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Albatros D.V, 1:32, Wingnut Wings. 01/03/2014 Complete!


Viking

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My current 'big build' is Wingnut Wings lovely Albatros D.V, which has been in my stash for nearly 3 years now. I want to do it in Fritz Rumeys black and white striped Jasta 5 machine as shown on the box top, but have been put off all this time! I have tried to figure out how to do the stripes by temporarily using strips of tape wound around the fuselage halves, but something just did not work with it. I could not make the pattern shown. Then recently I noticed Wingnut Wings have updated the instructions on their website with a 3 view plan, showing how the pattern splits on the underside. Mystery solved, so before Christmas I opened the box and got started.

Engine;

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Interior parts;

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Fuselage zipped up now. Engine just dry fitted. I will prime and paint the fuselage before fiting it permanently.


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Got to deal with this next!


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Thanks for looking,

John
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Excellent work. Every time I see someone building one of these I get less and less inclined to ever open my kit which I've had for 5 years.... and have never touched.

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Excellent work. Every time I see someone building one of these I get less and less inclined to ever open my kit which I've had for 5 years.... and have never touched.

i'll buy it off you then! :winkgrin:

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Thank you all for the kind comments, a bit more progress has been made.

Doing those stripes has been putting me off for some time now, but I so want to do this scheme that I must 'bite the bullet' and get on with it.

First thing was to mask up and spray on a coat of white primer and Halfords appliance white. The lower wings are only push fitted in to hold the fuselage level for the photo.

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Then the nightmare begins. Masking up.

The thing with this scheme is that it looks like one thick and one thin black band wrapped around the fuselage in a spiral pattern from front to back.

Having studied drawings and photos, I can say it absolutely is not! It would be impossible. The widening and tapering of the fuslelage along its length means that the bands also have to widen and taper, but not so as you would notice. Keeping the same slant on them when viewed from the side is also a challenge. And lastly, it can not work as continual bands. The breakthrough that showed this was the amendement to the instructions on Wingnuts website. The crucial thing is that some of the bands join together on the underside.

I used thin strips of Tamiya tape, infilled with regular cheapo masking tape. The real difficulty is seeing what you are doing, trying to make one thin, one thick black band in that order. And keeping a fairly consistent witdth and slant was a nightmare. Anyway, I've given it my best shot and can live with the result. Its not perfect, I think the spacing could be better but I'm not going to strip it off and start again!

About 3 hours work;

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The eureka moment that meant that I could understand how this scheme worked. How it looks on the underside;

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More complicated painting coming up on the tail feathers next, but nothing as traumatic as this striping!

Thanks for looking

John

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Crikey John, you take on some serious challenges with these old stringbags.

Neil

Oi YOU !!!!!

Another masterpiece in the making by the look of things.

Better go and have a lie down after that John.

Chris.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I've been staring at this over the last couple of weeks wondering whether to 'leave it be' or process those stripes further.

I decided that the problem was I had more or less done the black stripes in a constant width, and what was really needed was some fattening out on the fuselage sides where it got wider. So out with the masking tape again to widen the black bits;

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By this time I had aready done the green tail with its red edging and white stripes. Seeing as Wingnuts fit is so good that you can often dry fit parts together, lets pop the undercarriage on see how it looks in profile now;

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I'm happier with that, it's not perferct but this is probably the hardest masking job I've ever undertaken. Trying to get those stripes spaced at the correct proportions keeping the slant even between them, and as I now know, tapering them as they go up and down. All on a compound curved fish shape body. I've learned a lot, which I will probably now forget by the time I need it again. And Mr Tamiya has made a tidy sum from me buying reels and reels of his masking tape. It's ths only stuff to use though! (I need another masking session to spray in a few touches of white where it has given a fuzzy edge etc).

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All the other bits and bobs have been prepared while I have been agonising over these stripes, so next we move into the assembly phase.

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I must be mad, but I am ejoying this. Honest.

Thanks for looking,

John

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wow this is fantasic work, just love it and I think you really managed to pull off the strips perfectly! :thumbsup::speak_cool:

I know the pain of masking, I had a much sinplier red & white strip patten for a 1/48 Macchi float plane I built (Float Plane GB), the masking just drove me nuts. :banghead:

The more builds I see of WNW models the more I know I have to build one....just don't know which one to get!!!

This will be an absolute bueaty when finished....looking forward. to seeing that

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That's incredible work - glad to see the mystery of the stripes solved. Without your pictures of the underside, I just couldn't visualise how it worked but now it all falls into place. Sort of zebra-ish stripes from below, eh?

Great stuff.

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