yes, sorry Jeff!
... I think it's still relevant though, because the results of this discussion might benefit him and others, and is hopefully useful information.
I have found that there are very many inconsistencies when it comes to WW1 aircraft manufacturing details. I am not surprised that the edging method varies from one batch to another, but what is a lot more difficult to determine is a pattern or a rule, if there ever was one. I suspect that there would have been tendencies rather than rules. One batch and / or manufacturer may have had or used straight edged patches and another batch and / or manufacturer might have had or used frayed edged patches, rib tapes etc. Obviously it would be natural to assume that towards the end of the war, they were taking shortcuts and not fraying the edges of tapes and patches, which would have saved a lot of time and money, but to illustrate the point that such tendancies are difficult to predict and to document, the earlier Dr.1 rudder has straight edge tapes and the later one has frayed edges! If I had to guess, I would have guessed that the opposite would have been the case.
I hope that the IWM (I assume that's who has it) is able to relocate the rudder from 425/'17! It is a priceless relic! I have heard that the two sides of the rudder fabric still exist in private collections, and I certainly hope that this is the case, that they both still exist, and are being carefully looked after. I have talked to Langdon and Bob Waugh about the other rudder, not the white one or the one from 425/'17, which is also white of course. I think Bob was the first person to suggest this, and I have to admit that I was skeptical at first, but believe Bob's theory to be true. He believes, as I do now too, that this rudder is from one of the Dr.1's which was captured by the British. There is a photo of it being wheeled along the road. I could probably find a copy of this photo, but I do not have a copy readily available. Although the rudder is a very bright yellow, and the Dr.1 in the photo appears to be a very dark (ie. not bright) colour, I have learned recently that yellow can appear to be much darker in photographs than it actually was. It might have even been Langdon who told me this, and I only met him for the first time a couple of months ago, so it is new knowledge for me, unless Bob explained it to me years ago, which is very likely when he explained his theory. If he did explain this to me, I might have forgotten in the meantime. It seems that in the same way that British roundel blue, and any other blue of course, appears much lighter than it actually was, yellow or at least some yellows appear to be much darker than they actually were on some of the early films. I know that in the photo you provided, the colour looks greenish, but it can only be the bright yellow rudder, due to the fact that there are so few Dr.1 rudders still in existence. Please let me know if I am wrong! If you have good photos of this rudder, have a close look at the photo of the Dr.1 fuselage being wheeled along the road, you will notice some minor details that suggest that the rudder in the museum - and I think I know which museum it is in, is the same rudder illustrated in the photo, when it was still attached to the fuselage. Interestingly, IIRC, Langdon suggested this same theory to me just a couple of months ago, at which point I informed him that I had had this exact discussion with Bob Waugh about 15 years or so ago! Two brilliant minds had come to the same conclusion independantly of each other, and I think they are both correct! Incidentally they live within a few Kilometres of each other, but have not discussed this issue with each other to my knowledge.
Sorry, now back to the Fokker D.VII ..... what is the correct procedure in a case like this? Should it be started in a new thread? I hope this discussion is of interest to readers.