Author Topic: WingnutWings Fokker D.VII (Alb) Robert Greim, Jasta 34b (Read 32686 times)

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #120 on:** January 07, 2019, 06:26:38 AM »

I apologize for not to replying to everyone sooner, I've been busy with work and the holiday season, and when I had the time I simply wasn't in the mood to do much modelling. As I work in IT I'm not always very motivated (after sitting all day behind a screen) to go and to the same in the evening!

But alas, I would have loved to get the Fokker done before 31-12 but that's not happening. I'm not going to rush this one... I did get further along, as can be seen here:

Propeller
I'm sure (almost) everyone knows how to paint a propeller like this, but I figured I'd share my try here, more to see what I can improve upon, though for a first try I'm quite happy with it actually...

While painting wood basecolour (9:1 white:sand) I also shot the propeller. After looking at a lot of images of Niendorf propellers I started masking out the lines, but didn't get it right so I had to do it 3 times...

Eventually I got the hang of it, and found that if you look from the side and it's all straight, the curves almost follow by themselves (mostly...). This is helped by the fact that the Niendorf has (like the Heine) a flat backside, making alignment somewhat(!) easier...
I then filled the parts that needed to remain light with Revell liquid mask:

Then shot Lifecolor Dark Earth, which covered quite poorly and needed quite a few layers, with ridges as a result... it also needed some touch-ups:

I then glossed it and used oil paints for the wood grain. After the oils had fully cured, it was glossed again.

I then used my new woefully expensive new toy to cut a mask for the hub:
Measuring the hub:

Divide by half, and set the circle cutter up:

Apply mask, and mask up the rest of the prop, then spray metal colour:

I used a highly advanced template to make sure both logo's were the same distance from the centre:

And after a wash in the hub, decals, and a final satin coat:

Engine
The 180hp replacement engine was finished like the 200hp version and after washes and weathering finished with satin varnish, ready for installation:

All the other bits...
Many hours of chipping with a small brush, highlighting raised details with lighter versions of base colours, washes, filters, etc etc... but impossible to photograph with the winter "light" we currently have...
So some things that can be shown...
Axle wing (the original colour can be seen on the axles)

Earlier I satin-coathed the green coaming, this was masked for the rest which I'll give a coat of flat varnish:

Painted the hubs satin after weathering, but wanted the tires matt, so used my fancy circle cutter again, making this a 2 minute job:

Fuselage and wings are now (mostly) weathered and nearly there for final assembly:

Happy 2019!

Jeroen

PS Thanks to PrzemoL, Lance, Mguns and others I've somewhat secretly started my next build when I could not work on the D.VII: the WNW USAS Camel to be done as E.W. Springs 148th Aero D8250. Thanks for the inspiration, I'll try to post something if I have anything useful to show ;-)

RAGIII · « **Reply #121 on:** January 07, 2019, 09:22:38 AM »

Excellent prop, engine, and weathering! Terrific update all around!
RAGIII

Manni · « **Reply #122 on:** January 07, 2019, 04:41:56 PM »

Outstanding work, Jeroen! As all of your builds.
Bye,
Manni

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #123 on:** January 12, 2019, 05:59:39 AM »

Thanks for looking in, RAGIII and Manni!

Today I got more done, I've been working quite a few extra hours at work and they're not getting paid in money but they are given back in time. However, due to the fact that there is so much going on now there's not much chance of actually using up the accumulated hours!
However, this (friday) afternoon I got to take a few hours off as I'd done my part of a project and it's now in other hands. However, it was not a very fun session. Earlier this week I glued in the engine for good, added the lower radiator pipe, forward, the lower cowls and lastly the and rear side panels (the triangular ones). This afternoon I had intended to add the remaining small bits, as in the scratch-built radiator support bars, and when these were added I had intended to add the final side cowls.
However, those little struts simply did not want to get installed. They slipped from my tweezers, rotated the wrong way, caused glue stains on some other framework parts... it wasn't pretty!
Finally I installed one, but the other pinged off to feed the carpet monster so I had to make a new one and finally installed that, after which it was painted.
When I admired my work I noticed the engine and panel insides were much more weathered than the engine framing, so I weathered that with oil paints first. After that I finally added the last side panels and called the engine bay done.

