Revell 1/72nd Fokker Dr. 1
Even by my snail pace standards this is a personal best - or worst depending on how you look at it. Believe it or not, I started this kit almost ten years ago! It was painted, decalled and mostly assembled before it got put in a box for my move from Canada to England in 1997. Over the years I'd take it out now and then to have a look at it and think "Gee, I really should finish this puppy sometime". And that was as far as it got until a few weeks ago when, as part of my "finishing old projects regime", I decided its time had at last come. The impetus really was the release of Revell's new tool triplane which has some really nice bits in it that are far superior to this old 1960s offering, as you would expect they would be after more than 40 years.
Though I'm not terribly happy with the overdone wing and tailplane ribs on the new Dr. 1, the smaller parts are very nice indeed and it was these I robbed to finish off this dreidekker. Interplane struts, wheels, axle wing, ammo chutes, wingtip skids, tailskid, cowling and that lovely little engine were all volunteered to help out Revell's venerable old kit and they seem to do the trick quite nicely.
Cockpit is detailed with etched parts from a generic Tom's Modelworks German set and scratchbuilt parts, the propeller is carved from wood as usual and cabane and landing gear struts are soldered together from brass Strutz. The kit horizontal stabiliser is the wrong shape so I made a new one from sheet plastic with ribs from fine stretched Evergreen strip. Rigging is stretched sprue and guns are also from a Tom's etched set with barrels from fine stainless steel tubing .
Paint is Xtracolour Clear Doped Linen with thinned Humbrol Olive Drab 66 for the streaky finish. The underside turquoise was a mix of (I think - it's been ten years since I mixed it up!) Testors Duck Egg Blue and Humbrol Light Blue with a touch of green thrown in. Amazingly, this stuff was still good when I opened the bottle for the first time in over eight years to paint the interplane struts and bottom of the axle wing.
Decals for Ltn. Friedrich Kempf's 493/17 are from a Blue Rider Jasta Boelcke sheet.
Above: I had all sorts of brass jokes lined up for these shots (brass monkeys, brass tacks, brassed off, etc., etc.) but when it came down to it I just couldn't lower myself to such depths, in spite of the fact that Warped Plastic is rampant with abysmal attempts at humour such as this. Left: My handy dandy little soldering jig. I took the cabane struts from Revell's new tool Dr. 1 and squished them into a lump of Milliput, which is fairly heat resistant when set. I figured soldering flux would be as common as dirt in this land of engineering greats but I searched high & low for it until I finally found a tin (which will last me until the end of time with the amount of soldering I do) at an old fashioned iron monger's shop. Doesn't anybody use flux in this backwards country??
Back to 1/72 Aircraft Main