Fokker D.VII dual build - finished

[Ologist]

Its taken me a long time to commit to my first work in progress, and have have to state now that my usual rate of progress is at best stately, at worst 'still life'

 

So it would be sensible to start with something relatively straightforward. At lest that's what I told myself. But I didn't listen, and instead decided to take the challenging path, namely:

 

 

 

 

There have been several excellent built examples of Roden's small scale D.VII shown in the ready for inspection section here, from the the descriptions no one was in too much of a hurry to repeat the experience. So why put myself through the ordeal of building a kit that is considered to have several significant flaws? In particular, why do it when there are alternatives, including Eduard's excellently engineered Albatros and OAW versions, much more recently released. I don't really know the answer, other than wanting to prove (to myself) that there are solutions to most of the problems, and the potential satisfaction of coming up with effective workarounds.

 

The title hints at a duplication - not wishing to go in totally the wrong direction with an audience, a second kit is also on the bench, and is being used as a test bed for some ideas:

 

 

 

In the best tradition of 'here's one I made earlier' if fixes work on the Fokker version, I'll use them on the OAW. Eventually I hope to catch up, and this will become an almost simultaneous build of both.

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Ologist
Correction

[Ologist]

So what is the collective opinion of Roden's DV.II?

 

Reviews and other builders experiences have suggested the following

 

The lower wing doesn't fit the fuselage 

The fuselage is too long 

The fuselage is too wide

The engine doesn't fit

The radiator doesn't fit

The axle wing is not wide enough

There are some consistent moulding flaws

and a rather sweeping 'nothing fits'

 

It's almost an offputting list, and the question arises again - why not build Eduard's version(s) instead? Eduard go down the alternative route of including two different fuselages i each boxing, but for some versions you are required to indulge in some deft knifework removing louvres from the from end. I'm not the biggest fan of the way Eduard portray the rib tapes either. The Albatros version is becoming much harder to find as well. 

 

In its praise, Roden moulds some parts very finely indeed, the cockpit walls are commendably thin, and there is a lot of finese in the portrayal of the internal structure as is shows on the outside of the fuselage. The engines is very detailed, although in most cases almost all of it will be hidden.

[Andwil]

Add to the list the strut geometry is all wrong giving the upper wing an odd pitched forward look.  And the decals are pants.

 

Still, the detail is nice and with a bit (lot?) of work the fit issues can be overcome and a nice result achieved.  But find some aftermarket decals.

 

AW

[Roger Holden]

One of the best aspects of the Eduard kit is that it comes with lots of redundant parts you can use to 'dress up' less good D-VII kits.  In the case of the Roden kits, that includes the axle wing, radiator and wheels, thereby solving some of the problems. Although, comparing the wings between the 2, both are around 3mm shorter in the Roden kit, compared with the Eduard and I'm guessing the latter is correct, without getting the plans out. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

My hats off to you sir, you are a brave man to attempt these. Not to scare you but give you a heads up warning. I have two of these in the dead build pile as all of the struts exploded into micro fragments when I attempted to remove them from the sprue’s. The plastic is very brittle and falls apart easily.  I have the scale blue prints and hopefully will get around to scratch building them someday.  So In interest as these are some of my favorites I will follow your build. 
 

Dennis

[Ologist]

And so to business

 

Straightforward assembly of the cockpit and the gorgeously detailed engine, and painting of both.

So far so good, the first problems occur when trying to fit both assemblies to the fuselage. I think the engine might well be the root of most of the D.VII's problems. The multipart Mercedes is almost certainly a scale replica. As such, its not going to fit within the excessive thickness of an injection moulded cowling. I can envisage a situation where Roden's design people realised this, and compensated by making each of fuselage halves (moulded on their own sprue with the radiator) 0.75mm wider. Unfortunately this 'easing' impacts upon components on other sprues, which haven't been modified to allow for the extra width.

 

The engine is still a tight fit, and needs the inside of the starboard cowling thinning, especially around the 'shoulder' of the exhaust manifold. The low exhaust position of the early production airframes add to the complication and the hole for the exhaust pipe needs enlarging along its bottom edge very slightly. The upright air pump at the front end of the engine seems a rarity on D.VII's until quite late in the war, so was removed. There's no need to replace this with the horizontal version, as very little of the engine will be visible.

