johnyh

This is long but no excuse!
As promised even though a little earlier, due to it raining preventing a days flying some photos and an explanation of the finish I achieved. Unfortunately the construction diary was lost due to a computer crash!

The only deviation from the construction was the addition of direct drive by servos in the top wing. I don’t like bell cranks. The rest was as the instruction manual. I used mainly cyno but did a little strengthening of joints with pva glue. The covering used was white “solartex”, [the LHS had run out of natural and antique].

This model is worthy of a good colour scheme so I did some research and purchased “Fokker D.VII” published by Albatross Publications Ltd.

The scheme I chose was from Jasta 15
To achieve the lozenge pattern I enlarged the pattern from a “Lozenge Pattern” guide in the book. I then produced five different lozenge templates for each of the 5 lozenge colours. These were then traced onto the wings and underside of the tail. [This took several evenings using a soft pencil].

Further internet investigation I found charts on colour mixing to achieve first world war paint shades and patterns. This did mean I had to buy a lot of small paints and mix the colour required, which also meant that some lozenge shades do vary slightly when I ran out of the odd colour. This procedure took over two weeks alone, but I am pleased with result.
The skull and cross bones was another blown up template.

The whole lot was sealed with a satin finish fuel proofer. A note in the guide relates to the fact that the varnish used to seal the original planes would yellow after several applications and even streak. Because of this “hit and miss” method of finish I feel that a concourse finish, particularly WWI planes is not a realistic approach. [Or am I just inadequate at fine detailing. However I did enjoy achieving the end result].

For reasons of lazyness I still have to “timber” the metal supports. And a gun really need to be added.

A slight down side to my colour scheme is that as a camouflage scheme it does work when the light is grey. The plane has to be flown in good daylight as it will silhouette very easily.

The pictures show the wings and fuselage, due to current weather, HEAVY RAIN an assembled picture will have to wait.