Fokker DR-1 Triplane

My son Casey who is 3½ will be getting a new room soon with a transportation theme (cars, trucks and planes) and I thought what better then a large plane suspended from his ceiling. Unfortunately plastic models are too small and so I opted for a balsa wood kit which to be honest I have never built before or even considered building.

I chose the Fokker DR-1 Triplane for several reasons:

1. This particular kit is laser cut so the parts just fall out unlike tranditional balsa kits.


2. It was on special for $30 instead of $50!


3. A Red Baron Triplane, what could be more classic!

So over the next few months I will be working with new materials and hopefully turning my favorite hobby into a fasination for my son!

Finished the V-1!

Tonight I finished the V-1 and am happy to have another project completed under my belt. I've tried several new techniques which have taught me valuable lessons for future projects. For the first time I experimented with spraying a clear coat and figured out how to mount a flying model on a stand. Overall it was a simple model which allowed me to improve many skills/techniques, the Tamiya V-1 took 7 hours and 11 minutes to build.

Mounting the V-1 (third attempt)

When I cam to remove the alligator clips placed on October 31st the movement was too much despite being very delicate with the model and it snapped the glue bond again! After doing some research I decided to drill into the V-1 and insert the plastic rod into it with some krazy glue. Unlike my previous attempts I decided to glue the rod straight instead of at an angle since the V-1 was designed to fly straight and level due to its gyroscopes.

Despite my hesitations of drilling a hole into a nice model, it worked very well and is sturdy. Looking on forums and web sites no one was really clear on how to mount an aircraft with an acrylic rod, drilling a hole appears to be the best method.

Mounting the V-1 (first and second attempt)

With the V-1 complete I proceeded on gluing the plastic rod to the model with krazy glue. I tilted it at an angle and once dry I glued the plastic rod to the picture frame. Everything was going well until I started to manipulate the frame once the glue had dried; the V-1 snapped from the rod and fortunately unlike its real counterpart did not explode on impact. Sustaining no damage from the fall I glued a second time. Since the plastic rod was firmly glued to the base and that I had the V-1 at an angle, it was very hard to keep it in the correct position. I had to resort to using alligator clips and large Popsicle sticks as shown in the photo.

The Thin Black Line

After removing the 3M painter’s tape and leaving the Tamiya masking tape on the red section of the hull, I masked the grey area with more Tamiya tape. I then preceded to hand paint the black line with Tamiya XF-1 “Flat Black”. Looking at the photo below I am very pleased with the results!

Painting the Hull Grey

I used 3M painter’s masking tape on top of the Tamiya tape to cover large areas of the red hull as well as the inner hanger area/doors in preparation to airbrushing the rest of the hull grey.

Below is the freshly airbrushed hull where I used Tamiya XF-19 “Sky Grey” acrylic paint with X-20A Tamiya thinner.

Hull Red

With the hull painted with Model Master Acrylic “Insignia Red” (Flat) FS331136, I masked the hull with Tamiya tape to proceed with the next step in painting the remainder of the hull grey. Unfortunately I masked it too high and had to start redo it because I did not leave enough space for the black line that will be painted between the red and grey sections.

England!

I decided to use a picture frame as the base for the V-1 and used Adobe Photoshop to turn a color photo of an English landscape into a sepia/grainy photo which may have looked like a real photo from the Second World War. I placed my order at Wal-Mart to get it printer (only 19 cents) and now all I need to do is find a nice picture frame.

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was my 30th birthday and it was celebrated with family today in Trois-Rivieres. My wife had asked me what kind of cake I wanted and having seen some photos of aircraft carrier cakes while doing research about the U.S.S. Midway I had asked for one. I was a bit doubtful that I would get my request but my lovely wife actually went ahead and had her friend make one for me. It looked great and tasted good too!

More Photo Eteched Nets

I completed replacing the plastic nets on the deck of the Midway with photo etched ones. It looks nice but I have had a few incidences where I had to re-glue them due to mishandling, I have learned to be careful when manipulating the deck piece.