Fokker D.VII, Czechoslovak Air Force, WIP

I'm starting to build. I have everything I need - Eduard's kit, HGW decals with lozenges and APC decals with Czechoslovakian cockades. 

I started to paint some of the wooden parts of the interior - the engine mount frame, the dashboard and the cockpit floor. I first painted the parts with a very light acrylic paint. Then I used a dark brown oil paint. I spread the oil paint with a hard brush to create a wood effect. 

The main engine parts are assembled and the engine is painted. I will gradually add small parts to the engine. 

I made a dirt on the engine caused by traffic. Then I glued the small parts. I'm still missing the exhaust pipes, but I'll glue that later. 

I stuck a lozenge decal on the bulkhead behind the seat. 

I stuck a decal with a lozenge on the inner side walls of the cockpit. 

I stuck a decal with a lozenge on the inner side walls of the cockpit. 

From thin plastic rods I made a tubular skeleton visible in the cockpit. The reinforcing steel cables are made of elastic thread designed for sewing machine 🙂  

From thin plastic rods I made a tubular skeleton visible in the cockpit. The reinforcing steel cables are made of elastic thread designed for sewing machine 🙂  

On the painted pilot's seat I added belts made of painted paper. After assembling the tubular frame, I glued the seat to it. Finally, I glued the seat and frame to the rear wall of the cockpit. 

I added wires to the handlebars and pedals to control the control surfaces. 

I started by installing the engine and cockpit parts into the right half of the fuselage. I glued a piece of plastic board (the white rectangle in the photo, painted black on the cockpit side) to the back edge of the cockpit floor to get the wires from the control stick and pedals to the right height. 

All the parts are ready, I can start assembling them into the fuselage. 

When the rear bulkhead is glued in place, the piece of plastic used to glue the ends of the control wires is hidden under the seat and does not interfere with the appearance of the cab. 

The engine and cockpit parts are in place, I can now close the fuselage. 

The engine and cockpit parts are in place, I can now close the fuselage. 

This view shows the wide gap between the side of the fuselage and the engine block. But... 

... but this is what it looks like when you add exhausts to the engine. On the left, most of the gap between the engine block and fuselage is filled with the engine intake manifold, and on the right, the gap is covered by the wide exhaust pipe. In the photo, the hull parts and exhaust manifold are dry folded and in particular the position of the exhausts is not quite correct. However, this is sufficient to give an idea of the future condition. 

Gluing all the internal parts into one half of the fuselage is easy. The real "fun" begins when you try to glue the fuselage halves together. Hitting all the recesses that determine the correct position of the cockpit parts in the other half of the fuselage is a bit of a struggle. All it takes is a minimal deviation from their correct position and what was child's play when gluing these parts into the first half becomes a test of nerves when closing the fuselage. Once the fuselage halves are joined, you have no way of knowing if all the internal parts have fitted into their respective recesses. And if their position needs to be adjusted, there is no choice but to separate the hull halves, adjust the position of the parts and try again. If all the internal parts do not fit exactly in place, the fuselage halves cannot be glued together without a gap. The whole thing is complicated by the wide cockpit floor. To make the fuselage halves fit together at the bottom, I had to sand the floor by less than a millimeter.
Therefore, I sanded the sides of the cockpit's inner parts with a medium coarse sanding block. I sanded slowly and often tried to fold the fuselage halves together. When the two fuselage halves fit together, I glued the fuselage together. 

I glued the lower wings and part of the fuselage lacing into the fuselage. The lacing part is not painted, I have one tree in the kit in beige. 

I made the hatch and the frame of the lower fuselage from thin plastic plate. According to the drawing I glued them to the bottom of the fuselage. I also scratched out a gap in the hood. 

I covered the cockpit with a piece of foam, hid the engine under shaped office paper, which I fixed with adhesive tape. Dust it off and the Fokker is ready for the paint shop. But that can wait for next time. 

For transparent decals with a lozenge pattern, the recommended base colour is white. That's why I sprayed the whole model with white primer.  

On the dried primer I highlighted the aircraft structure with black paint. 

Before spraying another coat of white paint, I covered the ribs and spars of the airframe with masking tape.
I only managed to mask the upper wing today. 

