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Junkers F.13 - Revell 1/72nd scale with tweaks


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Just think of it for a moment:

An all-metal, cantilever monoplane passenger "airliner"... in 1919.

Derived actually from other Junkers designs of WWI that followed the same principles: all-metal monoplanes, using pioneering techniques that will later spread to other manufacturers ("corrugated" metal plane examples exist by the bunch in later aviation history) and spearheading the future of aviation as it is today.

 

This is a plane that had the great honor of carrying Sigmund Freud:

https://www.alamy.com/sigmund-freud-1930-neg16-image5542713.html

 

and Albert Einstein:

https://www.junkers.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ABJ_590_J13_226_Portfolio_Sein_Leben_Web_05_2019-1080x720.jpg

 

 

It seems truly incredible that aviation conservative -when not plain retrograde- thinking would insist with braced biplanes of wood and canvas for many, many years to follow.

In any case, the Junkers F.13 is a plane that was built by the hundreds and was sold to and operated in many countries, including Bolivia, Colombia and Argentina among the first.

 

The Revell kit has been around for a while, and indeed Revell should be commended for releasing a kit of an iconic civil plane that was used world-wide (even in South America, China, Russia and Japan) that also, being corrugated, was perhaps not easy to produce.

I have built the Revell kit before, OOB, but now wanted a bit more of excitement, therefore I plunged into my F.13e folder, for hours and hours and hours.

It was obvious from the beginning that the Revell kit, as it is, covers a very narrow swath of the production, all earlier types, and not even near all of those either. 

Revell has released this kit in many boxings as a landplane and hydroplane, with many marks. I built the Austrian passenger carrier version:

 

 

I remember from the build that the kit seemed nice, had some issues regarding accuracy, the fit in general was good but with a few exceptions (the prop dangled down loose a bit, for example) and the decals were DISMAL, a thick cake that won't, at any cost, comply with the corrugations. I have read this same complaint many times after from other modelers.

 

I got a freshly baked, 2020 boxing, with many fancy Revell treats: a full color, large, multipage assembly booklet and decals printed in 2020, hopefully better than the despicable decal thick cake of old. The sprues include the floats and ancillaries, but the clear parts came unprotected in the same bag with them, fortunately preserving their clarity.

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Why not build the kit with the offered decals, if I was looking for color?

Well, the danzig name and livery carries obscure connotations, if you know history, and you care about it (and especially about not repeating it).

Thus:

 

During research, I was mightily tempted by the Revell boxing of two planes that went in a South American expedition, D-217 and D-218, but ultimately refrained because I was looking for something with more color and pizzazz.

There are some resin aftermarket sets out there that allow the conversion of the Revell kits to cover more subjects. I tried to follow on that matter but all came to naught. In any case, I can make the necessary adaptations.

The next subjects I considered were a product of the "Misión Junkers" in Argentina, which fostered the acquisition and operation of several F.13 planes: R-ACTA, R-ACTB, R-ACTD, and R-ACTX (R-ACTV seems a re-registered R-ACTA) but accounts of the registrations vary. Even a local airline was created in 1925, the Lloyd Aéreo Córdoba, with regular scheduled flights. Córdoba is a state in the center of Argentina, famous for many wonderful things, and infamous because some small enclaves there were recognized nazi harboring places, whose tendrils extended in time until very recently.

 

All these schemes/decorations followed more or less the dullness of the Junkers aesthetics, therefore my roving eye went for some more uplifting schemes. I found several, but their exact colors could not be established even in the ballpark. Among those, Eddie Rickembacker's Junkers Larsen looked pretty darn good, very colorful...but the only certainty that could be obtained were the colors of the "hat in ring" motif that he carried on from his earlier planes. The rest remained in...many shades of grey. Same for the plane of director Cecil B. Demille.

Also considered:

-A specific Colombian machine on floats, called "Colombia", that had an unusual scheme, possibly in the colors of the Colombian flag.

-An Imperial Oil machine that I have seen modeled before, for which a set from Whiskey Jack Decals at one point existed (not anymore).