 

 

 

Hand pump from brass tube, Aviattic 4 colour reversed interior decals over Humbrol 103 gloss cream

 

 

The cockpit floor seems to be designed for the scale width cockpit, hence is narrower than the width of the assembled cockpit. This doesn't cause any fit problems, but makes securing the floor difficult - the only point of contact as deigned is the rear step, which doesn't follow the profile of the bottom of the fuselage. It is supposed to sit on the rear spar of the lower wing assembly at its from end, but this doesn't get added until later. A square of 40thou plastic card does gives the necessary support.

 

 

Cockpit assembly added to port side, as the lower fuselage is very slightly thicker on this side.

Only other additions are the screen behind the seat, from 10 thou plastic card, seat belts from paper and the throttle assembly and ignition lever from 0.2mm copper wire

 

 

 

Now is the time to start thinking about the lower wing. Remarkably, not only doesn't it fit, it doesn't fit in all three dimensions. With the fuselage halves still separate, the fore and aft direction can be partially sorted. The aperture in the lower fuselage needs squaring up, but it can't be extended too far forward as the rear undercarriage strut locations are already close to the forward edge. Instead the area in front of the forward spar of the lower wing can be trimmed back. The slots in the fuselage sides into which the spars fit are not deep enough, and the font pair are at an angle which causes the wing to twist downwards. I'm fairly sure this is what causes the upper wing to end up too far forward.

Slots deepened and widened, but not too much as they may become visible above the lower wing. Much better to reduce the height of the spars on the lower wing - it's actually the piece of fuselage between the spare slots which is going to determine the position of the lower wing in a vertical direction, and this will be far more controllable with the fuselage assembled

Edited April 18, 2021 by Ologist

[Ologist]

As has been well documented, the fuselage is too wide to fit between the lower wings. Narrowing the fuselage might just be possible, but would create fit issues everywhere else, so the only viable option, as others have done, is to cut the lower wing unit in half and fill the resultant gap on the centreline.

The problem with this is that the two spars linking the wings give structural rigidity, and it will be very difficult to get both wings properly aligned with each other if treating these as separate units - there's not a lot in the way of contact points with the fuselage anyway.

My solution:

Two 7mm lengths of Albion Alloys 1mm od aluminium tube superglued inside the spars

 

 

Once properly set, the wings are cut into with a razor saw, and 8mm lengths of 045mm hard brass wire glued into the tubes of one half   

 

 

The wing halves can now be rejoined, and the gap between them set using the assembled fuselage. Once everything is aligned, the wings can be taped down

 

Fuselage removed, and superglue run into to the other halves of the aluminium tubes to lock the interwing gap

 

The resulting one piece wing is quite rigid, but to be on the safe side, I filled in the spars (and the gap underneath the wings) with strips of 30 thou plastic

 

 

The lower wings are in perfect alignment with each other, and the rebuilt spars give the very thin fuselage sides some integrity. As a bonus, the increased span now matches almost exactly the drawings in the Windsock Fokker Anthology volume 1

 

 

[billn53]

A good engineering solution for widening the wings. I would consider adding a reinforcing strip of plasticard across the top, between the aluminum tubes, just to be safe. 

[Marklo]

Nice job so far. Haven’t built many Roden kits but I have found the ones I’ve done to be challenging. Which is probably why I scratch build a lot; at least I only have myself to blame if it turns out like this  

[Ologist]

Work getting in the way of things, but a little progress:

 

The instrument panel is nicely moulded, but almost completely hidden, so not too much effort expended on it

 

 

The last major fit issue (I hope) is at the rear end.

 

First find your tailplane hidden within the flash.........

 

 

Sprue attachment points are intrusive as well. But five minutes with sanding sticks and scalpel does the trick

 

 

It looks much better, but it doesn't fit. Yet.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Ologist

[Ologist]

 

 

So far I've not provided the evidence for the title of this thread. but the the OAW (Early) version has now caught up with the Fokker (early) version that I've been using to test some ideas out on. The only differences between the two are minor, and involve some of the access doors in the forward fuselage. 

 

So this the state of the OAW:

 

And now joined by the early Fokker version:

 

The fuselage sprue for the Fokker was moulded in white, so there's a throwback to the days of Matchbox two coloured kits.

