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Roden 1/32 Albatross D.III questions


Gazzas

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HI Everyone,

    Despite my plan to wait for WNW to create an Albatross D.III, I bought one today at my LHS.  I wasn't going to buy it, but fate and Father's day intervened.  My lovely daughter, instead of the usual shaving gear, or hardware store voucher, gave me a voucher for my LHS which covered the cost of more than 1/2 of the Roden Albatross.

 

My first Question is about AM.  What is there available?  I have seen many of you use Gaspatch Spandau's...  So I think I'm gonna take that route, too.  Is there a good AM pilot?  The interior doesn't look as nice as the interior of the WNW Alby D.V's

 

Secondly the kit comes comes with the radiator molded into the centreline position on the wing, making it an early D.III.  This wouldn't be a problem if all of the kit marking options were for machines were for centreline radiator fitted aircraft.  But, they aren't.  I Like the Bruno Loerzer scheme, but I really had my heart set on learning woodgrain on this kit.  So.,. what are my options there?

 

Third, should there be a foil around the landing gear axle?

 

Finally, kit pitfalls...what are they?  The inter-wing struts look rather spindly.  The landing gear struts don't look overly strong, either.  Can I trust them?

 

Thank you for your thoughts,

 

Gaz

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Guest Clunkmeister

Gaz,

Check Aviattic for German pilots. They have cracking resin pilots available for a nominal price.

If you don't like what they have, a Copper State, Model Cellar and others have decent crew but, IMHO, not quite as crisp as the Aviattic offerings.

 

As far as AM, just a resin seat which should work and Airscale decals an bezels. You shouldn't need much else.

I'm not a fan of the Rodent engine, a WnW engine spruce would help and then you can get the Barracuda wrapped intake set for it.

Not much else is needed but for rigging stuff.

And as with all WW1 planes, open spoke wheels are available if you prefer that look.

Gas patch Spandaus would be a great and helpful addition.

 

Pitfalls? Be very careful when assembling the fuselage. Test fit each bulkhead and like WnW, make sure there is no paint between join areas.

 

And any weakness in structure is taken up by he addition old monofilament rigging lines.

Edited by Clunkmeister
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Ernie,

   Thanks for the reply!  That Aviattic place is dangerous for a guy on a budget!  At least I can get the Spandaus there, too.  Gonna investigate a  bit more. 

 

...Let's see, how many Pounds in the Aussie dollar?  ....

Oh crap...  It's dollars to the Pound!

 

Gaz

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Well,

 

First, they released two DIII and each has the radiator in a different location. The OAW kit gives the other option.

 

Second, many accessories may be used to update your kit. True Details made a nice resin engine for that kit. Eduard and Part released quite comprehensive photo etched sets. The MG breeches are not that bad and can be improved with a Master set but the Gaspatch option is easier. Barracuda and Taurus parts can be used to update further the Mercedes. Hgw or RB paper seat belts are also quite nice. Airscale decals will give a touch of accuracy to the bezels. Aero master made cookie cut wood decals for the fuselage.

 

For markings, Pheon and FCM released several other options.

 

One very positive aspect of the kit is the spinner that is more accurately shaped than the Wnw one (at least to me!).

 

For pilots,since Wings closed the doors, Aviattic is clearly the best option.

 

HTH

 

Thierry

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Ernie and Thierry,

   Thank you for the recommendations. 

So far I have on order:

Gaspatch Spandaus

Pilot with 5 heads from Aviattic

True Details Mercedes Engine.

 

I'm thinking about this scheme, but don't really know much about the schemes prior to the Mauve and Green came about.  Is this scheme authentic?

full-31507-118066-j28w_bolle.jpg

Picture for discussion only

I found it at SimHQ

 

Gaz

Edited by Gazzas
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Guest Clunkmeister

I forgot about Wings, Thierry! I need to be swung from the yardarm. :) you're the accuracy man, no doubt. A living legend to me, and someone I'll be eternally grateful to.

 

Curious on the WnW spinner. It always seemed a little bit "off" to me, but I just chalked that up to the inevitable variations in completely handmade aircraft parts back then.

