Albatros D.III Joachim Von Bertrab Jasta 30 1/48 Eduard

[Gilly]

Hopefully a phoenix will arise from the ashes that the postie brought me a while back, before I commenced building WW1 I tried supplementing my diecast WW1's with a built Albatros D.III.

Alas it was not to be as all that I received of this lovely and very well built model  from a very well packaged parcel was a model in bits. All struts detached, rigging every where and all wing sections detached. This first pic is after I started preparing the wing sections, removing wing decals , rubbing down the painted surfaces, cleaning up , attaching wing securing pins made from appropriate sized paper clips and priming.





Engine masked (unfortunately it is loose and I can not retrieve it without opening up the fuselage) MG's removed, rigging and wing mounting holes drilled and redrilled, undercarriage reattached , cockpit stuffed with tissue , lightly abraded and primed.




and this is where we stand at the moment folks, decals already sourced and on the desk  . next up some pre-shading using the graphite pencil method.

[coyotemagic]

Sorry she arrived so battered, Gilly.  At least now you can make her your own.  This will be excellent rigging practice for you, as well.
Cheers,
Bud

[RAGIII]

Terrible luck with the disassembled condition. On the other hand like Bud said now you are making it your own! The repairs look great!!
RAGIII

[Gilly]

Thank you Bud and RagIII, it was a great shame to see such a lovely model in such a state, however it did give me the opportunity to inspect certain methods and techniques a little closer in preparation for my pfalz build than if she had been intact. So every cloud has a silver lining  .

I do look forward to making this my own now and as you say Bud the rigging practice will stand me in good stead, I think I will use turnbuckles for this one and see how it turns out. I will be relying a great deal on builds in the forum to base my rigging on as I can not locate a copy of the windsock datafile for the Albatros D.III for a reasonable price anywhere . So I need to spend some time collating rigging info for this aircraft before I dive in. If anyone does have a link to a site with diagrams I would be most grateful.

Thanks again folks

[RAGIII]

I think Bobs Buckles has a diagram showing 3 methods of using Turnbuckles and attachment points. Also check out Des's builds on the home page. He is a Master. IHTH,
RAGIII

[Gilly]

I think Bobs Buckles has a diagram showing 3 methods of using Turnbuckles and attachment points. Also check out Des's builds on the home page. He is a Master. IHTH,
RAGIII

Thanks for the info RagIII, very much appreciated.

[Pete Nottingham]

It already looks as though you are putting your stamp on this model, a good start, don't be put off by the rigging, after the first 2 or 3 'wires' it does get easier.

Cheers

Pete.

[Gilly]

Thanks Pete, much appreciated.

Latest on this little project, which unfortunately is progressing at snails pace

Fuselage sprayed with Mrhobby flat black with just a hint of  purple, turnbuckles secured in prep for the rigging process ahead. Wing lower surfaces sprayed using misterkit Acrylic Albatros blue, prop base coat sand , masked and sprayed with a red brown sand mix, still need to finish with clear orange.

Wing upper surfaces masked and sprayed using Misterkit Acrylics Albatros Red Brown, Albatros Light Green and Albatros Green, unfortunately my hard demarcation lines were too hard and I experienced bleed through , however a recovery is being made and they will be fine with a little TLC

Thats all for now folks, next up tidy up those wings and tailplane, another coat on the fuselage , Klear the lot, decals and then start to rebuild her.

[Ernie]

After the disappointment beginning this journey you are making very good
progress, Gilly.  Keep up the good work.
Looking forward to the next update.

Cheers,
Ernie

[Rob Hart]

The model appears to be coming along nicely. That is about the tidiest work area I have seen. Mine looks like the inside of a dumpster in comparison.

[RAGIII]

The model appears to be coming along nicely. That is about the tidiest work area I have seen. Mine looks like the inside of a dumpster in comparison.
[/quote

Nice progress! By the way, if their was a competition for the messiest, dirtiest, most cluttered work area, I think I would win
RAGIII

[Gilly]

Thank you for all the kind comments , they are very much appreciated. With reference the work space, am afraid its a case of OCD , combined with being ex navy and everything has to be stowed away just in case we hit roughers .

Still slow progress am afraid folks and a tad dissapointing, again my old enemy decals  . I had purchased at what I thought was a very good price ,the Superscale 1/48 sheet Albatros D-III Jasta 10 & Jasta 30  48-599 to do this rebuild and it was not until I had secured the white wing crosses did I realise that the black inners the accompanying literature referred to were not on the sheet, along with a few more of the decals  , therefore I assume that there should be a second sheet to this set , however in the product listing it shows only one, so a big mystery as to where the missing decals are . Has any one ever used this set and found the same or am I just unlucky . Also the fuselage comet and tail just looks too bright for me and I feel makes the model toy like






However in the best traditions of us folks I dragged out spare decals from my Pfalz build and found two black inner crosses, unfortunately badly cracked but after some time consuming application I achieved a save, just a little touching up to do on the evident cracks.

Guns and exhaust now in place. I now need to attack the weathering and do something about the glaring comet . Any handy hints on weathering and shading of all black would be much appreciated folks, indeed any help and comments regarding the rebuild so far and where I could improve would be greatly appreciated.

[Des]

You are doing a marvelous job on this model Gilly, the painting and decals application looks very good, can't see where you had issues with the top wing decals, you pulled off a great save. Some of our weathering experts will pipe in and help you out with your question, keep up the good work, it's looking great.

Des.

[coyotemagic]

She's coming together brilliantly, Gilly.  Gorgeous paint and decal work.
Cheers,
Bud

[Gilly]

Thank you for your very kind comments Des & Bud, they are as always very much appreciated.