IPR Pics of Fokker DVII

Just an update.  Things are proceeding slowly, but I've got the leather cockpit rim painted and the plane is now covered in a nice micro-thin coat of Model Master semi-gloss.  The machine guns are primed in grey krylon, and I'll next search around for that circle stencil thingie with which to make better masks for the wheels.

leemitcheltree

Hey!

That looks great! What are your plans for weathering?

Tell me...how was the overall build?  I've got the dual combo pack...and it will be the very first WWl bi-plane I've built.  How was the fit?

Oh - and for the wheels...I'd spray the whole thing the color of the hub...and then mask the hub using Bare Metal Foil...then  squirt the tires.  Works every time.

Thanks for sharing, mate!!!

Hey lee,

My plans for weathering are very modest, since anything done on a white surface shows up a LOT.  I mostly let various shades of white (with Tamiya Smoke pre-shading) give some subtle tones to the surface, so it didn't look like a simple flat boring white-white..  Laying down Eduard's decals (which I've always found to be excellent) was a breeze over some future and under the usual chemicals. (Solvaset, then Micro Sol)

The build itself for this kit was beautiful, and it deserves it reputation.  Very few seams required even slight filling (I only ever used Tamiya surface primer with a toothpick for a couple of slight ones), and this facilitated the build.  The plane itself has very little rigging to speak of, so its a great first attempt for a WWI aircraft, given the lack of risk involved. 

As for the tires, I misplaced my circle stencil and couldn't make proper masks, so...heh...I decided to try my hand at brush-painting it.  Needless to say, some correction will be necessary, and I'm going back to looking for my stencils. 

What remains is getting the front grill area done *just right* (its got two tones of dry brushed metal right now) and painting/installation of the guns.  Other than that, and the wheels, leather cockpit rim and maybe some touch-ups here and there, and she's ready for the final clear-coat.  Oh, and the entire prop has to be hand painted in oils...oi.  And yet it *feels* so close to the end. :P

Anyway, suggestions for what sort of clear coat to use at the very end?  I'm wondering what level of gloss/flat to simulate on a 1/48 scale WWI aircraft of this type.

Hey!

That looks great! What are your plans for weathering?

Tell me...how was the overall build?  I've got the dual combo pack...and it will be the very first WWl bi-plane I've built.  How was the fit?

Oh - and for the wheels...I'd spray the whole thing the color of the hub...and then mask the hub using Bare Metal Foil...then  squirt the tires.  Works every time.

Thanks for sharing, mate!!!

And now here's its present state, with decals applied over a future coat.  Just a few more details to go and she'll be ready for display:

Just another update.  The primer is starting to go on.  Its Tamiya white primer from the rattle can for those of you keeping track.  Anybody have any opinions, btw, on the superiority of specialty model primers like Tamiya's versus something more general like Krylon? 

Certainly:

That messed-up strut attachment point, (which btw resulted in a huge freak-out on my part, but after a couple of beers I'm feeling much better now), is more or less cleaned up, and I've got the landing gear sub-assembly done, with fewer problems than anticipated.  I even think the airplane will sit semi-level when the wheels finally go on.  Now I just have to worry about the lack of wheel masks in this kit.  Thanks for the feedback thus far.

Nice work so far.  Keep us posted on progress.

Regards,  Rick

Sorry about the small image size.  Flickr is giving me problems whenever I try to make links to my own photos..grr.  Speaking of "grrr..." I made a stupid boo-boo when attaching one of the struts on the starboard side: 

Its properly attached now, and I cleaned it up a little, but you can see it still needs lots of work.

As for painting, the scheme is an overall white (its Hermann Goring's plane).  This is likely one of the things Eduard thought of to justify the "weekend" label for this kit.  I've never seen a uniform prescription for the order of wing assembly/rigging/painting on WWI aircraft, just a lot of different methods, none of which seems to entirely satisfy.  Given the overall white scheme, and no interplane rigging on this aircraft, I'm comfortable assembling before painting.

[UPDATE: I've now included larger pics in my original post]

Very nice work so far. Is that 1/48 scale?

For my own part, I usually don't paint biplanes with both wings attached. Are you planning on removing the top wing while painting? If not, how do you do it?

I look forward to more photos.

Looks good but need bigger pics for the old man eyes.