 

Since the last update the upper fuselage has been fitted to both, contrary to some online build these bot fitted almost perfectly, after the forward corners of the recess in the main fuselage sides was sharpened up to a right angle. Having almost started to remove the small step in the cockpit surround, I realised that this should be there.

 

The radiator fit on the Fokker was very good, on the OAW the upper cowling siders were turned in a little too much, but easily solved by forcing them out with cocktail sticks between them and the engine whilst the glue set. Just a little filler needed - on the prototype panel lines around the radiator are almost indiscernible.

 

The recess for the tailplane needed significant deepening to allow the bottom of the rudder to be level with the bottom edge of the fuselage. The 'slot' at the front of the tailplane also needed deepening and widening - the whole tailplane assembly is moved forward about 1mm. I filed back the rear of the fuselage decking slightly but added a strip of 20  x 40 thou which gives a cleaner edge. Its far easier to make the final adjustment with the fin and rudder attached to the tailplane, everything is right when the front edge of the lower part of the rudder touches the rear of the fuselage without any gaps. Pleasingly, it didn't take very long to achieve a satisfactory fit.

 

Elevators were separated along the line of the balance horns with a razor saw and carefully bent down, Most photographs show these as slightly deflected, but nothing like the extent as with some allied aircraft, such as Sopwith triplanes

 

And so onto the  upper wings.

 

These are rough in places - I get the impression that the toolmaker was suddenly called away and forgot he hadn't quite finished these

 

The aileron control horns are nicely moulded on the lower surfaces, but are missing from the top - on the right wing there is a slot which suggests there might have been a plan to include these as additional parts, but there is no corresponding feature on the left hand side

 

 

 

There are some nasty blobs of unwanted plastic on the ailerons themselves, nothing too difficult to deal with, but adds another couple of minutes to the clean up time. The sprue attachment points are yet again quite intrusive.

 

However, some good news. I've seen it written on more than one online build that the upper wings are usually warped. When I'd freed them from the sprues from both versions, that was my first impression. It does seem to be an optical illusion though, caused by the unusual wing geometry. The top surface is supposed to be flat - there is no dihedral as such, but the lower surfaces slope from the centre to the tips

 

 

Not easy to show, but Roden's wings are indeed flat on their upper surface.

 

Its getting close to the time for some paint and other surface decoration

 

Jon

Edited March 15, 2022 by Ologist
Typo

[Ologist]

As predicted in my first post, life, work and now the Euros are all conspiring to slow progress on the D.VIIs almost to standstill.

 

However, some paint on, and now limited, if not committed to, final schemes, For both, Gunze H1 white where needed beneath the lozenge decals:

 

The early OAW will be a Jasta 4 aircraft  (but NOT Udet's). Nose painted in prehistoric Gloy matt black, which behaves wonderfully. The tail and elevator colours caused me more angst than was justified. Contemporary reports speak of Jasta 4 having light blue tails, but this doesn't seem to have impacted upon decal manufacturer's thinking, the usual suggestions being white or lozenged. The few photos available of Jasta 4 in the summer of 1918 definitely show a tone darker than the fin and rudder, even Udet's striped D.VII seems to show a difference in colour between the horizontal surfaces and the elevator. Eventually I went for a 3:2 mix of Gunze H1 and H323.

Cockpit fairing is Revell 65, with Misterkit Albatros mauve hazy splodges, but washed over with the green to reduce the contrast. The fin and rudder are in Citadel Skull white, which is just very slightly off white, and for me gives a more realistic feel.

 

 

The early Fokker built version will be in the first version of the Jasta 13 colours, with the vertical demarcation between the green and blue. The green is Tamiya X5.

Whilst the Revell 65 was out for the OAW version, I decided to experiment to see if hand streaking would produce acceptable results, which I think for 10 minutes effort has worked reasonably well. It will be covered by blue paint anyway, but might just give a hint of showing through. The fuselage cross is from the kit's decals, with a couple of coats of Microscale decal film. Roden's decals are often very well printed, with good register, and settle down nicely IF they can be persuaded to end up in the right place without shattering.

