the blades brass pins and we have an unusual three blader from WW1 

Albtros DIV propeller by Paul S, on Flickr

[ScottJ]

Paul, I remember you mentioning that you were not going to scribe panel lines but rather mask them and paint.  The results look excellent! If I remember correctly, Albatros cut their ply panels at an angle so the joint lines were very faint?  The way you handled this looks perfect, the panels are distinct but flush, no trenches for panel lines.  For your base are you still using the ochre/white acrylic mix?  Hope you're happy with the results, I think they look great.
Additionally, the propeller turned out excellent also.  Strange for the period to see a three bladed propeller.  You've gone above and beyond for the scratch elements on this aircraft, hope the rest of the build for you is very straight forward.
Looking forward to the next installment.

Scott

[NigelR]

Excellent scratchbuilidng skills as always, the prop looks fantastic. I really like your approach to the wood panel lines. I might try this on my Aviattic Fokker EV wing, because the panels on that overlapped slightly, so engraving panel lines is incorrect.

The wood grain looks very effective as well, this is a lovely build.

[DaddyO]

Paul, I remember you mentioning that you were not going to scribe panel lines but rather mask them and paint.  The results look excellent! If I remember correctly, Albatros cut their ply panels at an angle so the joint lines were very faint?  The way you handled this looks perfect, the panels are distinct but flush, no trenches for panel lines.  For your base are you still using the ochre/white acrylic mix?  Hope you're happy with the results, I think they look great.
Additionally, the propeller turned out excellent also.  Strange for the period to see a three bladed propeller.  You've gone above and beyond for the scratch elements on this aircraft, hope the rest of the build for you is very straight forward.
Looking forward to the next installment.

Scott

  Thank you Scott
Glad you like the effect as well. I'm pleased with the masking and painting method since I'm not a great fan of trenches for flush panels.
A bit of serendipity actually - I originally decided on this method because I didn't think I'd be able to scribe the main longitudinal lines neatly on both sides (having had a go on a scrap fuselage) Incidentally if you do want to scribe any lines I found 'dyno' tape is ideal; sticks firmly enough, is easy to remove and re-use and is thick enough to give a nice edge to scribe against.

But back to this one - Yes I'm using a mix of off white and a golden brown acrylic in varying proportions for the panel undercoats.

I thought, at first, it would take a couple of coats of paint to provide a thick enough line, but found that is too much (hence one of the panel lines is a bit prominent) A single coat of acrylic brushed up against the masking tape does the job perfectly.

Pleased with the three blader which was one of the main reasons for the project in the first place (At one of the shows earlier in the year I was asked about propellers and if there were any with three blades; I couldn't think of any, but came across a reference to them reading about the d.IV (I'm sure there would have been others as well)

Managed to break one of the cabanes, but it should glue back together okay with a spot of superglue when fitting. Hopefully get some time today to make up the undercarriage and tail skid.

Paul

ps - Whilst I hade the woodgrain thing going on I decided to refurbish an earlier build of d.V that needed repair so I disassembled the main components removed the old fuselage decals and repainted the wood panels damaged in the process. Think I've foud a scheme that will suit it and shouldn't be too troublesome . . . .

[DaddyO]

Excellent scratchbuilidng skills as always, the prop looks fantastic. I really like your approach to the wood panel lines. I might try this on my Aviattic Fokker EV wing, because the panels on that overlapped slightly, so engraving panel lines is incorrect.

The wood rain looks very effective as well, this is a lovely build.

Cheers Nigel. Glad you're enjoying it so far

The paint method works nicely to give a crisp panel line and should be ideal for the d.VIII/E.V wing. On the wood I found a single coat of acrylic brushed up to the Tamiya tape did the trick and the cowl is a two or three coats sprayed from a rattle can of Tamiya primer. If I was doing it again I'd just polish the ridge very slightly after removing the tape to soften it slightly.

[FokkerFodder]

Really coming along and the panel lines are a really neat trick. The three bladed propeller looks very cool as well.
Cheers
Matt

[DaddyO]

Really coming along and the panel lines are a really neat trick. The three bladed propeller looks very cool as well.
Cheers
Matt

Thanks Matt
Gradually getting there 

[lone modeller]

Got to agree with all of the above: the panels and prop are first class.

