Hi Louis - Here's the info from Paul Leaman's Triplane book that I used to base the angle of the olive green (he calls it khaki-brown but it looks greener than my idea of khaki-brown) on all the upper surfaces.

All main planes - streaks at approx 10 degrees angle to the chord

Fuselage sides - streaks vertically applied as shown in all the contemporary pics

Aft fuselage decking - streaks approx 45 degrees across centre line

Tailplane - Streaks at approx 20 degrees angle to the chord

All 3 pre-production machines were doped pale blue all over before application with the darker streaks using (I believe) something like a 4" brush which was fully loaded with paint with the bristles separating as the stroke progressed, producing that uneven spread of the darker colour. I was never clear what colour/pattern was applied to the upper surface of the aerofoil section between the u/c legs, but I chose to use streaks straight across its chord. Good luck.

Paul

Today I filled in some ejector pin marks that I found on the underside of the ailerons.

I also plugged the holes on the bottom wing where the wing tip skids would go on the standard production machines.


I'm going to try and spray paint a base coat of light blue in a few.

Hi Louis - Always good to take a step back and get back to it with renewed enthusiasm. It's all looking great anyway. I've attached a couple of bits of info I discovered while doing my own Revell 103/17 and a bigger 1/8 scale monster (see "Monster Triplane wit a bit of Tinkering"). You may find these helpful but probably frustrating as well, since some of these end up tiny in 1/28 scale. It depends on your need for detail. I managed to fudge a version of the fuel guage in my Revell build although it's kinda difficult to see located as it is under the fairing immediately in fron of the centresection of the middle wing. You may find these helpful anyway and I look forward to seeing how the build progresses.

Paul

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Paul Nash wrote,

"All main planes – streaks at approx 10 degrees angle to the chord
Fuselage sides – streaks vertically applied as shown in all the contemporary pics
Aft fuselage decking – streaks approx 45 degrees across centre line
Tailplane – Streaks at approx 20 degrees angle to the chord."

I'm wondering if the streaking angle of the paint has to do with the how they laid down the fabric/ canvas. Some manufactures angled the canvas covering over the wings while others laid the canvas inline with the chord.

If your painting streaks...wouldn't you be a streaker and for accuracy sake...

Being a fly on the wall and wondering why Fokker would have finished the a/c in this way.

Like what your doing Louis with a 60 yr old model. At least the molds are 60yrs old. Cut in steel no doubt.

Hello Louis, what a wonderful project is the Fokker you are working on. I have been reading your posts several times now and enjoying your work. It's great to see a older kit is coming to live with all those scratch build items, and the woodwork looks fantastic too.

For us in Holland Fokker was and still is a famous name in aircraft industry, although he made his start in Germany with these and other great planes, back in the '20-s he became a aircraft builder with civil aircraft flown worldwide which lasted until the mid '90 when Airbus Industries ruled all in Europe. The last Fokker 70 airliners with KLM will stop flying in october this year putting an end to a 90 year relationship between KLM and Fokker. In the mean time I will enjoy following your build. Take care.

Well... sooner or later it will happen to all of us.

The project has suffered a set back, but it's not a terminal flaw (so far), thank God.

I wanted to reproduce the seam that was on the underside of the fuselage, where the fabric was laced up.

So out came my Waldron punch set. I cut a thin strip from a sheet of plastic, then marked out a series of small lines in 2 MM increments. Next I began punching out a series of .018 holes into it.

and I ended up with this strip, which I then laced thin fishing line through the holes just as the real Fokker had done originally. It looked OK so far, but I wasn't quite happy with the hole spacing. Some were slightly off.

Next I proceeded to glue this contraption on the underside of the fuselage...

Where the glue and affected plastic oozed out of the little holes that I had punched ! The fishing line looked just "kind of" OK to me now...

but it just might look better under a coat of paint... Right ?

WRONG Answer Private !
So off the offending strip came... which was followed by copious amounts of block sanding to remove the pitting into the plastic that the liquid glue had made.

I took it down as much as I dared to. The plastic on the underside of the fuselage started getting pretty darned thin...
and then I heard a "CRACK" noise. (not a good thing to hear when you are holding plastic)

The cracking noise was the upper fuselage rear decking as it split in two !

So out came the glue... and I set the sanding block down...

I don't know what I will do now to replicate the fuselage lacing seam now, but hopefully something will come to mind. Sept 23rd is right around the corner...

So for now the parts are drying (probably done by the time this posting is completed).

I'll end with a positive note:

The wings look pretty good now all in RLM 65... I also assembled the lower landing gear "sub wing"...

As usual, comments are encouraged.

Hi Louis - Been away for a bit so missed some of your latest work. Like the look of the curved tailplane. Looks pretty good to me. I don't think I saw a decent photo which gave a good enough impression of how the curved leading edge looked when I did my own Voss' F1. I think yours will look perfect. Well done! As regard to the way the fuselage covering linen was joined down the centreline of the fuselage underside, all the info I've been able to find points to this being simply stitched to pull the skin tight after it had been fitted to the fuselage framework. There are few pics showing the underside of any triplanes but the available one or two point to there not having been a fabric strip covering the join, simply a clear join line with cross stitching holding it all together.

Cheers - Paul

Thanks Paul for the kind words... I am glad that I decided to remove the strip that I originally installed on the underside. It looked horrible and no where near to scale. It was way too big, more suited to a 1/16" or possibly a 1/12" inch Tripe...

I have found a few pictures showing this seam on a later D-7, and it was just as you described.

However, since I lost a lot of building time due to Hurricane "Irma", I have decided to leave the strip off so that I can hopefully make the Sept. 23rd deadline...

Thanks Bernard ! I try to learn something each day. There is a wealth of knowledge here on Imodeler and the members are willing to help each other out as needed.

It's a great place for sure... Take care buddy.