A moment of peace for the "guns". Waiting for the paint to dry 🙂 

I masked the spars and ribs with masking tape. 

I sprayed the masked model with white paint and took off the masking tapes after drying. This made the hint of the internal construction stand out, but so far it is too contrasty. 

To achieve the desired look, I sprayed the whole model (this time without masking) with another coat of white paint. The white paint softened the high contrast between the structure and the rest of the surface. Now the model surface is ready for the application of the transparent decals with lozenge.  

I had one more thing to do before applying the decals. I had one more thing to do before applying the decals. And that was to spray paint the sheet metal parts on the nose of the plane silver.  

If I wanted to apply the silver paint after the decals were applied, I would have to apply masking tape to the decals. And the masking tape could pull the decals off the model. 

Another view of the silver nose of the aircraft, this time from below. 

I finally got around to sticking the decals on. I started with the underside of the fuselage. First I glued the decal on one half of the fuselage (from the side to the lacing) ... 

...and then the other half of the fuselage (from the lacing to the side of the fuselage). 

While the decals were drying on the fuselage, I applied decals to the underside of the undercarriage axis cover and the underside of the horizontal tail surfaces. 

Today I'm continuing with the decals on the wings. Before applying the decals to the wings I did a little modification. The stripes with the lozenge pattern on the sheet are 30 mm wide. This corresponds to an actual width of 1 440 mm. However, the actual width of the strips of canvas was 1 300 mm. In 1:48 scale, this corresponds to a width of 27 mm. That's why I narrowed the decals by 3 mm. I prepared individual stripes from the decals and started to apply them to the wings. I started sticking the decals closest to the hull... 

... and then continued on with more lanes ... 

...until I ended up at the end of both wings.  

I followed the same procedure on the lower surface of the upper wing. 

To compare the difference in the colours of the upper and lower lozenge, I glued the upper lozenge to the top of the horizontal tail surfaces. 

Now it's the turn of the upper and side surfaces of the aircraft. First I applied the prints to the upper surfaces of the lower wing... 

... and I continued on the sides of the fuselage. 

I finished the application of the lozenge decals by gluing the stripe to the top of the fuselage. 

I finished the application of the lozenge decals by gluing the stripe to the top of the fuselage. 

The lower surfaces of the aircraft are already completely covered with lozenge. 

The upper surfaces of the aircraft are also already covered with lozenge. Only the upper part of the upper wing remains to be covered. There are no decals left for that. But more decals are on their way to me.  

I started gluing the ports to the underside of the horizontal tail surfaces. 

I cut thin strips (ports) from the lozenge decal with a sharp scalpel and gradually glued them to the wings.  

I started gluing the ports to the wings. Then I continued on the horizontal tail surfaces.  

I've already glued the ports on the lower surfaces (except the upper wing, I'll do that later), it's time to glue the ports on the upper surfaces.
So far I have managed to glue the ports to the top of the tail surfaces 

I finished the lower wings by applying thin strips of lozenge to the leading edges ... 

... I continued by applying strips to the edges of the end curves... 

... and finally I glued a thin strip to the trailing edge of the wing. 

I also glued a thin strip to the trailing edge on the underside of the wings. 

I also glued a thin strip to the trailing edge on the underside of the wings. 

View of the finished lower surfaces ...  

... and a view of the completed upper areas. 

I repainted the finished model assemblies with clearcoat. After the clearcoat dried, I applied decals with national emblems to the underside of the wings. On the Czechoslovak Fokker the appearance of the national emblems gradually changed. Initially, the Fokker had roundels in the national colours with a thin white border. Later the white edges of the roundels were removed. During the overhaul after the crash, the Fokker was given the standard Czechoslovak camouflage - the upper surfaces were covered with irregular fields of green, brown and ochre and the lower surfaces were silver. The new national emblems in the form of a flag were already used on this camouflage.
APC decals' roundels decals can be used for the first two forms - with white border and without border. To create the white border, you need to use a separate white circle ... 

... ... and then the national emblem is placed on the white circle. After centering, a thin white border is formed around the emblem.
Those who build a machine from a later period with a national emblem without a white border do not apply the white circle. 

