Eduard Fokker DVII

[Andwil]

A couple of years ago I built a a Roden Fokker DVII in the Eleventh Hour group build, it was the first of several that I had in my stash and the experience, frankly, put me off building any of the others.  The kit was beautifully detailed but the fit was awful, especially the lower wing and tail plane to fuselage joints that required a lot of fettling.  Then there was the issue of the struts, which were simply too long and even after trimming gave the top wing an odd angled forward pitch, seemingly there was something wrong with the geometry.  So when Eduard released their DVIII I replaced the Rodens in my stash.  Now after building a few jets this year I felt the need to do a biplane so pulled out a Fokker DVII (Alb) to be finished as Degolow’s handsome black and white machine with the stag marking.  For those who haven’t seen it, the Eduard Fokker DVII is a fantastic kit, moulded in a fairly hard shiny dark grey plastic, finely detailed.  You get a choice of two fuselages, two engines, three exhausts, 3 instrument panels, 3 types of machine gun, 4axle wings, 8 props and 9 radiators! So there will plenty of parts for the spares box.  The profipack edition also gives you PE parts.

 

First thing I tackled was the Mercedes engine:

 

 

 

posed on a milk bottle top for scale.

 

Next I assembled the cockpit:

 

 

 

The PE instrument panel:

 

 

Photos of Degolow’s plane and others of Jasta 40s show the top cowling panels removed to aid engine cooling, so these were cut away from the fuselage halves:

 

 

before the inside of the cockpit had the lozenge fabric from the extra dive decal sheet applied, along with PE throttle and .5mm Evergreen rod hand pump:

 

 

More to follow.

 

Thanks for looking, comments and advice welcome!

 

AW

[2996 Victor]

Hi,

 

I'll follow along, if I may.

 

You're making a great start on the D.VII. It sounds like its a great kit, so I'm looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

I made a couple of Eduard 1/48 WW1 subjects about 25 years ago, which were pretty good, but never tried one of their 1/72 kits.

 

Looking forward to the next instalment!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[Andwil]

Carl Degelow worked as an industrial chemist in the US pre war and was a good English speaker.  He joined the army shortly before the outbreak of war and saw action in France and Russia before being commissioned in July 1915 and transferred to the air service in 1916 and initially was posted to Fl. Abt. 

(A) 216 in early 1917.  His aggressive flying saw him transferred to Jasta 7 where he scored a few victories, before transferring to Jasta 40s in May 1918 which unit he assumed command of in July.  From here is score grew rapidly reaching 30 by the armistice.  On 9 November 1918 Degelow became the last recipient of the Pour le Merite.  During WW2 he served in the Luftwaffe as a major, and passed away in Hamburg on 9 November 1970. (Source:  Fokker DVII of World War 1 Part 2, Norman Franks and Greg VanWyngarden, Osprey).

 

Cockpit and engine attached to the fuselage:

 

 

 

and fuselage closed up:

 

 

The fit of the parts is very precise and mating surfaces (snurf) should be free of paint.  The fuel tank/instrument panel part needed a bit of fettling to fit, as the PE instrument panel is a tad too wide and the cockpit side wall decal, thin as it is also affects the fit.  A good fit here is important as the lower wing is a very tight fit, in fact it could probably be attached without glue.  A nice touch is a fillet which fits into the bottom of the fuselage, which replicates the stitching in the fabric and also serves to cover the seam.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[HOUSTON]

AW,

 

Fine work.  Cockpit  et al is nicely done.

Impressive. 

 

[Andwil]

Royal Saxon Jagdstaffel 40 was in 1918 a component of Jagdgruppe No.6 along with Jastas 7, 16b, 20, 51 and 56 (16b and 56 were detached in October).  Jagdgruppe 6 was commanded by Oblt Gandert until he became a pow on Sept 29.  The new commander was a certain Hptm Erhard Milch.  Jasta 40s was credited with 54 victories, no fewer than 26 of them were gained by Carl Degelow.  All the machines of the unit were marked with black fuselages and white empennages.  So off to the paint booth.

 

An overall primer coat followed by a few light coats of Mig AMMO flat white on the tail (the wings also received a coat of white in preparation for the lozenge camouflage decals):

 

 
Struts and undercarriage sprayed:

 

 

The port interplane strut fitted with an instrument, I think an airspeed indicator:

 

 

this will receive a decal on the face.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[opus999]

This looks very nice so far!  I'll follow along if that's OK! 

 

I have more than a few WWI a/c in the stash, but I haven't made one in a loooong time.  This may get me back into them!

[Broadway]

I'll follwow along too if I may, neat trick with the clothes peg.

[Andwil]

Welcome aboard @opus999 and @Broadway.  Fokker DVIIs and DR1s are a nice introduction to WW1 era aircraft as they have minimal rigging.  They also have a wide choice of great colour schemes to choose from!
 

Tail was masked off and the fuselage airbrushed black:

 

 

 

Next up is the lozenge camouflage on the wings.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

5 Colour Lozenge fabric decals applied to the upper surfaces of the wings:

 

 

 

The decals settle very nicely over the ribs etc but tend to grip very quickly and can be difficult to move around.  They are also very shiny.  The lower wing decals are slightly too big and will need some careful trimming after they have set.  I very nearly had a disaster with one lower wing, to help the decal settle I went to apply some Mr Mark Softer, which is in a bottle with a green lid.  I touched the brush to the decal near the wing root when the smell reached my nose.  Tamiya green cap!  Fortunately no damage done.

