WiP - 1/48 Eduard Albatros DVa

[Brad Cancian]

Hi all - I have decided to start another 1/48 DVa. Having built several before, this time, I have gone with the Revell boxing, which is a re-box of the Eduard kit. Revell have moulded this kit in a very light grey and slightly brittle plastic.

 

Reflecting upon the fact that a tightly cowled Albie hides all of its secrets, I decided to bite the bullet and tackle something that i've wanted to do for a while; an un-cowled DVa.

 

The first thing to do, unsurprisingly, was cut off the kit cowls, and thin down the fuselage sidewalls. I sanded off all of the interior detail, and thinned down the interior of the nose section with a dremel:

 

 

Now, the real challenge... how do deal with those curves, and build all of the distinctive formers? Having sanded the fuselage, it was now not simply a round symmetrical section that I could use. I also really didn't want to make up each frame painstakingly by hand. I decided that I would use my Silhouette Portrait cutter to cut the formers from thin plastic. That would also allow me to design the lightening holes and have them cut out cleanly.

To do this, the first thing I did was roughly get the shape of each frame using thin plastic. Some of the shapes were going to be a bit 'odd', due to the way that the plastic had been sanded, creating shapes / contours that weren't quite oval (mainly at the point of the firewall, as you can see I needed a slightly odd shape here):

 

 

This then allowed me to scan the shapes into the Silhouette drawing program, and trace out each shape. The appropriate details were then added:

 

 

I then used the Shilhouette Portrait cutter to cut the shapes from 0.010" plastic. I had to use this plastic thickness as anything thicker would have been too hard to cut. This plastic was too thin in and of itself for each frame, so in order to provide some rigidity I cut two pieces for each frame and glued them together:

 

 

I then had the frames I needed to create the main structural elements:

 

Next was re-adding the structural detail in the fuselage halves:

 

 

And here it all is, VERY roughly placed within the fuselage. It may need a couple of adjustments here and there, but I think it will all work.

 

 

And proof the fuselage halves still come together... 

 

 

I now have the basis to commence the rest of the interior. Phew...! 

 

Happy to take comments, tips and feedback.

 

Cheers again!

 

BC

[Andrés S.]

Great start. !!!

 

Andrés.

[shortCummins]

at 1/32 this would have been impressive, at 1/48 its akin to witchcraft 😜

 

I shall follow this with interest

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Russmeister 101]

Astonishing!!

 

[HOUSTON]

BC,

FLAWLESS  start.

I'm quite partial to DVa's.

This should be awesome  to follow.

 

[billn53]

Your framing & other internals are mind boggling! I didn’t realize one could do that with a Silhouette . . .  As I have one, I’m now thinking of new ways to use it (so far, I’ve used mine only for masks).

[providence]

Excellent work so far, I can't wait to see the next steps.

 

Regards

 

Providence

[Bell209]

 

On 9/4/2022 at 9:46 PM, billn53 said:

I didn’t realize one could do that with a Silhouette

Me, neither! Another reason to get one. You're a sick man, Mr Cancian! 🤣

[Brad Cancian]

Thanks all! Yes the Silhouette is quite a versatile little tool. I also use it primarily to cut paint masks but as I have now learned it does well on thin plastics also
 

Cheers again!

 

Brad

[AdrianMF]

Wowzas. Lovely work on the internals. Finding it hard to remember the scale!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Marklo]

Fantastic work. I think I have this kit in the stash but on seeing your build I reckon it can stay there for a while  

Edited September 6, 2022 by Marklo

[Dave Slowbuild]

Simply superb!  Shall be following the rest of the build…

 

Dave

[Brad Cancian]

Hi everyone!  

 

Work slowly continues.

 

I decided that, without a nice aftermarket Mercedes D.IIIa engine in my hands, to take one from a very old Roden Fokker D.VII build I put together back around 2007, and salvage it.  Here's what it looked like when I started:

 

 

Detail removed (one of the bug bears I have with the Roden engine is that it has the ignition wire tube that runs lengthwise across all of the cylinders moulded in. This is clunky and unrealistic, so it needed to be chopped):

 

 

The engine cleaned up, showing a solid enough basis for additional detail:

 

 

And some detail added. I think that will do well enough once painted up:

 

 

This afternoon I built the fuel tanks from laminates of plastic sheet, cut and sanded to shape. Details were from plastic, wire and solder:

 

 

In its future home:

 

I also scratch built an oil tank. Here's the whole set up sitting in place. I think the engine bay should now look adequately 'busy' once it's all painted up. I'll add more detail once the main engine bay painting is done.

 

 

Next, with the key elements of the engine bay constructed, i'll probably shift my attention back to the cockpit.

 

Cheers!

 

BC

[billn53]

“And some detail added. I think that will do well enough once painted up”

 

I’d say so!!!
 

Really, really beautiful work you’re doing. I wish I were so skilled!

[Brad Cancian]

Many thanks Billn53!

[amos brierley]

I like……. I like it a lot……..detail and scale…..😉

[AdrianMF]

I couldn't believe you chopped up such a nice looking engine and I couldn't believe that you could make it much better, but you did and you did! Lovely work!

 

Regards,

Adrian