Roden 1/72 Albatros W4

[andonio64]

Hallo friends,
here is the model I am working on: the German floatplane derived from the much more famous D1.

I decided to make the version portrayed on the box: the 747 is the very first prototype of this plane, tested by Oblt.d R. Friedrich Christiansen in August 1916.

After a few trials on this version (called "early") they went on to the "Late" version (July 1917) and then German Navy gave its preferences to more manoeuvrables Friedrichshafen and Hansa Brandenburg...

As I have said elsewhere my preferred scale is 1/48, but when I saw this box in the 5 EURO bargain basket in my favourite shop just 2 blocks away from home I decided to take it because i loved it's line. I was just choosing a way to start back modeling after 20+ years of pause, and bought this together ith the Ansaldo SVA 5 presented in another thread.

The results so far are not the best one can wish but that's it, will put some pictures just to get up to the state of the art of this model of mine, then will post "live" material each time I have news.

Enjoy and don't be afraid of express criticisms and advice.

THE BOX



THE DECALS

Many friends warned me about the quality of the Roden Decals, and in the end I discovered they were right and had to print new decals on my inkjet

THE SPRUES

Quality of the details is great, sharp and well designed, but flashes of plastic were so big and gave me an extra (unwanted) work load...


Here is the engine shown by my assistant 

Axial propeller

I discovered after the decal was sealed that the A had to be put upside down...

I replaced the plastic radiators provided in the box with these photoetched

[andonio64]

Then I worked on the fuselage:
no pins or pegs or holes, just faible traces on the surfaces suggesting the position of the joint points...
That's one of the bigger drawback of this kit (IMHO)


I did it myself:
Yellow arrows indicate the holes that wil host the struts coming up from the floaters (they weren't there)
Green arrows indicate holes to insert the wings.

Then I inserted copper pegs in the wings to join them to the fuselage:


and had a "dry" try


FLOATERS:
Drilled, rigged, gued and painted:



I worked on the wings and tail planes, masking the ribs with some 0,75 mm tape...




Meanwhile I made some test to decide how to paint the wood grain:

I decided to adopt the top right solution
- base coat of acrylic yellow ochre
- streaks of diluted Natural Sienna
- Coating of clear yellow (Gunze)

Then I painted the cockpit and made a try to put some piece with the closed fuselage. I decided to go on detailing the cockpit with the closed fuselage.
I must be sincere but I have no documentation about the interior details of the W4 (I have the Windsock mini datafile but there is nothing interesting in it) so I take bits and pieces of inspiration from other builders and WIPs doing this version ad also other non floating Albatrosses
Piece "A" is a screen usually seen behind the seat ...

[pepperman42]

Great start on a fiddley kit!!!

Steve

[andonio64]

The seat is a "Part" photoetched made for the D.I, plied and painted it, then I made a cushion from a piece of 0,5 thin plasticard. See the photoetched cushion on the right


The rudder: I masked the white primer to avoid painting the area which would have hosted the black cross, then I cut the cross getting rid of the white panels on the decal sheet and slipped it on the white square. One broke (the one on the opposite side, not visible here - but I managed to make ends meet !), in this way I avoided the woodgrain peep from behind the white decal.



Added  photoetched seat belts to the seat

black crosses outlined on the masking tape and painted on the wings

[andonio64]

Bob's buckles beneath the upper wing:




I am experiencing many problems on the self made decals:
I printed two series and the black areas often appear cracked, in the zoom picture you can see it, I think the paper is not good, my inkjet shows no problems on normal prints...
I have coated the decals with "Liquid Decal Film" and the result is shown below: after the decals were painted had about one week to dry, but the ink melted producing those horrible gray streaks...



Here are some images of the progresses made on the interiors:





Using Part photoetched details I prepared the two instrument panels using the  transparent film they have included in the packet.
I also had to cut apart the two pieces because the whole piece did not fit into the cockpit, in any case once covered the separation won't be visible...
Doing so the two separated pieces did not have enough contact with the inner walls of the cockpit so I had to put some plasticard rods behind them to hold them in place...




The compass

[andonio64]

Detail of the closed cockpit and other parts


This is more or less where I got last time:


As you can see in the lower pic the tail planes are not levelled, moreover I noticed I made the holes for the cables to move them a bit too forward, so I decided to re-make them:

I filled them with putty and sanded
Then I painted over again and drilled it again


Then I glued the wings to the fuselage


I made two small piles of 5 coins (1 euro cent each) to ensure they had the same height

You can se above the tail planes before sanding and below the same piece after the treatment...


The cables in place again


Next step: over the weekend I will work on the wing and cabane struts and I hope to fix the upper wing...
 

[Whiteknuckles]

Great work, looking like it will be a superb model!! Good to see a floatplane build.

Andrew

[GAJouette]

  Antonio,
She's looking great my friend.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[pepperman42]

Those are tiny bits and bobs!!! Great work getting them all together.

Steve

[Maxfinn]

That's looking really good.  I've got the Roden kit, an old Pegasus kit, and the 1/4 scale Eduard kit.  Here's to hoping that WnW eventually does one!

Anyway, yours is looking great and I'm looking forward to hearing how tough you find the floats and upper wing to mount!

Mike

[Pete Nottingham]

Lovely job Antonio, 1/72 is far, far too small for me, but you are doing a fantastic job.

Cheers

Pete.

[andonio64]

Thanks Pete, I agree with you about the 72nd scale, I look forward to finishing it and take over my next job: a SPAD VII C1 definitely in 1/48.

To be honest in my stash there is also a DH2 in 144th but I look at it as a "divertissement", the rest is all in 48th.

Bye

Antonio

[GAJouette]

  Antonio,
Dh-2 in 1/144 scale! How in the world can you see well enough to rig her my friend.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[andonio64]

 
That's something I started thinking about after buying the kit, but I decided it's useless to think about it now...
 

It will be fun!
 

[andonio64]

Some advance in the work:
I put the cables for lifting the plane with a crane on the land, I also invented a sort of ring to hook the crane, but I don't have any photographic proof it was there.
I imagine of course that the cables weren't in place during flight, maybe the pilot kept them in the cockpit...



Then I started the operations to put the upper wing on.
I mixed two approaches I learnt somewhere in the forums I am currently in:
I made a transparent plastic copy of the upper wing


Then I placed it over the real piece and punched the holes for the struts in correspondance with the real ones, I also put a couple of plastic pieces to avoid the struts of the cabane to slide laterally


Now the struts are glued in their place

Later on this night I also glued the upper wing and the rigging, tomorrow will post the pictures...

Now it's time to say good night!

Antonio