1/72 Scratchbuilt Fokker DI In Progress

Old Man · 14 February 2006, 02:22 PM

The Fokker DI is another of the obscure machines that have long held my interest. I began on this last week, while putting off the final finishing touches on my F.E.8, and am now getting to it in earnest. Here is the "kit" I have assembled for myself so far.

The rectangular sectioned rear of the fuselage is put together from .5mm sheet, more or less mitered at the joints, with a piece of 1mm square rod at the rear edge. The nose is assembled from five pieces of 2mm sheet, carved inside and out before assembly. I misjudged the upper curve initially, with the result that a portion of the upper nose now consists wholly of CA gel, put in to patch as the filing opened a seam between the decking piece and the upper nose piece. I do not anticipate any problems from this, though: the stuff is tough.

The wings are from 1mm sheet, with the airfoil section filed in the upper-surfaces and the concavity in the lower surfaces scraped in with a curved blade. The reflex tips are a combination of carving and bending, and the scallopping carved in. The thickness over-all is now about three-quarters of a millimeter. I have pierced holes of about .5mm for rigging lines and strut location. The ribs and riblets are carved in with a curved blade. This machine has a rather odd raised center section, that I thought would be difficult to work in with rest of the upper wing, and which was on the real thing a seperate item inherent to the fuselage framework, and that is how I intend to treat it in the build.

I have assembled the basic cylinder-bank of the 120hp Mercedes motor already, as I think it will be easier to cut the slot through which the motor will project to match the existing piece, rather than try and assemble the piece to fit the slot. I will not add the rockers and springs and ignition till later, as handling would certainly dislodge some of that detail. The cylinders are from 2mm rod, with the jackets built up with CA glue, and the lower portions beneath the jackets scraped to a slightly smaller diameter. The various pipings are from .6mm rod.

I intend to make the tail surfaces and probably the wheels and propellor before splitting the fuselage to do the interior work.

GrzeM · 15 February 2006, 06:39 PM

Hey, it's super cool!
Good luck!

Did you already chose the painting scheme? You can do it Austro-Hungarian, with Schwarzlose MG over the top wing!

Cheers!
G.

Kitboy · 16 February 2006, 02:50 AM

As an OOB builder I am always fascinated by people who make such obscure subjects from scratch. This D1 is a nice subject for sure. Would sure watch a building report.

Greetings, Nico

Dackel · 17 February 2006, 01:48 PM

Beautiful. Be great to see progress reports.

Old Man, what did you find to be the best reference/drawings for this bird?

Cheers,

Dackel

Old Man · 18 February 2006, 04:27 PM

I have split the fuselage I constructed and done the interior work. Some of the detail is conjectural, as the only available cockpit photograph was of a machine being constructed, and it was obvious not everything had been fitted yet. The cylinder bank is not yet affixed, but only tacked in for checking fit on the slot carved for it to project through. These pictures are considerably enlarged....

To Mr. GrzeM: I intend to make this a machine of Jasta 1 at the Somme in autumn of 1916. I know next to nothing about Austrian aerial operations, I am afraid.

To Mr. Dackel: I am relying on the Windsock Special, Fokker DI-DIV in this project. But there are some problems with the drawings. The plan views show the wingspan as 9.5 meters instead of 9.05m, and the front view shows the starboard wing appropriate for 9.5m and the port wing appropriate for 9.05m. I did not notice this until I had cut a set of blanks for the wing and was fixing the strut locations. Fortunately I did this before I had carved in airfoil and ribs. I have a German volumn with 1/144 drawings, which showed the proper wingspan, rib spacings, and strut locations, though it shows the chord a little to broad towards the rear: I do not have it immediately to hand and do not remember the German mouthful of its title. I will send you a note with it. The length and other features of the Windsock drawings seem in order, but I am going by photograph wherever possible, and the Special has an excellent selection of these.

Old Man · 3 March 2006, 02:28 PM

I have gotten a good deal more on this project. The fuselage is complete, and the next step will be fabricating the center section and attaching the wings for rigging and struts.

The nose of this beast is quite complex, as the cabane struts on the starboard side interlock with the exhaust manifold, so a good deal of care was necessary here. The manifold was assembled to the model, with the tapered collector pipe attached first with the foremost and rearmost stubs, and the remainder of the stubs cut to fit. I wound up cracking out the original rearmost stub and fitting a new one. It is finished in acryic silver with a variety of brown, maroon, and black washes, which gives I think a decent burnt copper effect while allowing a bit of underlying sheen to show through.

The cowling is foiled, as well as the turtleback, and then gone over with a bit, or rather several bits, of 600 grit glued to the end of a 2mm rod to give some swirl effect. It is then sealed with a thin coat of Floquil matte, and given a wash of dark grey thinned with air-brush cleaner, which I bought by accident but am finding quite useful. This finish over the foil has proven very tough, and able to stand up to handling during further assembly. The various hatches are seperate pieces of .005" card, foiled over and glued in place.

The lacing (there is more on the bottom) is made from fin copper wire out of a cable service cable, bent with the tip of a fine tweezers.

The "Spandau" sleeve is a Tom's Modelworks photo-etch: making an acceptable one of these is beyond my tool kit, as several attempts in the past have shown me. But this is so distinctive a feature it cannot be omitted. The breech is from the spares box.

The upper surface colors are basically Pollyscale Panzer Brown and Dark Olive Green, which match pretty closely a Blanford illustration of a field applied camouflage in late 1916, though on a different machine. The bare linen is Pollyscale Fench Beige cut with a bit of leather brown. The crosses are cut to a plastic stencil from black decal film, and required some touching up. The serial is partly from the decal sheet of an Eduard Eindecker kit (the Fok., I, and /16), and the remainder are dry-transfer Railroad Gothic 45 degree placed on clear decal film. For some reason, on this particular machine the fives were noticeably higher than the ones.

Old Man · 3 March 2006, 02:32 PM

GrzeM · 7 March 2006, 05:17 PM

Hi again!
Your model is amazing!

It only deserves better decals for the cross. There are several aftermarket decal producers who provide various crosses (and cockades etc), for example Pegasus , Americal/Gryphon and FCM.

Best Reagrds!
G.

Old Man · 7 March 2006, 06:20 PM

I have got the lower wings attached, and the upper wing panels assembled to the seperately carved center-section. I had intended to attach the center to the cabanes originally, and then the panels to it, but thought better of that course on final consideration.

To Mr. GrzeM: Thank you very much, Sir. I will be looking into acquiring after-market decals in future, though for now I must work with what is in hand. I have touched them up a little more, and will fiddle further here and there.

Old Man · 7 March 2006, 06:24 PM

In the last, the upper wing is simply rested on the cabane structure: I have not fastened it yet, but could not resist the peek into the future....