Well... almost.... I forgot the scratch built radiator flap....
I managed to install that, too, but could not install it's actuator cable with all the panels installed. So I left that off, I was done for now. When all the paint is dry I'll add the rudder and elevator and it's time to install the lower wing.
I'll let everything dry properly first, though. Pictures hopefully this weekend, that is, if I don't drop either the model or the camera on top of it first!

Jeroen

UFAG · « **Reply #124 on:** January 13, 2019, 07:42:19 AM »

Quote from: RAGIII on January 07, 2019, 09:22:38 AM

Excellent prop, engine, and weathering! Terrific update all around!
RAGIII

I am with all that..!!

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #125 on:** January 13, 2019, 07:53:29 PM »

Thanks!

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #126 on:** January 17, 2019, 06:46:51 AM »

And a picture to prove my earlier post ;-) :

In the meantime the lower wing was also attached, after scraping paint from the firewall and trimming the lozenge decals overlap from the fuselage it simply clicked into place and was glued with Extra Thin. A world of difference with my previous Roden 1/72 models!

The undercarriage was mostly finished by now, but I wanted a bit more dirt/mud without going overboard. Though weathered, the model isn't really that dirty. After a bit of thinking and experimenting with several paints and brushes, all not to my liking, I came up with an idea. The wheel obviously rolls over the (dirty) grass and soil, so I simply dabbed Lifecolor Dark Earth on a piece of tape and rolled the wheel through it. Not quite satisfied, as the "muddy" area was too limited, as in, there was nothing on the sides. So I came up with this:

Rolled some of the other kit wheel options through that:

Pretty nice I thought, the Dark Earth is the aforementioned Lifecolour, the reddish colour is Revell Aqua 85 (Brown), the Lifecolour is quite thin, where the Aqua is thicker. That latter (other than the colour, obviously, which I don't really like as dirt) is more useful for more more muddy models, but not for my D.VII

So I went with the Lifecolour, and then added specks and streaks with a 0000 brush, and assembled the whole thing, remembering the tip bij RAGIII I wrote down earlier in the instructions to add the little horseshoe-shaped retainers before the whole is added to the model. The fit of these is, indeed, very tight! (The tire base colour is Lifecolour RLM75 Grauviolet, don't tell anyone!)

And, much like the Camel colour test, the current dark weather makes photography a disaster... this is the best I could do with artificial light :-/

Hopefully she'll be done soon!

Jeroen

Borsos · « **Reply #127 on:** January 17, 2019, 07:28:01 AM »

That’s an amazing build so far and I am sure it will be a beauty once finished. The tyre-weathering idea is very good.
best regards
Andreas

RAGIII · « **Reply #128 on:** January 17, 2019, 08:51:28 AM »

Nice Idea with rolling the wheels through the mud/paint. I may try that one in the future!
RAGIII

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #129 on:** January 26, 2019, 05:14:51 AM »

Thanks, Andreas and RAGIII

I didn't get a lot done lately, been working looooong days doing software upgrades on network switches... However, I work a lot of extra time now so I get extra "free" hours to spend on modelling at a later time!

Did get a bit of small bits here and there, but nothing really worth posting yet...

Jeroen

lone modeller · « **Reply #130 on:** January 26, 2019, 07:17:23 AM »

I have just spent a very interesting and informative time reading thrugh and catching up on this thread. I am unashamedly going to take your muddy tyre idea and try it out soon, and I really like your wethod for painting the propellor. That does not mention the other excellent modelling skill that you have brought to this kit: the model will be an undoubted winnwer when it is finished.

Stephen.

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #131 on:** February 06, 2019, 07:27:32 PM »

Thank you for your kind compliment, Stephen! Really appreciated

As others have commented, the D.VII, despite it's lack of rigging is a rather fiddly model. I dry-fitted all struts and wings in the past, and it line up pretty well.

And here I am now, trying to get all the struts to line up again. When I put the cabane struts in (without glue as of yet) I somehow find the outer interplane struts slightly too short.
When I put some paint tins underneath the lower wing, there is a bit of flex, which might indicate it is not too tight a fit (I took special care when glueing the lower wing to make sure it was a tension-free fit).

Anyone else have or had this? Any reccomended way of installing the top wing? On my Roden models I put the N-struts in first, and then simply added the cabanes. On the WNW model this does not seem that easy, due to the strut that goes onto the engine mounts not having room enough...