Since I didn't have any decals left to cover the top of the upper wing, I ordered more of the same decals. When the decals I ordered were delivered, I was in for a surprise. The new decals were different colors than the ones I had at home. I was expecting subtle color differences, I didn't think the color difference would be that great. The attached photo shows the old decals on the left and the new decals on the right. But in the end, everything turned out to be fine. Both decals are the same colour. I would like to point out that the decals are TRANSPARENT and their colour is affected by the colour of the substrate they are applied to. The fact that the old and new decals look different is due to the change in decal paper. The older decals are on light green-blue decal paper, but the new decals are on white decal paper. The different colour of the decal paper has caused the decals to look different even though they are the same.  

Comparison of decal colours after applying them to the model - new decals on the left, old decals on the right. The fact that the older decals are a bit darker is due to their painting with colourless varnish.  

One more view - the upper wing with new decals (not yet repainted with clearcoat) is pictured above in front of the lower wing. 

The upper wing is completely covered with lozenge. After gluing the ailerons, I applied decals with the national emblems on the upper surface of the wing. First I applied a white background circle ... 

... and then I put the national emblem in a white circle. 

I applied roundels to the rudder using the same procedure. Then I glued the assembled tail surfaces to the fuselage. 

Now there are already prerogatives on all positions. 

First I painted the grille with "dark iron" paint and after it dried, I used a black wash to bring out the texture of the grille. Then I masked off the radiator and sprayed the radiator frame with "bronze" paint. To keep the bronze frame from looking like it just rolled off the production line, I sprayed it with a more heavily diluted black paint. I glued the finished radiator to the nose of the fuselage. 

I first painted the exhausts with "annealed steel" paint and then applied anti-rust paint. Finally, I marked the smoked ends of the exhausts with black paint. After the paint was dry, I glued the exhausts to the engine. 

I made silver decals for theI found it easier and more accurate than painting these parts with a brush. I didn't want to spray these parts with a masking stencil. The masking stencil could take the lozenge decals off the wing. sheet metal parts on the top of the wing (near the fuselage).  

Now it was time to paint the propeller. First I painted the whole propeller with a light cream paint. 

I applied thin masking tape to the painted propeller. 

I painted the gaps between the masking tape on the propeller blades with light brown paint and removed the masking tape after the paint dried. 

I will paint the dark stripes on the middle part of the propeller without masking. The transition of the propeller blade to the centre of the propeller is complex in shape and difficult to mask. 

As expected, after the oil paint is applied to the propeller, the centre of the propeller is not disturbing.

In order to continue working on the propeller, the oil paint must first dry. This will take at least one day. 

After previously painting the propeller, I used dark brown oil paint to create a wood effect on the propeller. 

I painted the missing dark stripes on the centre of the propeller. They are a bit shaky, but given the size of the propeller and the next oil paint coating on the propeller, it won't matter. 

The propeller is almost done, but unfortunately it's not the right one. The kit contains 4 types of propellers and I followed the instructions for the Hungarian kit. However, the Czechoslovak Fokker had a different propeller according to the photos.
So I picked the right propeller from the kit and started painting it. First I painted the propeller with a light cream paint and let it dry. 

Before the cream paint dried, I drew a propeller leaf pattern on the paper with the layout of the light and dark layers of the wood. I will use this pattern to make the dark stripes on the propeller. 

When painting the first propeller I found that masking the propeller with masking tape was very laborious. So I tried a different method. I cut out the dark stripes from an HGW decal with a wood grain pattern. Even very thin strips can be made this way. This is suitable for the middle part of the propeller.

I applied the cut out strips to the propeller one by one. I started at the trailing edge ... 

...continued with the middle stripes... 

... and lastly, I used the strips on the leading edge of the propeller. On the back of the propeller I did the same.
 

Looking from the side you can see that even very thin stripes in the middle of the propeller are not a problem for the decals. 

After the decals were dry, I sprayed the propeller with clearcoat and applied oil paint over the dry clearcoat. 

I spread the oil paint with a short-haired brush. This created a wood effect on the propeller.  

I can now say that the process of creating coloured layers of wood using thin strips cut from decals was successful. 

