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Dornier Do-217 E-5


Stebos

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I came so very close to choosing a C-47, surprised we've not seen one show up yet.

However I felt things were looking a little uneven between allied & axis so I've picked the Do-217 instead.

do217box.jpg

It's the old J/K kit with raised lines and some new tooled detail parts to allow for an E variant (so I understand).

It should give lots of scope for heavy weathering, and shading practice. It's a simple & cheap kit I picked up for 1/2 price so I won't cry too much if I ruin it horribly!

The sprues:

do217sprue1.jpg

do217sprue2.jpg

do217sprue3.jpg

The 217's attempted raids against the allied shipping following D-Day failed miserably, mostly due to the overwhelming air superiority they had to contend with.

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I'm really glad you chose this one.....I had rather hoped to do one, as I've always been impressd by the brave but futile attacks these aircraft made. I mean, how many stripey fighters could you possibly want to meet. Anyway, I don't think my build area and spray booth will be ready in time and I'm not going to even attempt building one of these on my mouse mat! :analintruder:

I look forward to seeing yours take shape! B)

All the best

Sgt.S

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I've made a start on this as I found myself in a scratch building mood tonight.

I'm using detail photos of a 1/48 revell build as my reference, no idea on accuracy but it can't be worse than what I'm starting with.

This is most of the kit contents (minus the rear seat & i panel):

do217%201.jpg

and this is what I've salvaged from my meager spares box to liven things up with:

do217%202.jpg

So, to battle!

I had intended to just box things out a bit but I soon realised it wasn't going to be so simple.

OOB the cockpit area seems to have the following issues:

- the floor is too high & the pilots seat too far to port. This is making the top of the seat clash with the canopy above.

- the pilots seat is about 5mm too far back

- the i panel position is very ill fitting, at a slope and too low and forward.

This leads to the odd situation of the floor pedals being in front of the ipanel and no way for the pilot to reach the yoke unless he has 6ft long arms...

I looked at moving the ipanel first. There's almost no contact points to place it better, so my solution was to add a rod to the back of it and drill 2 holes on either side for the rod to fit into. This brings it forward and up. A large gap will remain to be puttied later.

do217%203.jpg

A view from the back showing it dry fitted.

do217%204.jpg

And from the front.

do217%206.jpg

I've started building up the side panels using scrap plastic and some loose ends. Nothing too fancy. I'm trying to compromise between 1/72, the clearness of the canopy (pretty good), the dark RLM 66 to be used and my own abilities.

The red dash showed where the ipanel was supposed to go, the blue is where I've moved it to.

Looking at the port side I've started bulking that up as well and adding some fictional detail and some more flooring:

do217%205.jpg

The red dash shows where the floor was meant to go. I've pulled it forward and down so the relationship with the ipanel is more like it should be.

I'm placing the seat more centrally so there's room for the side throttles etc, I might have to refix the pedals as well. I'll see how visible they are with the canopies tacked on.

Lots more to do, I thought this would be a gentle OOB effort but scratching stuff is pretty relaxing. I'm enjoying the problem solving nature of it.

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:badmood:

aaaaaargh!

Was detailing up the cockpit tonight after bulking up most of the underlying structure... went to grab some CA for a couple of pe panels and... knocked over my bottle of EMA weld.

:suicide:

Luckily there was very little of it left, but enough flooded out to stick a few scrap parts to the cutting mat, flow under the outside face of one fuselage half and near dissolve the platform I'd made for the rear seat. (EMA is strong stuff, it's why I use it)

:raincloud::raincloud::raincloud:

I might have to redo the platform, it's gone all floppy on me but might be fixed with careful weighting down. I got the fuselage half to the sink pretty quick, the damage seems superficial with a few sink holes to fill. I'll lose some of the raised lines but I was planning on sanding them down slightly anyway. I'll know more when it's dried and is sandable.

No pics, I can't bear to take any atm...

So much for a relaxing build!