 

The bottom wings were extended to allow the fuselage to fit between them, so the interplane strut locations in the lower surface of the top wing need moving outward to compensate. Oddly, with careful measuring, they aren't moved as much as the corresponding lower locations.

 

One the subject of decals, Roden do provide lozenge decals:

 

From the OAW version - 4 colour

 

And the early Fokker version - 5 colour

 

Whilst arguments will continue about the colours of German lozenge fabric, I don't feel too controversial in saying that mostly these aren't close, although the 5 colour top surface may not be a million miles away. When more reliable alternatives are available, Roden's decals aren't really worth considering, even assuming they could be painlessly applied. So, its going to be Aviattic for the 4 colour, and the last of my stock of Pegasus 5 colour.

Application should keep me busy for a while...........

[Ologist]

Its been a long time since I last posted, but whilst progress has been slow, at least its been significant;

 

The early Fokker build, of Ltn Werner Niethammer, Jasta 13, June 1918. Personal markings from the Mac Distribution Fokker D.VII (OAW), Pegasus 5 colour lozenge.

 

 

Fokker (OAW) of Ltn Heinz Graf von Gluszewski-Kwilecki of Jasta 4, August 1918. The shield is a stylised version of the Kwilecki coat arms, and from Americal-Gryphon with the addition of a thin yellow border which is evident of a photograph of the pilot in the cockpit. Lozenge is Aviattic cookie cut 4 colour.

 

 

Both Jastas modified the early crosses in distinct ways, and this is my best guess from the available photographs. The lower Fokker built version uses the crosses from Roden's OAW kit, the upper OAW version uses heavily modified Americal Gryphon decals

 

 

 

[Ologist]

 

A short update. The under-width axle wing needs addressing. It's easy to see how Roden got this wrong - towards the end of the war, there was a tendency to remove the part of the fairing over the bungee cords, and it's likely most surviving airframes have been so modified. Roden have measured the shortened fairing, but not made allowance for the uncovered part. Because the distance between the undercarriage legs is correct, the fix is relatively easy: a strip of 60 thou card each side, lots of liquid cement and careful sanding when dry. The stub axles needed to be replaced, and Albion Alloys aluminium tube inserted into quite deep holes is going to add to the strength of the assembly.

 

 

If the undercarriage isn't to wobble when complete, the bracing wires need to fulfil the same function as on the real plane, Full size the wires pass through the fairing just inside the front strut. One option was to drill vertically through the fairing and tension the thread from the bottom, but a tidier solution was to drill 0.9mm holes parallel to and just in front of the axles, then drill vertically down to meet these. A test showed that the Aeroclub rigging thread would make the 90 degree bend and emerge at the side of the fairing.

[Ologist]

Various builds of Rodens's Fokker D.VIIs complain that the struts are too short or too long. These have an effect on the relative position of the upper and lower wings. Whatever the underlying faults, it's obvious that the top wings and struts aren't going to go on easily without some help in getting the wing position right, then adjusting the struts to fit if necessary.

 

It's time to call upon John Adams's engineering knowledge and skills:

 

I've had Aeroclub's jig for a number of years and not used it very often, but it's going to help considerably here.

 

Jon

[Ologist]

I'm utterly amazed as to how much time has passed since my last update. family, friends and work seems to have squeezed the time available for other things. However progress has been made, but I'm a bit behind reporting  this.

The Aeroclub jig didn't just help 'considerably', it turned out to be essential to get the upper wing positioned correctly in relation to the lower wing and the fuselage, and more critically, making sure the upper and lower wings are absolutely parallel. The Fokker built version was a lot easier to set up, which suggests there are some differences in the fuselage strut locating points between Roden's different versions. Once the wing position was established, there was some good news:

The 'V' cabane struts (Part 6A) fitted perfectly on the Fokker built version, and reasonably well on the OAW 

The rear cabane struts (Part 10A) clicked very satisfying into place on both versions, once the lower locating points had been made deeper 

So far so good......

The long front cabane struts (Part 9A) needed attention. Roden would have you insert the top end into the same locating hole in the underside of the top wing as the point of the V struts. This wasn't going to happen. The top end needs to be faired into the V strut, 10 seconds with a sanding stick on each on did the business. The lower end sits just above the undercarriage strut, in reality it passes through a cowling panel, but here it was simply rounded off, loosing about 0.5mm of excess length in the process.

