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Scratch-built 1/24 Scale Fokker E.III


Bil

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I was going to wait to post this build thread until I got farther along, but thought that it might be a good complement to Garage21’s Sopwith Camel thread and kkarlsen’s amazing Fokker Triplane thread.  By the way Kent, your build thread is what inspired me to start this build, so thank you.

 

After working on my 1/16 scale Stearman and realizing that I had bitten off more than I could chew with my first model in decades, I lost interest and eventually stopped work on it a while back and decided to look for something that would excite me more and start again... maybe in a smaller scale with something a little simpler in order to move quicker.  Then I saw Kent's Fokker Dr.I thread as mentioned and decided to jump back in.

 

I decided on a 1:24th scale, built from scratch Fokker E.III from 1915:

E-III+Jerry+Boucher.jpg

Jerry Boucher, the artist of the above Fokker E.I painting (© J.J.Boucher) kindly gave his permission for me to use it in my post.

Please visit his website, his work speaks for itself in its quality and presentation:  www.the-vaw.com

 

This was a very simple aircraft and there are some excellent resources online... though I am going to have to recreate the scale drawings necessary to build this plane as there are no complete plans  easily accessible online (that I have found).  As you will see I will be building the aircraft in the computer in order to generate good usable scale drawings and then will use those as the basis for my build, which will mostly be plastic and resin, with brass and/or aluminum parts used as necessary.

 

I will also be building many of the difficult parts and assemblies in the computer and using my 3D printer to supply them.  This entails a lot of trial and error as you will see. 

 

For those interested I have an Anycubic Photon 3D printer which is an LCD (Digital Light Processing) DLP printer... basically the 3D model file is sliced into masks of varying size (set when setting up the 3D model), the light from the LCD shines through the unmasked portions of the 3D file hardening the printed part one layer at a time as the build plate rises from the resin tank.  At the finest setting it can be set to an accuracy of .1mm, which provides amazing detail.

Anycubic-Photon.jpg

 

Here is my 3D fuselage (frame only) model... I will discuss the fuselage assembly first:

3D+Model.png

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I will be watching this, as I just bought that printer! Looking forward to seeing how you make use of it!! What modeling software are you using?

 

Compared to the two guys you mentioned above, my scratch Fokker feels crude, but it was fun. I expect you will make me shake my head in amazement as well.

 

Tim

Edited by BiggTim
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Just now, BiggTim said:

I will be watching this, as I just bought that printer! Looking forward to seeing how you make use of it!! What modeling software are you using?

 

I use 3DS MAX.. I've been using it since version 1.. oh so many years ago.  ;) 

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2 minutes ago, Bil said:

 

I use 3DS MAX.. I've been using it since version 1.. oh so many years ago.  ;) 

 

Very cool, I have been wanting to learn that. I use Revit every day, and used Autocad for years, so I've been learning Fusion 360 for printing. Have you been following Scratchbuilder's thread on 3D printing?

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Fuselage Frame

 

After a lot of research online I discovered that the drawings easily found online were not as accurate as I would like, so I decided to build it in 3D in my computer... then used that as the template for the physical model.

 

This is the template drawing I generated from the 3D model.  The color coding breaks down as follows:

  • Light Blue - 3/64" plastic rod (main fuselage structure)
  • Dark Blue - 1/16" plastic rod (Landing gear support)
  • Green - 1/32" plastic rod (cowling internal support)
  • Purple - 3/32" plastic tube (Tail surfaces support)

Fokker+E-III+Fuselage+Plan+-BH.png

 

For simplicity I decided to build this out of plastic...I originally had planned on using brass or aluminum, but decided that Plastic gives me a lot more flexibility and control, and is easier to work with.

 

I bought a simple magnetic whiteboard (small) and some magnets... one type comes in a roll that I could cut and use as guides (see the image below), the other type are very strong map-magnets that I used to hold down clamps as shown.

IMG_2359.JPG

 

Once both side structures were completed my problem was how to keep it all square when adding the connecting structure... what I came up and why I am using a magnetic building board, was using the magnets and several 2" angles.. I used the clamps to pin the structure flat.. this insured the structure was square in width and height.

Note that I am using the part of the plan marked TOP, this is because I am adding the structural supports for the top of the fuselage (it is top down in these images)

IMG_2364.JPG

 

As I moved down the fuselage, I had to slide the angles down and move the clamps at each frame station due to the curvature of the rear half of the fuselage.

IMG_2370.JPG

 

... I then rotated the entire thing 180 degrees so I could do the same for the bottom structural supports.  Note that I have moved the frame to the part of the plan marked BOTTOM.

IMG_2371.JPG

 

IMG_2372.JPG

 

The completed fuselage frame:

IMG_2385.JPG

 

IMG_2386.JPG

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42 minutes ago, SCRATCH BUILDER said:

 

Hey Bil,

Well you not going to see the old thread, i accidentally deleted it trying to delete a post :BANGHEAD2: 

There's a few of us that have ANYCUBIC's now

 

 Haha!! Maybe one of the mods can restore it for you?

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Fuselage Bracing Points

 

The first step for me in adding detail to the fuselage frame was adding the bracing points the rigging wires hang from.  But first I had to sit down and research where these needed to go.. this was done with a combination of looking at photos of the reconstruction built in Germany (by a friend of mine, (Achim Engels) and the only surviving original that is in the British Science Museum in London.

 

This photo is from Achim's reconstruction:

Bracing+Points-Achim.png

 

...this photo is from the original.. there were some differences between the reconstructed aircraft (above) and the one in the Science Museum, and in those cases I defaulted to the Science Museum photos as it is an original aircraft.

large_B731516_0038.jpg

 

This is my drawing... showing in red, all the locations of the bracing points for the fuselage rigging

Fokker+E-III+Fuselage+Bracing+Points.png

This image is a detail showing the rear of the fuselage being worked on (fuselage TOP is facing down on the building board):

IMG_2409.JPG

 

Next step for me is to "weld" these in using some home made old-school plastic-putty:

IMG_2412.JPG

 

IMG_2414.JPG

Edited by Bil
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2 hours ago, SCRATCH BUILDER said:

 

Hey Bil,

Well you not going to see the old thread, i accidentally deleted it trying to delete a post :BANGHEAD2: 

There's a few of us that have ANYCUBIC's now

 

 

1 hour ago, BiggTim said:

 Haha!! Maybe one of the mods can restore it for you?

 

Done:

 

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/70571-3d-printing/

 

Kev

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