Thanks for looking in, RAGIII, Mark, Manni and Ed!
So.... after the rear fuselage had properly dried, I (again) tried to fit the wings -still good to go!
I also thought about painting the next batch of parts; and went for what worked with my 1/72 D.VII -assemble the axle wing completely and paint it afterwards. The rigging holes are still accessble, and it's less chance of paint mismatch or glue stains.
So I put the struts in their holes and added a dab of Extra Thin Cement, then put the model upside down and let it dry overnight.
Then I thought about another thing that had been bugging me a bit... The lower chin panel is slightly wider than the radiator that sits atop it, as the upper cowls will need to fit in between. Since I'll leave them off, I was left with a gap, which kind off bugged my autistic part... In the end it proved a simple fix, though you can't just file the entire chin panel narrower. I simply put a strip of tape from front to rear so they would be slightly tapered. If you file the whole thing smaller you'll end up with a step at the rear.
I didn't dare file all the way, as the plastic is already precariously thin there now:
You can't really see the difference as I forgot to take a "before" picture...
With that sorted out it was time to put all the parts on sticks and tape, mask off the radiator and prepare to paint quite a bit of parts. However, I was still a bit undecided on the green I'd use for the forward cowling panels... I tried the recommended Humbrol 30, but did not like the look. I liked the contrast as Ronny Bar did on his profile of Richard Kraut's D.VII.
So I took some greens from my stash I liked: Lifecolor UA001 (FS34079); UA002 (FS34102), both of which are actually supposed to be for the Vietnam-era USAF camouflage; Revell 39 (supposed to be WWII RLM71), Lifecolour UA520 (RAF WWII Green) and Lifecolour UA502 (RLM71 WWII).
I put some grey Vallejo acrylic primer by brush in the tabs of some of the kits sprues, then brushpainted all these colours on them over that.
A hairdryer quickly dried them and this is what I got:
As you can see quite some difference (though the picture is pretty poor, the differences are really there in real life); especially both RLM71s.
I didn't like either and eventually went for Lifecolour UA001 FS34079 -which I just noticed WNW indicates in their latest issue Fokker D.VII Early. (the older kits seem to be missing FS numbers)
A lot of masking and painting later while my wife was away with the kids:
All paints Revell Aqua; grey-green (barely shows in the picture, I got a new phone and the camera is worse than the old one) with Revell 59 Sky Green (actually a WWII RAF colour) with a drop of 57 Grey added; engine parts Anthracite Black and Aluminium (both Aqua Acrylic as well), cowl panels the aforementioned Lifecolour UA001.
All is hardening out now, hopefully some time this week for the glosscoat and tidying up the fuselage in preparation for painting that, too.
Jeroen
