Hello again,
first of all, thank you again to all who warmly greeted me when I had reported for duty the other day. I was saying something about building a 0-400... Before that, I wanted to try my hand at something smaller and easier - which turned out to be harder Them things are SMALL and my eyes are simply not what they used to be. Just today I was looking at some of the miniatures I painted some, oh, 15 odd years ago... I could barely see the eyes - and then, I had painted them?
I've built my share of aircraft models, mostly 1/72, but this Fokker E-III is my first aircraft build from scratch. I learned a lot, mostly about what not to do
I started with the body, made from what people here call polystyrol.
Wings from the same material, horizontal and vertical stabilizers, undercarriage and wheels were cut from a thinnish cardboard - my first mistake. Note the prototype pilot... it turned out he was quite too big. Too fat.
Assembled parts. Here it doesn't look all that bad after the first coat of thinned PVA glue. As it later turned out, one coat wasn't enough. At this point I got my first supply of styrene from the UK and made the engine cowling and the engine out of it. Great material! Note the new pilot at the bottom. A smaller guy made from the foam and thin cardboard for arms
I carved the propeller from styrene, the machine gun and the inverted V in front of the pilot (that one turned out to be too thick! A bit of paint and.. voila...
I like the engine...
The "polystyrol" surfaces are too rough. Lesson learned...
The first enemy in range. No decals yet, waiting for Dom's shipment to arrive
...which begs the question: should I hunt for decals around or make my own? I have access to an excellent Xerox colour printer/photocopier/scanner and I found decal paper in one of the UK shops. Any thoughts/advice more than welcome!
Now on to the 0-400... I have to say, I've been more than inspired by magnificent efforts shown here in the Hobby Room, read a lot of useful things, so I hope something useful will turn out. I think I'll stick to styrene and see what happens. I need them bombers, my campaign is falling apart as it is... I can hear my adversary (my son) sniggering in the corner. And there I went, built him an E-III!?
Jure
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