Thus the top wing was theoretically firmly attached to the rest of the aircraft, and all that was left was to slip the interplane struts between the wings (even if it was getting a bit cramped in the jig), and job done.

Or not. The interplane struts don't fit. They don't even nearly fit. They are completely the wrong shape, and it's this that has probably terminated many builds of Roden's Fokkers, especially for those who tried to fix the interplane struts before the cabane struts, and left others with the notoriously off upper wing geometry.

Not all is lost with these struts however. It might have been simpler to scratch build completely new ones, but I decided on a rescue mission.

 

 

The 'N' struts were cut so as to separate the rear leg, What is now the rear leg of the 'V-strut' needed to be extended by 1mm (a tad more for the OAW version, for some reason). I took the opportunity to insert a short length of 0.3mm hard brass wire, then slid a piece of 40thou plastic with a hole drilled over, and applied both Mr Cement and superglue. Once set, it was easy to sand to profile. The modified front V now fits easily into the front hole in the lower wing, and front and rear in the upper wing. Once firmly attached, the rear leg, with a little sanding to change the angle of the cut, fitted very nicely into the rear hole in the lower wing and nestled convincingly against the top of the intermediate leg.

Hold breathe and slacken all the nuts on the jig, and to my surprise, everything stayed exactly where it was intended to be. Twice.

 

Jon

 

[AdrianMF]

There's an awful lot of wrestling going on here! You seem to be winning convincingly - all this talk of 0.3mm brass wire makes my head spin a bit though

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Brandy]

Nice save!

I replaced all struts on my MAC one with plastic rod as they were grossly overscale.

 

Ian

[Ologist]

On 2/9/2022 at 11:51 AM, AdrianMF said:

There's an awful lot of wrestling going on here! You seem to be winning convincingly - all this talk of 0.3mm brass wire makes my head spin a bit though

 

 

It has certainly been a challenge, but one I've quite enjoyed. I always felt that here were reasonably simple solutions to the well documented issues with these models. Most of these involved securing parts that were supposed to be joined at the right distance from,  and orientation to each other, then working out how to fill the gap to permanently unite them.......

The brass wire (from Alan Gibson) is a legacy of my railway modelling days, it adds a lot of strength where needed, and I was tempted to use it to pin most of the strut ends, but  common sense prevailed. Its rally useful stuff, as long as you remember to use proper wire cutters and not reach for the sprue cutters instead.

[Ologist]

On 2/9/2022 at 2:51 PM, Brandy said:

I replaced all struts on my MAC one with plastic rod as they were grossly overscale.

 

I've built the Mac Distribution OAW version, and whilst it falls together much more easily than Roden's Fokkers, I found it to be quite crude in terms of detail, and on reflection should have gone down the same route and at least replaced the interplane struts

 

[AdrianMF]

Gorgeous paint scheme! I'm quite warming to German/Austrian WWI types.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Andwil]

6 hours ago, Ologist said:

 

I've built the Mac Distribution OAW version, and whilst it falls together much more easily than Roden's Fokkers, I found it to be quite crude in terms of detail, and on reflection should have gone down the same route and at least replaced the interplane struts

 

Looks a lot like the old Revell offering, is it a re-box per chance?

AW

[Ologist]

15 hours ago, Andwil said:

Looks a lot like the old Revell offering, is it a re-box per chance?

 

Definitely not that crude! It's a MAC tooling dating from the indeterminate 2000s according to Scalemates. It even includes a small, but not very useful PE. Albatros and OAW built versions were released but MAC got into a mess with the decals for the OAW, to the extent that not one of the five(?) included schemes featured the numerous small cowling louvres of the mid production OAW planes present on the kit part.

[Ologist]

I don't want to risk the wrath of Albatros Publications by posting an overlay with the plans in the Windsock Datafile Anthology, but all the angles and gaps seem to be very close matches:

 

John Adams must take a lot of the credit - setting up the upper wing would have been very difficult indeed without the Aeroclub jig

 

 

[AdrianMF]

The alignment looks spot on. I've got some struttery to do on one of mine soon and I hope it goes as well as yours! I like the way your underpainting shows through on the fuselage too.

 

Regards,

Adrian