Albatros D I 1/32 Roden

[Borsos]

Are you going to add the valves on the fuselage's belly at a later stage, or are you going to leave them off?

S.

Do you mean the drainage holes? Those, the air intakes, flaps and all other exterior detail on the fuselage will be added after decaling the fuselage and sealing the decals with varnish. As I have no plans of the exact location of the drainage holes in my Windsock plans, I'll follow this threat: http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=1836.120 (look at pic 4868 for the drainage holes). I'll not only use wood decals, I'll use HGW nailing decals for the nails too. so I want as less obstacles as possible for these procedures to get a smooth decalled finish.

[stefanbuss]

Do you mean the drainage holes?

Yes, indeed.

[moustique]

very good job
excellent

[RAGIII]

Outstanding painting on the fuselage panels. This will certainly look spectacular when the wood grain is finished! I love your work!
RAGIII

[Der Phönix]

This is quite a terrific and informative build to follow...many thanks for sharing your talents with us.

May I ask, what sort of decals are you using for the exterior wood grain? If you have mentioned it previously I shall need to have my spectacles changed.

Best regards,
DP

[Monty]

Wow! A whole lot more very useful details and techniques! And looking Great! Marc.

[Borsos]

Good evening and thank you very much for your kind comments!

May I ask, what sort of decals are you using for the exterior wood grain? If you have mentioned it previously I shall need to have my spectacles changed.

I use Uschi van der Rostens wood decals, "Ronny Bar", "fine veneer" and "knotless" are the names of the sheets I used. Sorry, I think I didn't mention that before. so your spectacles are fine  . I mixed these types as Bud did it with his 1/48 Gavia Albatros D I build:

After decalling almost the whole fuselage I gave it a shot of future mixed with Mr. Colour Clear Yellow. I wanted to try out, if I could add the missing decals after the yellow tinted varnish. And in fact, it's possible. I cannot remember, which decals exactly I added before or after the varnish:

The panel in front of the cockpit was the most difficult one to decal. Here I used three separate parts. The "tongue" between the machine guns was paint brushed, not airbrushed with varnish.

Thank you!
Borsos

As you can see: I definitely have to clean up my messy workbench...

[Der Phönix]

First off, Borsos, thanks for the tips and specificity re: the Uschi decals.

Secondly, truly outstanding work going on here.

Lastly, it has been my experience that a cleaned up work place is one in which there is generally little of significance happening. The quality of your craftsmanship speaks volumes about the fact that you are most assuredly not a slob.

I look forward to seeing this build continue.......it is a delight to watch unfold.

Best regards,
DP

[BigBlue]

That looks fantastic, Borsos!  I'll echo DP's thoughts... its a delight to watch it come together.

Chris

[lcarroll]

Borsos,
   You are producing an absolute masterpiece here, the woodgrain work is fantastic. A real joy to follow your progress, just magnificent work!
Cheers,
Lance

[GAJouette]

 Borsos,
I'm absolutely awe struck my friend with your woodgrain decal work. As Lance said a Masterpiece in the making.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[Ernie]

Breathtaking work, Borsos!  Your are really doing wonders here
and I am very, very impressed with your work.
Thanks a lot for sharing it, my friend.

Cheers,
Ernie

[RAGIII]

This is perhaps the Best work I have seen on a Roden Albatros! Your use of the Uschi Decals have me tempted to get some and try them out. Absolutely Stunning work!
RAGIII

[von Mertens]

Hi Borsos,

many thanks for your positive feedback on the Drooling Bulldog paints! Your build is very precise and I am glad to see you made great use of all the attributes of the paints as to e- g. their transparency effect. As an artist I am especially happy about it as my initial intention was to create paints that would raise the simple model painting to an artistic level. I have to say you made it happen in an excellent way. Looking forward to seeing the build finished.

Last but not least, I would be happy if you could share your impression and remarks on the paints on my website: http://www.droolingbulldog.com/responses/

Best regards

Mertens

[Borsos]

Good evening Gentlemen,
Thank you very much! Mertens, yes, of course I'll post a reply on the Drooling Bulldog homepage!

Today just some minor updates from my side -- some maior work that is not very prominently to be seen respectively.
Firts I gave the fuselage a careful pin wash to bring out the panellines.
Since two evenings now I'm adding the nailing to the wooden fuselage. I use HGW nailing decals. For those who shouldn't know, how they work: You cut the desired length of 'nails' from the backing paper and water it as you do with usual decals. Then you can add your decal strips to the fuselage. After about 3 hours (as the instructions say) you can remove the quite prominent decal strips and the nails should remain on the fuselage. So far in theory. My problem is that I just have time for modelling in the evening hours. And after three hours decalling 'nails' I cannot wait another three hours to remove anything. Therefore I removed the decal strips after about one hour and it worked quite well anyway. Some 'nails' (which are in fact regular black dots) remained on the decal, but I replaced them with a very fine black marker pen from Gunze. The left side is almoust done now, just some rows are missing:


I like the pretty subtle effect of the nails, which is far superior to reproduced nails by small holes in my opinion, but it's quite a time consuming and annoying work.
Besides of that I prepared all inspection hatches and other exterior detail from the Part PE fret and glued it on a strip of cardboard with double sided tape. I added the numbers from the instructions  and covered it with masking tape. Then I gave em a shot of Mr Surfacer 1000.

'Nailing' will take some more evenings... Then there should be something less annoying again, I hope.
Thank you!
Borsos