Fokker E.V - 1:32 Miko Mir with Pheon Decals

[Viking]

Fokker E.V

1:32 Miko Mir with Pheon Decals

 

 

The parasol winged Fokker D.VIII was the last of this companies aircraft to enter service before the end of the Great War. Originally designated the Fokker E.V. it was an agile little machine with a parasol wing and rotary engine, much like some of the early machines from the start of the Great War. It might have had greater success, had it not suffered from poor manufacturing standards. After barely two weeks service in August 1918, The E.V. had to be withdrawn due to failures causing the wing to disintegrate in flight.
Badly made wings and poor materials were found to be the main cause. Examination of several sets revealed such things as incorrect wing spars, and nails that secured the plywood skinning completely missing the ribs it was supposed to attach to. Redesigned wings were manufactured under more stringent quality control, and the aircraft resumed production with the new designation of Fokker D.VIII.  Surviving E.V.s were retro fitted with the new wing, and it seems were also then referred to as D.VIII's. Re-entering service in October, it did not much have much time to prove itself before the 11th November armistice brought the conflict to a halt. 

 

The Mikro Mir kit is typical short run injection molded, quite buildable but inevitably you need to do a bit of fettling to get things to fit, particularly the tailplane where it sits on the rear fuselage. I didn't much fancy any of the kit colour scheme options, so purchased Pheon Decals set 32061 which gives seven options, including five from Jasta 6 with the attractive striped tail and petaled engine cowling. Not only that, but Pheon supply a superb set of assembly jigs, more of which later.

(Mrs Viking, without prompting, was looking over my shoulder while I pondered which colour scheme to apply, and pointed to this one, saying it was really nice. That decided that!)

 

 

 

 

The E.V is a dainty little machine, I persuaded Leutnant Wolff to nip out during his coffee break to stand alongside and lend a sense of scale;

 

 

There has been a lot of discussion on the wing colours applied to the E.V / D.VIII series, originally it was thought that it was olive green top and bottom. A few years ago Dan-San Abbot researched this, and concluded that it was incorrect. It was very likely that it was treated with woodstain, in Mocha brown and  True green on top, with Azure blue and Violet underneath. I decided to go with this, and try to replicate it on my model, following the drawings on the Pheon instruction sheet . I used solid base colours in lighter versions, and then used thinned oil paints over the top to produce a streaky stained affect. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I'm pretty happy with the result. If anything I might try to make it lighter If I do another one.

 

 

The Pheon decal sheet comes with a brilliant pair of assembly jigs that you need to apply to thick card, and put together. They are printed on sticky back paper, making the job very simple. I can't praise them enough, that are absolutely superb and make the otherwise complex assembly of the undercarriage and wing as easy as it could be. They ensure that everything lines up precisely with the correct spacing. It gets the wing on absolutely square to the fuselage, with the correct incidence. Utterly brilliant and essential to building this kit!. Add to Pheon's superb rapid service, and excellent choice of colour schemes and really can't go wrong. I was fortunate enough to have some airfoil sectioned brass 'Strutz' material (long out of production), to replace the plastic items in the kit. The whole model is very strong.  The Undercarriage assembly jig ensures you get it spot on. (note the replacement brass legs).

The second jig, where you place the wing in first, and then the fuselage. You can then fashion your own struts, or fit the less substantial kit ones;

 

 

I used the kit plastic 'V' struts , but had to cut them at the point of the 'V' to fit them accurately to my brass replacements;

 

I used Wingnut Wings aftermarket 4 colour lozenge decal which I had to cut to shape, but there is also the option of Aviattic's 'Cookie Cutter' set which provides for 2 aircraft.  It's been a fun project, and I'm pleased to finally have a Fokker E.V to join my line up of Wingnut Wings kits. (But why do you always spot the devil dust on the photos after you've taken them 😠)

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

[Mattlow]

A beauty!

 

Must look at the Pheon decals....

 

Is there a WiP for this (I'll go and have a look)?

 

Matt

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

... That is one great looking Fokker 👍

[RMCS]

Brilliant 

[Andwil]

Fantastic.  One thing bothers me though, should the lozenge fabric on the fuselage be the same all the way around?  ie not with the lighter underside.  It would seem to me (and I may have completely the wrong idea) that the fabric is wrapped around the fuselage and stitched along the underside.