Edited by Stebos
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Two things I've managed to learn when dealing with solvents:-

1. Replace caps/lids when not in use. They evaporate quickly in any case.

2. Stick them down to your working surface with a big blob of Blue Tac.

Commiserations Steve, we've all been there.

peebeep

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I now properly screw down the cap instead of just letting it rest on top...

luckily the spill didn't get far into the engraved lines, it did eat some of the raised lines and left a slight 'puddle ridge'. It's all sanded back down, any blemishes left I'm putting down to patched up battle damage :evil_laugh:

do217%20damage.jpg

As for the innards I finished my scratching today.

Detail wise it's fictional with heavy nods to 1/48 builds I've been studying. A bit heavy on the finer work but it's still 1/72 after all and should be ok through the canopy.

I've completely redone the pilots seat from some card:

do217%207.jpg

I make no claims for accuracy but it's a big improvement on the kit one I think.

There's meant to be a large wheel thing behind it (no idea what that is). Not having anything in the spares remotely wheel like I crudely patched something together with plastic rod.

do217%208.jpg

The starboard side:

do217%2011.jpg

and the port:

do217%2012.jpg

Here's how it looks buttoned up:

do217%209.jpg

do217%2010.jpg

The rear seat is meant to be placed on a platform, the kit had it sitting on a couple of angular beams so I ditched all that.

I'm hoping things paint up well...

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Wow, impressive, especially in 1/72...

As someone whose scatchbuilding experience is eerrrmm zero, I'm very impressed with the detail you're putting ito this. :worthy:

Looking forward to your progress...

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Thanks, it's been mostly stress free this build.

The pit is together and painted up now:

do217%20pit0.jpg

Heavily scuffed up, and to reduce the rather gloomy RLM 66. As usual with the flash, the tones are emphasised much more than they really appear.

Some simple tape belts on the seats:

do217%20pit1.jpg

The levers were bulked up at the top with some gator glue, and a sausage of milliput gave a leather top to the panel. I used the decal sheet, something I dislike doing but a flat panel is no fun. I'm useless at painting my own dials at this scale so played it safe.

do217%20pit2.jpg

The gap in front of the ipanel will need to be filled with a snip of card.

do217%20pit3.jpg

The top canopy fits quite well, the front one poorly. Some sanding will be needed to get a better dryfit. Most of the added detail is quite visible through the canopy (under good light anyway) so I'm very gald the effort wasn't wasted. I never detail stuff you just can't see.

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  • 2 months later...

Aha, progress!

I've got my mojo back so started on this again.

Most of the construction is done:

do217%2013.jpg

do217%2014.jpg

masked, filled. The front canopy fit was poor, my main worry is all that glazing will show where I've had to fill in the cracks. I think it likely wodges of white filler will show up easily against the near black.

I'm not sure how to avoid that though, plenty of canopy pieces don't fit all that well.

do217%2015.jpg

do217%2016.jpg

Some paint on... I'm not all that happy with it. At this point I just want it done so I can crack on with other commitments.

Next thing is to get the detail parts painted and ready, the sides needs mottling (yikes! incoming disaster), the wheel wells need painting (I usually brush paint them, I don't much mind losing the airbrush finish where it's not really seen) and then I can mask off to get the top splinter camo on.

Edited by Stebos
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  • 2 weeks later...

Well after a few days of fighting this kit I've got it to this point:

do217%2017.jpg

Decaling!

The mistakes I've made on this one aren't too pretty... weird wheel halves have given me mismatched hubs. The underwing tank is hanging at an odd angle after getting the supports the wrong way round. Engine cowlings aren't symmetrical and the upper wing paint finish is rough enough you can sand with it.

But.. it's nearly done and I just want it out of the way! If it wasn't for the scratched cockpit I'd likely have just binned it.

The decals will no doubt silver horribly (a few gloss coats will never cut down that awful paint finish) but I may as well try!

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Well thanks, but all to no avail.

Took out the decal sheet and... it's ruined. None of the white was printed properly and is mostly faded to transparent, and oddly seems to have 'melted' into the backing sheet.

I can't use a generic E-5 sheet as I painted in the camo of a specific one (as far as I know). I'm stuck until I can get a replacement sheet, probably from rebuying the kit as I've not found a 3rd party sheet yet.

I can aftermarket the luft crosses, but I'll also need a white 'K' of the right size.

I can make a mask of course, and might have to but it won't get done in the next 3hrs.

:raincloud:

Onto the next GB then...

Edited by Stebos
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