 

Undersides next.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Underside lozenges applied:

 

 

 

and a tiny instrument is added to the apparatus on the strut:

 

Next I have to tackle the rib tapes.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Jfgred1]

Very, very nice work so far. I will checking on how do you do the rigging... 

 

Please, keep it coming.

[TheBaron]

Top lozenging AW - in fact top everything. That looks bloody nice.

[opus999]

That lozenge camo looks terrific!

[Andwil]

Rib tapes.  The irony of choosing this model for my next build is that after a couple of modern jets I wanted a break from stencil decals.  So, 50 individual, narrow rib tapes that wrap around both sides of the wings...I just might be crazy.  Eduard give you the choice of light blue, pink, or lozenge fabric rib tapes on the extensive decal sheets.  My subject has the light blue ones.

 

 

 

Not perfect, there are a few crooked ones 😒.  Eduard give you a diagram showing which ones go where, but provide no guidance on how to apply them.  As I worked through the 50 tapes, I was able to improve my method, the wonky ones are the earlier ones.  For anyone contemplating building one of these I suggest the following:

 

1.  Cut every tape separately, do not be tempted to speed things up by soaking batches.  The carrier film is continuous on the sheet and the tapes will be joined.

 

2. Work on the model upside down, ie apply the tapes to the wing under sides first and curl them over to the top.

 

3.  Start from the trailing edge and work forward, this gives much better results.

 

4. Grow a third pair of hands.

 

Also the glue is very sticky and the decals will stick fast to whatever they come in touch with and unless care is taken will twist or curl under on themselves.  In retrospect it would have been a lot easier if the tapes were provided with the correct spacing on a wing shaped carrier.

 

Still have the wing tip and trailing edge tapes to do.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

 

[Terry1954]

Cracking modelling here, and I agree the lozenge looks superb. Always loved the purposeful lines of the Fokker DVII. This Eduard version looks the biz.

 

Terry

[Broadway]

Hours of fun, thanks for the tips, I think they will be needed when I get round to mine. I've previosely looked at the instructions and been completly bamboozled by the options, I think I do now, but they need careful reading to understand.

[Andwil]

The pilots of a Jasta 40s marked their aircraft with individual emblems in white for quick identification in the air.  Degelow marked his machine with the leaping white stag, derived from the sign of the Lahmann Sanitorium at Weisser Hirsch, Dresden.  Dr Lahmann was a well known pioneer of naturopathic medicine who encouraged vegetarian diets, saunas and outdoor bathing as aids to wellness.  In addition to the stag, as Jasta leader a Degelow also had a broad diagonal white band painted on his top wing.

 

Decals finished:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Eivind Lunde]

I hated the rib tapes when I did the 1/48 scale version, not sure why they couldn't just be part of the lozenge decals? Other than that, a spiffing job so far.

[John Masters]

Nice looking Fokker.  I have invested in some Aviatik lozenge camo.  They have the rib tapes already printed.  I save some sanity this way.

 

 

[Marklo]

That does look well. Although seeing how much work the decals are I might just do Herman Goerings DVII  ( although now that I look at it Ernst Udets scheme is pretty nice and he’s (arguably) a less reprehensible historic figure)

Edited November 18, 2020 by Marklo

[John Masters]

https://www.hannants.co.uk/catalogue?scale_id=956&product_type_id=2677&search_direction=asc&manufacturer_id=362601

 

7 minutes ago, Marklo said:

 

 

[Andwil]

6 hours ago, Eivind Lunde said:

I hated the rib tapes when I did the 1/48 scale version, not sure why they couldn't just be part of the lozenge decals? Other than that, a spiffing job so far.

Thanks Eivind.  I think Eduard have addressed all options by including blue, pink and lozenge pattern tapes and this way was cheaper than providing full wings.  They also give you the choice of 5 or 4 colour lozenge patterns.

 

6 hours ago, John Masters said:

Nice looking Fokker.  I have invested in some Aviatik lozenge camo.  They have the rib tapes already printed.  I save some sanity this way.

 

 

I have the Aviatik decals and used them on my Roden DVII (Lowenhardt’s yellow one) and they are brilliant.  I am saving them for my Eduard overtrees that come without decals.

 

AW

[opus999]

That looks spectacular now that the decals are all finished.  The rib tapes may been a pain, but it was worth it in the end. 

[Andwil]

Guns painted up, given a light dry brush of silver and the barrels rubbed over with a pencil and attached.  I also scratched the telescopic sight between the guns.  This may be mounted a bit low but I was concerned to allow adequate clearance for the top wing.

 

 

A matte coat has been applied overall.  Toning down the lozenges has brought out the colours better.

 

 

Wheels and propeller:

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Top wing attached.  Normally I would assemble the cabane struts first, but the arrangement on the DVII and the way Eduard has chosen to engineer them makes this impossible as more than one point of contact is needed to hold the wing up!  So, the interplane struts were glued to the lower wing with CA:

 

 

making sure these were square.  Then the forward tripod of cabane struts were glued on:

 

 

when these were set the wing was attached to the struts:

 

 

Finally, when this was set the single, rear cabane struts were eased into position and secured with a drop of CA applied with the end of a cocktail stick:

 

 

a little touching up the paint required.

 

Last thing today was to attach the undercarriage, this was a bit tricky to get lined up.  I also have reservations over the strength of this as the attachment points are so small.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW