One of my workbench projects for the last months roams back to the air war above the trenches of Flandres.
The much anticipated but stillborn WnW Fokker DR.1 got a new breath of life from Meng.
I won’t bother writing about that whole affair or even how it looks in the box. Much like another thread I have here (checkerboard nose 190) I rather illustrate how it builds and some insights here and there. I have no idea how accurate this kit is but it looks a DR.1 for sure!
1- The engine & propeller
this was where I started building this kit. Composed with just under 20 pieces the whole thing builds effortlessly and after careful painting delivers a beautiful rendition that catches the eye. Painting the propeller with oils I tried my best to simulate the highly varnished compressed wood sections.
2- The cockpit
With a multitude of pieces and a rather disappointing instruction booklet, for a ww1 newbie like me, it was quite a task understanding what went where, especially because I like to paint all I can before actually assembling, which in a cockpit with so many different materials/colors seen it’s much more easy to get it done.
According to the instructions the interior of the Fokker was linen dope and wood structure halfway. The floor is also bare wood. The remaining colours are an educated guess from information picked elsewhere.
You can see that on the left side I already added tension cords but not yet on the right side. I’m using Gaspatch metal turnbuckles and EZ line... not my favorite part of the build.
The fuselage halves with the cockpit section in it fit ok
3- The wings
After getting the upper and the lower wing in hot water to solve a slight warp of the parts, the assembly of the triplane wings went well on a dry run. I tried to achieve a slight translucency of the red where linen is.
4 - Undercarriage
To call this part flimsy is an understatement. I decided to do a dry run and as soon as the “legs” seem in place with the fuselage I went for the fast drying liquid glue to get then in permanent position.
5- The Spandau MGs
The kit comes with full injection plastic MGs and a mixed plastic + PE option.
This one provides a much more realistic perforated tube than the plastic part but getting that part rolled up nicely just was not cup of tea so I got some from Master, and that is a simple cut and glue to the main body of the plastic MG. Painted with Xtreme Metal Gun Metal it looks nice to me.
Thanks for watching and commenting if you like
