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Marek Halas
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Eduard 1/72 Albatros DV

May 11, 2015 · in Aviation · · 22 · 4.6K

's diminutive Albatros with markings from Jasta 12, from the summer of 1917

This is Eduard's non profi-pack offering from 2000, a no thrills basic kit that looked pretty nice in the box.

This was built for my daughter, Aemilia who was given the kit at last years' club swap meet, (PX2014) here in Queensland. (And many thanks to Ken Dixon who kindly donated the model).

She liked the look of the plane, but wasn't so keen when it came to getting those biplane wings together, so I took it on myself so she would have her "cute" biplane in her cabinet of 'breakables".

It was also my first stab at doing a biplane, and serves as a useful preamble before tackling more serious stuff such as the eight Wingnut Kits, including two D.V's, sitting in my stash. There's also another Eduard 1/48 Nieuport Ni-17 to finish, so watch this space.

The kit was built out of the box, I only added lap belts made from the foil off a yoghurt pot.

Th engine exhaust was drilled too.

..And the rigging was done using Ezy Line, & apart from that it's built pretty much as it came out of the box. It was also my first stab at doing simulated wood grain using that tried & trusted technique of oil over acrylic.

Getting top and bottom wings to line up was a bit fiddly as was the rigging, and there are a few superglue smears here & there.(Doh!).

I won't be doing a bipe this small again, it just hurts my eyes too much! But it was a useful excercise, nevertheless.

I also did the obligatory panel line wash and added a bit of dirt & operational wear here & there.

The photos were shot on my macro lens as the subject matter is pretty small, and my workmanship is unfortunately a bit rough in places. Please feel free to post any comments you might have, and in the meantime thanks for looking.

Reader reactions:
8  Awesome

22 responses

  1. Marek, I always enjoy a well built 1/72 scale, and this one is that. Nice work

  2. Nice modelling in this diminutive scale. I think I may have modelled this same scheme a few years ago. Colour combination with natural wood effect is certainly attractive.

    • Cheers Rob, one of the joys of doing an Albatros is there's no shortage of nice schemes to represent. I'll probably do another wood scheme when I eventually get round to starting the 1/32 ones.

  3. It might be small, Marek, but it's made a very attractive model and I'm sure it will take pride of place in your daughter's showcase.

  4. First biplane? Are You serious? Yes You are! 🙂

  5. Lovely work Marek, for your first bi-plane, it is great.

  6. Not my forte, but looks to be quite a nice build.

  7. Great paint application and finish, a real eye catcher!

  8. Thats a great little build, Marek. Well done, the wood effect and the very fine rigging are very nice.
    The 1/72 Eduard D.V is a way better kit that the 1/48 kit. Maybe give your Nie.17 a go, its a very nice kit and easy to build and rig.
    The Albatros D series are my favorite WW.I aircrafts

    • Hi Bernd, thanks for the comments, I'm surprised the 1/48 Eduard Albatros DV is not as good (I guess it might be an earlier release). Does that apply to the Oeffag 153 & 253 as well?

      • Hi Marek, sorry for the late response. The Eduard 1/48 Albatros D.V has too short wheel struts and a to forward placed footstep.
        The struts have the same length as the D.III / II kits but on the D.V, they are placed higher on the fuselage.
        The Oeffag kits are much newer and almost perfect new molds.

  9. Wonderfully done. And although not by choice - it's nice to see another 1/72 subject (my only scale)! Since I don't do WWI, I've not had to do much rigging other than the J2F Duck I built, and that was arduous - yours looks really great!

    • Thanks Greg, I'm definitely upscaling with any further WW1 subjects. (Or building larger bites in 1/72). There is something appealing with all those rigging wires though, and this is coming from a bloke who returned to the hobby intending to build nothing more than postwar jets in 1/48!

  10. Marek,
    Excellent job on this. At first glance I thought it was a much larger scale.

  11. Looks great Marek, nice work on the woodgrain and subtle weathering.

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