 

Andrew

[Rui Silva]

Excellent model and posting, congrats!

[Epeeman]

John 

 

Stunning!  I cannot believe this is the Mikro Mir kit that I built last year and makes my effort punny in comparison to yours ...........

 

Well done mate!

 

Regards

 

Dave

 

Ps - just completed Arma Hobby version in 1/72 which was a superb little kit of the Fok EV.

[MartinSK]

Excellent Fokker and very clean job & super tool for easy assembly.

[HansReggelsen]

Aawww! Your build is so beautifull I just ordered the kit myself! 

And for me to part with my hardearned cash is high praise indeed (I have a close - some may say a loving - connection to my money! )

Cheers 

Hans J

[Harold55]

Great job and very helpful write up on your process, thanks.

[russ c]

Great looking Fokker there John, love the scheme too

[Viking]

Thanks for the kind comments guys, as always it is much appreciated.

On 24/06/2018 at 20:53, Mattlow said:

Is there a WiP for this (I'll go and have a look)?

 

Matt

Matt, I did start by taking a few photos, but unfortunately got busy with lots of other stuff and it sort of fizzled out! I've got this one of the interior where I used some leftover 'interior lozenge' from a Wingnuts kit;

 

On 25/06/2018 at 08:41, Andwil said:

Fantastic.  One thing bothers me though, should the lozenge fabric on the fuselage be the same all the way around?  ie not with the lighter underside.  It would seem to me (and I may have completely the wrong idea) that the fabric is wrapped around the fuselage and stitched along the underside.

 

Andrew

That's a good question Andrew, My understanding is that it would not have worked to just wrap a large sheet of lozenge around the fuselage, and stitch it together underneath. 1 reason is that the 'bolts' (strips) of fabric would not have been large enough, and the other is that the taper of the fuselage would have meant it wouldn't work. I believe that what they did was cut panels of fabric to match the top, sides, and bottom, and stitched them together along the edges. This meant they could use a separate colour underneath. It would have been slit along the middle to wrap the it around the fuselage, and stitch back together underneath.

I did a similar thing for my model. I stuck masking tape on the unpainted fuselage, ran a pencil along the edges, and then removed them and stuck them to thick card. I then cut out the shapes to give me templates for cutting out the Wingnut Wings bolts of 4 colour lozenge decal;

 

 

On 26/06/2018 at 12:17, HansReggelsen said:

Aawww! Your build is so beautifull I just ordered the kit myself! 

And for me to part with my hardearned cash is high praise indeed (I have a close - some may say a loving - connection to my money! )

Cheers 

Hans J

I'm honored Hans! It's a typical limited run kit with cleaning up of parts to do, but goes together quite well. If possible, I'd recommend using metal strut material. The 'kingpin' is the forward strut, for which I cut & filed a hole in the fuselage. This allowed me to cut a long strut and be able to adjust it up & down when in the mounting jig, before securing it with cyano when all was 'just right'. It'd probably work well with plastic struts too. Good luck with yours, I'm already looking forward to see it posted here!

 

Cheers

 

John

[stringbag]

Superb John.

Sorry I missed this one earlier.

 

Chris.

 

[Andwil]

15 hours ago, Viking said:

.

 

That's a good question Andrew, My understanding is that it would not have worked to just wrap a large sheet of lozenge around the fuselage, and stitch it together underneath. 1 reason is that the 'bolts' (strips) of fabric would not have been large enough, and the other is that the taper of the fuselage would have meant it wouldn't work. I believe that what they did was cut panels of fabric to match the top, sides, and bottom, and stitched them together along the edges. This meant they could use a separate colour underneath. It would have been slit along the middle to wrap the it around the fuselage, and stitch back together underneath.

I did a similar thing for my model. I stuck masking tape on the unpainted fuselage, ran a pencil along the edges, and then removed them and stuck them to thick card. I then cut out the shapes to give me templates for cutting out the Wingnut Wings bolts of 4 colour lozenge decal;

 

 

.

Yeah, that makes sense now.  Thanks for the explanation.

 

Andrew