Stephen.

[DaddyO]

Cheers Stephen

Progress has been slower than I'd like, but I do like to allow things to dry for 24 hours between stages. So to add decals there's a lot of down time between varnish coats etc. Anyway nearly ready for assembly now (I'll add the final cockpit details once it's on its own wheels) Cockpit padding just added using duro putty hence the bright green colour at the moment

Albatros DIV assembly by Paul S, on Flickr

Rather than sit idle when waiting for paint to dry I thought it would be nice to have a standard Albie for comparison. Looking at the squashed Eduard DV from the great glass shelf disaster earlier this year I initially thought it was rather beyond saving (every strut broken or bent and paintwork damaged were the main problems) With a fresh look I realised that I could break it up and rebuild it a bit like Steve Austin 

Once dissembled I thought I may as well give it a different scheme so sanded off the old decals and repainted the wings top and bottom. To add a bit of difference between the two aircraft I removed the original headrest which meant repainting most of the fuselage in oils again. Still need to add a rudder cross (I've just removed the one I put on because it didn't adhere properly) 

Albatros DV Aloys Heldmann Jasta 10 by Paul S, on Flickr

The new scheme is from a Ronny Barr profile of Aloys Heldmann from Jasta 10 for those that didn't recognise it (I was originally going to paint a version with a headrest and longitudinal stripes, but they proved somewhat taxing  to mask off in this scale so I decided on this one instead)

The eagle eyed will spot a missing spandau and most of the front cockpit (bulkhead, ammo boxes, dashboards etc) was floating about loose inside so that was removed pending a decision on what to do about it; I may just cop out and add a roped on canvas cockpit cover . . . .

[lone modeller]

Whatever you choose to do I am sure that it will look fine. Anyway a cockpit cover will be different from the majority of models and with a suitable background could still look very good.

Stephen.

[NigelR]

This is looking good all round, another resurrection on the go as well. You seem to have got your festivals mixed up a bit.......

[DaddyO]

Whatever you choose to do I am sure that it will look fine. Anyway a cockpit cover will be different from the majority of models and with a suitable background could still look very good.

Stephen.

Thanks Stephen. I'm undecided at this point so we'll see how the rest of it progresses 

This is looking good all round, another resurrection on the go as well. You seem to have got your festivals mixed up a bit.......

Cheers Nigel LOLs 
Can't be waiting around for months till the right time;gt models queing up waiting to be built (Got an old Ardpol DH9 as a Christmas prezzy so perhaps a few more allied aircraft are in order to balance the display a bit)

[DaddyO]

Okay moment of truth time - fitting the upper wing 

Could have gone better . . . .
For a change I decided to add all the lines to the upper wing and finish cleaning up and painting all the ensuing holes (I use fishing line drilled all the way through the wing panels to rig) Seemed like a good idea at the time even though there's a bit of a cats cradle of lines taped out of the way when it comes to wing fitting.

When I glued in the cabanes, including the broken one, everything looked okayish even if I managed to not get one of the struts quite deep enough into the predrilled hole. Adding the interplane struts revealed an issue showing that a couple of the holes drilled for them were slightly off despite very careful measuring and the wing was slightly askew (We are talking tiny fractions here probably not noticeable to the casual view, but enough that I could see when placed over a plan) The broken cabane just wouldn't join up properly again and looked a bit of a mess.
I was faced with a quandary - break it apart again or ignore it

No guesses at which path I chose.
I managed to extract the cabane without too much damage and when this was done I could see that most of other problems could be solved by removing and redrilling one of the interplane strut holes and making this strut a tad longer (or dilling the new hole deeper) This would mean also moving the carefully installed wires to that strut, but hey ho. Time to sand up some more brass wire.
(Pieces of the damaged interplane are painted grey below and a few salvaged pieces meant there wouldn't be too many other bits needed)

broken struts by Paul S, on Flickr


Since I couldn't face the whole soldering up bit again an executive decision was taken to make this interplane up in pieces and glue in situ thus ensuring everything remained nice and square.

DIV Cabane by Paul S, on Flickr


If you look closely below you can see the filled hole which shows how small the difference between a nice and square front strut and one that looks like it lived in a brewery.
Interplane DIV by Paul S, on Flickr