These pictures show the different shape of the two propellers.

in both images:
- above - the first propeller produced
- bottom - the propeller used on the Czechoslovak Fokker in the form I am building 

I patinated the sheet metal parts on the nose of the plane. I painted the cockpit opening upholstery with leather tint paint and glued the painted machine guns to the fuselage. 

It was only in this photo that I noticed that the right machine gun is slightly off the vertical axis. On the model it is easily missed with the naked eye. 

Luckily, I took the picture right after it was glued. The glue wasn't dry yet, so it was no problem to adjust the position of the right machine gun.
 

The propeller is not glued yet, it is only mounted for the photo shoot to see how it will look on the model  

In some photographs of the Czechoslovak Fokker D.VII it can be seen that the pattern on the undercarriage wheel covers had a different shape than on the canvas with a lozenge pattern. Probably the original canvas was replaced (during repair or maintenance). And since the lozenge canvas was not available, a new pattern was hand painted on the new single-colour canvas. 

I converted the enlarged photograph of the bike into black and white and for better visibility I bordered the individual colour fields with a black line. 

From the photograph of the wheel I tried to reconstruct the position, shape and colours of the individual colour fields. As a basis I used a black and white photograph of a bicycle with the lines of each field drawn. According to this template I drew a template and filled the individual fields with colours. I used the decal of the top lozenge as a colour swatch. To compare the result with the photo, I converted it to black and white. When colouring the individual boxes, I tried to be as close to the photo as possible while keeping the rule that no two adjacent boxes should be the same colour. The colours of the individual boxes are rather an estimate and may not correspond to reality. 

By the way, the decals for the wheels of the Czechoslovak Fokker D.VII are in the Eduard 1:48 scale kit. Unfortunately, the decals are bad. On the left is a picture of a decal from the Eduard kit, on the right is a reconstructed version of the wheel from a photo. As you can see, the shape and number of color fields on the Eduard decal do not match.
 

Once I took the trouble to reconstruct the look of the canvas wheel covers and draw everything, it was no longer a problem to print the decals.
I printed a "little" more for good measure. 😎 

I glued decals from my home workshop on the wheels of the main chassis. The photos show the "raster" print of the decals due to the high magnification, but it is fine in real life.
After the decals dried and repainted, it was time to paint the tires and wheel centers. 

I set the wheels aside and left them alone while the decals dried, and started prepping the wing struts. 

After separating the struts from the tree and sanding down the burrs, I painted the struts with aluminum tint paint. 

After the paint dried, I glued the struts on. Just the hull ones for now. I'll get to the wing struts later. 

I glued the upper wing to the struts glued to the fuselage. 

I glued the upper wing to the struts glued to the fuselage. 

After the glue dried, I glued the N-shaped struts between the wings. 

After the glue dried, I glued the N-shaped struts between the wings. 

From a thin wire with a diameter of 0.15 mm I wound the eyelets for the cable reinforcements of the chassis. 

I cut the finished stitches to a length suitable for gluing to the model. 

I glued two eyelets into pre-drilled holes in the aerodynamic cover of the chassis axle. 

I glued the other two eyelets to the bottom of the fuselage where the landing gear struts will be glued. 

After gluing the loops, I assembled the landing gear and glued it to the fuselage. 

I replaced the plastic struts on the horizontal tail surfaces with wire struts, added cables to the control surfaces on the wings and tail surfaces. I also painted and then glued on the spur. I glued the propeller to the nose. 

I replaced the plastic struts on the horizontal tail surfaces with wire struts, added cables to the control surfaces on the wings and tail surfaces. I also painted and then glued on the spur. I glued the propeller to the nose. 

I replaced the plastic struts on the horizontal tail surfaces with wire struts, added cables to the control surfaces on the wings and tail surfaces. I also painted and then glued on the spur. I glued the propeller to the nose. 

I replaced the plastic struts on the horizontal tail surfaces with wire struts, added cables to the control surfaces on the wings and tail surfaces. I also painted and then glued on the spur. I glued the propeller to the nose. 

The model is finished. I will put more photos in a separate album. 

The model is finished. I will put more photos in a separate album. 

The model is finished. I will put more photos in a separate album.