Here's what I'm thinking about now... glue the rear cabane struts, and the N-struts to the upper wing and let properly dry.
Then fit the forward triangular cabane struts to the model with normal slow-setting glue, not glueing the 3rd leg that goes onto the engine bearers through the cowl panels. Then fit the top wing with the other strut in place and make sure to put some paint tins underneath the lower wing to make the N struts fit, but not glueing these to the lower wing just yet. Then leave to dry so the forward cabanes sit properly.
Then glue the top wing on definitively?

Perhaps someone has some others suggestions for a workable method, so my next post might show an undamaged, aligned, and finished model!

Jeroen

jeroen_R90S · « **Reply #132 on:** February 07, 2019, 06:11:23 AM »

Me being me I just could not let this rest... so after an afternoon with 4 kids around and then our oldest son passed his swimming test B (he's now working on C), the kids were in bed and the dishes done.

So I took the Fokker back to the cutting mat and started out again. So, after another hour of fiddling and 4 dabs of glue, here is what seems to working. Just in case anyone might run into something like this as well?

I added some dabs of Revell Contacta standard plastic glue in the sockets in which the tri-legged forward cabanes go. I did not apply any glue to the third member supporting on the engine bearers -I found this gives a little wiggle room later on.
I had previously put the top wing upside down on a bit of foam and inverted the model with the cabanes only fitted and carefully put the square pins into the holes on the top wing. The tailplane was supported with some enamel paint tins.
The reason my previous attempts ended in failure and frustration was probably that I tried to fit either the N-struts and / or the rear cabanes as well. The fuselage needs to be at the correct angle to the wing (viewed from the side), otherwise they either don't reach the holes, or fall out.
By doing the forward cabanes first, this is less important.
I can then fit either the N struts or rear cabanes either way around, as a final dry-fit showed.

So I'll leave it like this overnight:

The alignment seems spot-on, but to be sure I measured it afterwards and corrected tiny bit. Even though, by not glueing the 3rd leg to the engine bearers there is enough wiggle room to fit the rest.

Phew... now not to touch the model!

Jeroen

gbrivio · « **Reply #133 on:** February 07, 2019, 09:03:17 PM »

Quote from: Borsos on January 17, 2019, 07:28:01 AM

That’s an amazing build so far and I am sure it will be a beauty once finished. The tyre-weathering idea is very good.
...

I totally agree, excellent model of Fok. D.VII
Ciao
Giuseppe

IvotB · « **Reply #134 on:** February 08, 2019, 04:23:19 AM »

Quote from: jeroen_R90S on February 06, 2019, 07:27:32 PM

Perhaps someone has some others suggestions for a workable method, so my next post might show an undamaged, aligned, and finished model!

Jeroen

Hello Jeroen,

Here's a description of how I did it some 6 years ago (can be found here, but there will be many D.VII builds):

Quote from: IvotB on February 20, 2013, 08:54:01 AM

Put the landing gear straight today, but it is still not very steady on its feet.

Then I wanted to fit the upper wing. I first added the cabane struts and wing struts to the model and tried to align everything as much as possible. I used the parts B8 and B12 as the main guidance for the positioning of the upper wing as those parts are connected with at least 2 cabane struts to the fuselage and leave little room for false positiong. The third strut of those pieces were left unglued to be able to place and remove the forward side cowls. With a vernier caliper (?) I measured the exact positions in the upper wing and tried to apply the correct spacing between the upper connections of the cabane struts. Then I placed parts B4 and B5, carefully measuring and positioning. After that the wing struts were placed in line with the cabane struts as they all support the wing below the two girders of the wing.

Then I put some glue in the openings in the upper wing, placed it upside down and let all the struts fit into the upper wing. I found that there was too much glue in the openings for the 4 cabane strut connections, so I'll have to do some correction work there as it messed up the paint there.

But the wing fitted and it is an excellent and strong connection. Nothing wobbly here:

Earlier I tried some dry-brushing on the tires, but that wasn't a big success:

You can read Gothania and flugreifen 960 x 100, but there is too much paint around it, where it shouldn'belong.

Size difference in 1:72 and 1:32:

Another shot:

And yes, the forward side cowling can be placed and removed again. Just bend the forward cabane strut a little bit, slide the cowling with the appropriate hole over the strut and put it in the rigth place. It is more or less clamped. Here the upper cowling is still loose and needs some more room on top for the airpump.

regards,
Ivo