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Hi all, I've just finished Revell's 1/72 Fokker Dr.I triplane, with the Red Baron's scheme. The WIP thread is here. Some notes on the build: Started by end-March 2015 and finished on 22 May 2016 (worked on it intermittently, while working on other builds) Seat belts made out of Tamiya masking tape and electrical copper wire for the buckles Eduard's 1/72 stretchers and turnbuckles used in the rigging Rigging and control cables done with elastic fishing line Painting: Gunze acrylics Varnishes: Micro Gloss before and after decals Alclad Klear Kote Flat for finishing Weathering Dry brush of wing and tailplane ribbing and top fuselage edges with red lightened with orange Dark sludge wash, using Vallejo's acrylic brown wash (over Micro Gloss, after decal application) Vallejo's burnt umber pigments in the end Here are the pictures: 1. General views: IMAG3511 IMAG3512 IMAG3513 IMAG3514 IMAG3516 IMAG3517 IMAG3518 IMAG3519 IMAG3520 IMAG3521 IMAG3522 2. Rigging details IMAG3528 IMAG3515 IMAG3523 3. Control cable details IMAG3527 IMAG3526 IMAG3524 IMAG3525 4. Seat and cockpit details before closing the fuselage IMAG2981 IMAG2982 IMAG2986 5. With its younger cousins IMAG3529 6. Size comparison with a Bf 109 E4 IMAG3531 7. In the collection IMAG3530 I hope you liked. All comments, suggestions and criticisms are most welcome. Thanks for looking. Cheers Jaime

Dear Fellow Modellers, After completing my Grumman Duck (RFI here) I got the "biplane bug"... Then I read a favourable build review in Model Aircraft Magazine's December 2014 issue of the Revell Fokker Dr.I triplane (Red Baron's triplane, of course), which also classified it as an easy build, and thought: "Why not build a simple and quick triplane, in between more complicated models?". So, recently I went to my local hobby shop and got this for 10,50 €: IMAG1571 Just two red sprues and a small decal sheet. Since I mainly use Gunze Mr. Hobby paints and the instructions have all the painting references using Revell paints, I went to Eduard's website and downloaded an instruction sheet for one of their Red Baron triplanes. Then I applied white primer to all parts, still in the sprues. Red plastic is not the best option for painting colours other than red... I used Tamiya's flat white acrylic paint as primer. It took several light layers to make the red less visible: IMAG1588 IMAG1589 This was done by the end of March. I left the kit alone for about a month and two weeks ago got back to it. I cut off most of the parts off the sprues, cleaned the molding lines and a bit of flash (not much really) and glued the parts to toothpicks with a drop of super-glue. I do this in order to achieve a better paint finish of small parts at first attempt, because I can choose the best point of contact to hold each part on the toothpick and don't have to touch them until they're finished. With the parts on toothpicks, I applied additional layers of white primer, to cover the cleaned up spots: IMAG1678 To keep things simple and quick, this will be a purely OOB build (really!) and I'll only use acrylic paints (no Alclad for metallic parts). I started painting the small parts, progressing from lighter to darker colours, in order to optimise airbrush time (less cleaning needed between colours). Here are the cockpit parts already painted. This aircraft was mostly made of wood and canvas, which shows in the colours of the parts: IMAG1705 The rims of the wheels, some pieces that where installed under the wings and the stirrup where also painted: IMAG1706 After this I painted the cockpit walls, which are nicely detailed in the kit. First, the wood brown colour: IMAG1707 IMAG1708 This was masked before painting the second interior colour. Started by applying thin strips of masking tape to clearly define the edges of the area to be protected: IMAG1715 Then I filled the interior with tape: IMAG1716 This was done to the other half of the fuselage, of course. After painting the second colour (Olive Drab) and removing the tape, this was the result: IMAG1720 To finish the cockpit walls, I used a paint brush to paint the ribs (Green-Gray) and the instrumentation / throttle quadrant (blacks, dark iron), resulting in this: IMAG1727 Most of it won't be visible after closing the fuselage, but still... The last colours to apply with the airbrush were the metallic colours (silver, black metal), to the machine guns, engine parts, propeller centre,...: IMAG1728 IMAG1730 My last action was a dry-fit of the fuselage and wings to determine the best building / painting sequence. The idea is to make painting of the main parts as easy as possible and minimise damages to painting due to seam treatment. Here is the fuselage and the lower and middle wing dry-fitted: IMAG1721 Now with the struts in place: IMAG1722 and now with the top wing in place: IMAG1723 It seems the best sequence is: close fuselage glue tail plane and fin and treat seams glue middle wing with struts and treat seams paint fuselage and middle wing paint lower wing glue lower wing and treat seams (these should be visible, like in the real plane) paint upper wing glue upper wing So, this should be enough for now. I haven't progressed further than this yet. Looking forward to your comments, as always. Jaime