 

And I forgot about the superb True Details Merc. A stunner for sure.

 

And yup, those PE seat belts gotta go!

 

I always thought the Roden D.lll kit was really a decent kit. The other thing I remember is that the prop had a couple really bad sinkholes in the plastic. I just robbed a spare prop from the WnW Mercedes sprue and left it at that. :)

Edited by Clunkmeister
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Guest Clunkmeister

Gaz,

 

Ahh, the dreaded 5 headed pilot. Yikes. He'd be a scary opponent.

That's as bad as a wife with eyes in the back of her head and her built-in 'kit acquisition radar'.

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I have this kit in a stage of being built. Be warned it is fiddly and the plastic is weak and brittle. Reinforce the fusalge seem as there is little gluing surface and mine kept popping and I kept resealing and redoing the woodgrain finish. Detail level is not bad but could be better. 

 

Eduard makes a PE set with interior and exterior details. the Exterior brass is a VAST improvement over the kit and rather easy to install. 

True Details make s a resin Mercedes DIIIa engine that they used when they reboxed the Roden Alb DII but they also sell it sperrately. 

Taurus Model makes lots of accessories for the Merc DIIIa engine as well

Also you can buy the WNW injection molded Merc DIIIa and modify to fit the Roden Kit 

Scale Arcraft Conversons makes a white metal gear and strut set that I highly recommend. The struts and gear on this kit are very to scale but also very Flimsy. 

Gaspatch models makes beautiful drop fit spandau machine guns. Highly recommended. 

HGW makes cloth belts - Use these instead of the crappy prepainted Eduard belts. 

 

FCM makes some beautiful decals as does Pheon though the DIII options from PHeon are parts of other sheets and not dedicated but look around their sets and you will see some really nice options. 

 

I would suggest investing in the White metal gear and strut set and Eduard PE set at a minimum and a nice set of decals. In the case of the engine I would say if you are closing the cowls maybe just invest some Taurus model stuff to detail the lifters and timing gear as that is all you will really see but if you are leaving the cowls off then go nuts as you will see lots and any detail you add will pay dividends. Also the Eduard PE set gives you a radiator so you can position wherever you need it regardless of which boxing you get. It looks much nicer than the molded in one on the kit. 

 

This kit is currently Shelf-of-doomed for me as the carpet monster ate a cabane strut and just in general I was fed up with the fit issues and fiddly nature of the whole thing. With that said this is a fairly nice kit. Fitting all the fiddly interior bits is the most challenging part as location is not well illustrated and this will haunt you later when installing the spandaus as I set my ejection chutes two low and could not get them to line up with the spandaus ejection ports. This also ment the mounting brackets for the guns themselves were too low and thus the guns were somewhat precariously glued near the correct location. (there was probably some user error here beyond the kits pluses or minuses but just be aware). 

 

Well those are my thoughts but go nuts and do it up as it will look great when finished if you put the work in. 

 

Zach

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HI guys,

    Thank you for the useful replies.  Stuff like that info on the fuselage seam is very useful to someone as ham fisted as me.  I'm glad that the landing gear legs are strong enough.  I spent part of my nightly modelling insomnia considering how I might cobble some with solder, sheet brass, and wire.

 

 TBH, I regard myself as a failure with PE and try to avoid it as much as possible.  Despite having a folding tool, my PE attempts so far have failed to leave me feeling satisfied.  If I get a choice in a kit between a plastic part that looks ok and a PE part that looks fantastic in a picture folded-and-glued-in-place-by-someone-else, I'll take the plastic part.  What really kills me is when it separates from the CA.  Annealing helps...  but I am always afraid to overheat it...  it has happened before.

 

Anyway...en0ugh whining about PE.

 

The Aviattic pilot with 5 heads...  Some of those heads look unnecessarily S&M-ish.  Thankfully two of them look acceptable.

 

Forgot to consider seatbelts.  Will have to look at the pilot and see if his seatbelts are molded on.

 

This will only be my second biplane build.  I hope it turns out much better than my first.  I watched a video by Scale-a-ton on finishing an Albatros D.V last night.    Some useful stuff, there.

 

Cheers,

 

Gaz

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