-Number 6 racer, a Junkers flown by pilot Melchoir

-A few N-registered planes

-A number of British-registered machines, but most, if most all, can't be built from the Revell short fuselage kit with accuracy as the fuselage was extended at one point in production.

 

And what I think are the most serious contenders so far:

-German-registered D-1 (ex D-138), in a specific livery it wore for a time: possibly yellow, black and metal.

-German-registered D-224 under Hamburger Fremdenblatt newspaper ownership, painted red fuselage with white chevrons and metal wings.

 

Many of these options -if not all- are not just a matter of straight paint and decal changes from the kit, they require minor tweaks. And a couple major tweaks (shorter wings, for example, obtainable form the kit but with some work, needless to say.

 

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46 minutes ago, Juhannussima said:

Yes!  Junkers F-13 comes again  Rebox released  2020.  It's good to have it back.   Some links.

https://adl-luftfahrthistorik.de/dok/danziger-luftfahrt-teil-3-kennzeichen-anstrich-namen-der-flugzeuge.pdf

https://www.arcticdecals.com/tuotteet.html?id=21443/

 

Unfortunately none of the above for the model that will be portrayed here.

The danzig one for the motives explained above 😒

But eventually the decals for the version/s discussed here may come from the same source, as they regularly do 😃

 

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Looks interesting.


I recently read a biography of Junkers, while the history is interesting the book wasn’t a great read. Junkers wasn’t a Nazi and pretty much fought with the incoming regime but was dependent on them as well. They bankrupted him twice and there were numerous law suits between the two ( and with Ford over the trimotor).

Junkers was persuaded to setup a factory in Russia by the RLM prior to them going public with rearmament and the new Luftwaffe and this basically hemmoraged money. It was eventually sold to the Soviets and the irony is that its legacy was the resurgence of Soviet aviation during the war ( this is the link that makes the JI and the IL2 cousins )

 

His vision was to have four aviation companies; a research institute; an airline; an engine manufacturer and an airframe manufacturer. But he struggled to make money from this organisation. He died before the war and the running of the organisation was pretty much taken over by the state.
 

The irony of the whole thing is that the iconic Luftwaffe types like the JU87 and Ju88 had nothing at all to do with Junkers himself who pretty much wanted to build airliners and create a worldwide air network.
 

Anyway not to highjack the thread ;interesting history terse book. Looking forward to the build. 

Edited by Marklo
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I saw this in the Revell catalog and resisted the urge to buy it. That pic with Einstein almost made the difference. Jedi mind trick again! Must not press 'Buy'.

 

p.s. Nice collection of pics on the Alamy website. I almost threw in the towel when I saw the one with the Junkers on skis and a dogsled team.

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1 minute ago, Moa said:

When I saw that one, I thought "I have that Ford Trimotor kit in arctic version that comes with the dog sled..."

Me too. In fact, I have two of them!

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16 hours ago, Moa said:

his is a plane that had the great honor of carrying Sigmund Freud:

https://www.alamy.com/sigmund-freud-1930-neg16-image5542713.html

You mean it had a couch instead of seats ? :hmmm:😄

 

I shall be following this for the 20th century icons alone Moa - good luck! :thumbsup2:

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I have that kit,too. If I ever build it, I'll add the Rising Decals resin and the J-BOT decals, to make this Canadian example the flew for Imperial from Alberta up into the North West Territories.

 

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Chris

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23 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

I have that kit,too. If I ever build it, I'll add the Rising Decals resin and the J-BOT decals, to make this Canadian example the flew for Imperial from Alberta up into the North West Territories.

 

Chris

That's one of the group I listed above that caught my attention.

I may be wrong, but that particular one may have had the earlier, shorter wing.

You can still chop the kit's wings, but have to do it with skill (which you have).

