Mengnut Wings Fokker Dr. 1

[Wolf Buddee]

21 hours ago, allthumbs said:

Great looking model Wolf.

Curious...what kind of decal setting solutions/solvents, if any, are you using for the large Aviattic panels?

 

Rich

Hi Rich,

 

I don’t use a lot of decal solvents on these as I found that squeegeeing the water out beneath the decals with a large soft brush works well and then following that up with a damp q-tip to get the rest. In areas where the decal needs to conform around raised detail and trailing edges of the wings I use Walters Solvaset and heat from a hair dryer. I have to work carefully though as I found this set of decals can scratch easily removing the coloured surface and leaving me areas where I had to touch up with paint. Micro Sol works too but Solvaset seems to work best as it’s a bit more aggressive. Definitely leave the decal alone once the Solvaset has been applied. Just use heat only afterwards. Luckily Aviattic always provides extra swatches of decal material if touch ups are needed.

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

[Wolf Buddee]

On 7/19/2021 at 3:04 PM, scvrobeson said:

 

Good to hear.  I try to stick to just Entente subjects, but the Dr.1 kit from Meng is rather tempting.

 

 

 

Matt

 

Thank-you Matt,

 

If you don’t mind switching up scales rumour has it the 1/24th scale Dr. 1 is the better kit. It was also in development by WnWs.

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

 

 

[Wolf Buddee]

21 hours ago, Jeff T said:

This is looking absolutely gorgeous Wolf!

 

Beautiful work as always.

 

Cheer's,

Jeff.

Thanks Jeff,

 

Much appreciated!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

[Wolf Buddee]

9 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

Excellent update!  Really like the look of the decals and paint.

 

 

 

Matt 

Thanks once again Matt!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[Wolf Buddee]

One thing I forgot to mention is that there is a steel cable that wraps around the firewall where the engine cowl is secured using retainers and the cable. This is moulded very fine and is hard to make out before the application of primer. There was no way I was going to be able to paint the cable so I used some silver decal stripe material from Fantasy Printshop. The decal stripes on the sheet were too wide so I covered one of the stripes on the sheet with Microscale decal film to prevent it from breaking up when dipped in water. The decal stripe was trimmed to the width I needed with (this is important) a brand new #11 blade and then applied the decal around the firewall. The retainers were painted with a small, sharp, Tamiya paint brush. This is a detail I haven’t seen on any other Fokker Dr. 1 kit. Kudos Wingnut Wings!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[scvrobeson]

1 hour ago, Wolf Buddee said:

Thank-you Matt,

 

If you don’t mind switching up scales rumour has it the 1/24th scale Dr. 1 is the better kit. It was also in development by WnWs.

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

 

I looked it over at the hobby store last weekend, and it does look like a pretty spectacular kit. My father has the 1/32 one, so I know both are really high quality. Maybe you'll follow up the 1/32 one with the 1/24 one.

 

While it's great to have these two, the WnW instructions would have been a nice step up from the Meng ones.

 

 

 

Matt

[Wolf Buddee]

23 minutes ago, scvrobeson said:

 

I looked it over at the hobby store last weekend, and it does look like a pretty spectacular kit. My father has the 1/32 one, so I know both are really high quality. Maybe you'll follow up the 1/32 one with the 1/24 one.

 

While it's great to have these two, the WnW instructions would have been a nice step up from the Meng ones.

 

 

 

Matt

Hi Matt,

 

I rarely build the same subject matter twice so it’s highly unlikely that I’ll get the 1/24th scale one. Unless, of course, someone graces me with a wonderful present. Christmas is coming, right?
 

The Wingnut Wings instructions would have been a huge step up from Meng’s but I guess we’ll have to be happy with what we have.

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[Dpgsbody55]

A superb build, Wolf and fascinating to follow the progress on this.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Wolf Buddee]

Thanks Michael,

 

 I appreciate you looking in and your kind words!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[Wolf Buddee]

Well, I finally ran in to a bit of trouble with my build, and quite baffled by it.

 

The horizontal tail planes and rudder have been installed and the control cables rigged.

 

 

 

The lower and middle wing have been attached and the landing gear assembly dry fit. It was with the middle wing installation that things went wonky. Before installing the middle wing the rear MG mount needs to be glued to the underside of the cockpit coaming. With the mount glued to it’s location, and it can only fit one way, when trying to fit the middle wing assembly, the mount wouldn’t fit within the tubular framework in the fuselage.  I removed the mounting from under the cowl and dry fit it into it’s proper location but then it didn’t fit properly under the center wing cowling. To make things even more interesting the MG assemblies didn’t align properly with the mounting brackets either. At least not the right MG. The left one was fine but the right one sat too far to the right and lower at the back than the left MG and then the broken right upper cowl piece wouldn’t fit as it was too tight up against the right MG!

 

I also discovered that the right MG’s ammunition feed chute didn’t fit in to it’s hole. There I discovered the hole was partially blocked by glue so that was cleaned out and the problem was solved. The right MG being over too far to the right considering the left MG fit perfectly was baffling to say the least. I read through a couple of other build threads and nobody else seemed to have had the same issue. The only thing I could think of was to make the gun mounts fully adjustable and make them fit the MGs when the guns were properly aligned. I also had to have the mounting assembly fit properly underneath the cockpit coaming which is where the whole problem first started.  

 

I cut up the rear mounting assembly and started from scratch.

 

 

Once everything was cut apart the outer vertical portions of the mounting assembly were glued in to their positions within the fuselage framing. The next part was drilling out all the necessary holes in the lower mounting brackets so they could slide sideways on the tubular framing. The upper mounting brackets had stretched spruce glued to them and they would be able to slide vertically to adjust for height.

 

 

This assembly was now glued in to place within the fuselage leaving all the mountings free to adjust as necessary. The MGs were glued at their forward positions and aligned and then the rear mounts were fit to the back of the MGs, glued to lock them in place, and then finally the crash pad assembly was glued to the back of the MGs! 
 

Considering how well the kit has gone together up ‘till this point I’m really surprised by all this extra work and still none the wiser as to where things went sideways. Nonetheless it’s fixed and the next step is to rig the undercarriage and attach the top wing.

 

Upwards and onwards………

 

Cheers,

Wolf

Edited July 27, 2021 by Wolf Buddee

[dodgem37]

. . . . through the fog.

 

All very odd.  Great imagery.  Love how everything is in focus.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[MikeMaben]

So the mounts slide back and forth ?  Were they meant to be glued in place ?

No matter, it's looking great anyway 

[RLWP]

1 hour ago, MikeMaben said:

So the mounts slide back and forth ?

 

On the full size aeroplane, yes. And up and down. Presumably this is how they were aimed and set on the ground so they will cross at the intended distance

 

Richard

[scvrobeson]

At least now you've gotten through it, and fixed the issue.  I haven't seen any WnW build that doesn't have at least one little quirk in it.

 

 

Really love the paint and decal work, it looks fantastic.

 

 

 

Matt 

[Gazzas]

Looks great, Wolf!  Love the subtle weathering.  I've two of these to build...   and if I can;t get the guns to line up right, I can look to your solution.