You may need to research that subject a bit before committing (again, I may be wrong, but I just compared photos of it showing the full span with the kit's wing and the photo seems to be missing a noticeable portion of the span towards the tip):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_F_13

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Regarding this "starting the model from outside", I decided I would take this ambience challenge "a step beyond", or "further afield" -if you forgive my puns- and dedicate a portion on an airfield to it.
The base is done, the tracks for the fuel trolley have been installed, and I started to pull some diorama supplies from the most inaccessible crags of my modeling dungeons:

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21 minutes ago, Moa said:

That's one of the group I listed above that caught my attention.

I may be wrong, but that particular one may have had the earlier, shorter wing.

You can still chop the kit's wings, but have to do it with skill (which you have).

You may need to research that subject a bit before committing (again, I may be wrong, but I just compared photos of it showing the full span with the kit's wing and the photo seems to be missing a noticeable portion of the span towards the tip):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_F_13

 

Ah! So you did! I missed that when I read it. The mysteries of aging.

 

Than you so much for thinking I have skill enough for major wing surgery. If you're trying to puff up my ego, you're doing a great job. I'm chuffed!

 

 

 

Chris

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Trailing edges are too thick and must be scraped/sanded from inside:

IMG_9916+%25281280x960%2529.jpg

 

 1992... oh , my, 28 years ago! I was only 95 years old then! Gaudeamus, Igitur, Iuvenes dum sumus!

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Thick as modelers that nit-pick on others' models:

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 Ah, much better, after a session in water sports recreational area (of which I am the undisputed ruler, no matter what @Martian says)

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The small parts at this stage of the life of the mold are 50 % part and 50% flash. Notice that as it thins, the plastic becomes translucent:

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 Floaty bits separated and bagged, as they won't be used now on this model:

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 Itsy Bitsy bits in container, that later I will knock-off and have a blast finding the small parts again! you have to be creative with this stay-at-home thing and keep yourself amused:

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3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

You mean it had a couch instead of seats ? :hmmm:

Well...

The cabin had a "Couch" and two seats. Two other seats are provided for pilot and company. They are all of the same design, although I doubt this was the case.

Passenger seats were lavishly upholstered, and the cockpit was open to the elements. Have to have a look at this:

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With my Hurricane build, I kept all the removed small parts in an old 35mm film canister. No worries if it got knocked over, as long as the lid was on it. Even then. I've got the table legs shimmed up so that every thing that can roll will roll toward the back. 

 

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I have a small reserve of film containers, from 20 years of using a film camera.

 

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Chris

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A few minor parts are glued together.

Revell has the ailerons as being of constant chord, but every photo I have that allows a good view of this wing feature, shows a slightly curved trailing edge. 

It may be possible that some models had this feature, though. The type changed and evolved continuously. 

BUT: the alternate livery for this model, CH-94 of Ad Astra, for sure had a curved aileron trailing edge. I think Revell messed up here. 

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(Pictures from ETH Zurich digital repository):

http://ba.e-pics.ethz.ch/Preview.PreviewServlet?recordView=relationCollectionView&catalogID=8&recordID=257468&imageSize=99999

 

https://www.e-pics.ethz.ch/index/ethbib.bildarchiv/ETHBIB.Bildarchiv_LBS_SR02-00024_461621.html

 

I will have to excise the ailerons and make my own.

I will use the closest "corrugated" styrene I have, but you may also "copy" a section of wing corrugations with alu foil to do that, or (and it's going to be a nightmare you won't like) you may buy another kit, cut sections of the wing top and bottom, and sand those like mad to fabricate the ailerons.

 

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8 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

With my Hurricane build, I kept all the removed small parts in an old 35mm film canister. No worries if it got knocked over, as long as the lid was on it. Even then. I've got the table legs shimmed up so that every thing that can roll will roll toward the back.

I have a small reserve of film containers, from 20 years of using a film camera.

Chris

1) An Huracán? a warplane? ts-ts, Chris. Not on my lawn! 😒 :ner:

2) What's the fun in that?

3) I do have lids for those containers, but I like to live dangerously (you too, as I see, posting warplanes here...:fraidnot:) 😉

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