Albatros D.V 1:48

[Guest]

That is great Ian, many thanks. Now saved to my desktop so I can peruse at leisure.

[Guest]

My first venture into modifying a part to use Photo Etch to (hopefully) improve it from the basic kit art. Bit of a nervy time and I am no way fully satisfied with it but it will do for an introduction. Thought I would bore/share (delete as appropriate) it with you.

The kit part. Machine gun off the Albatros.

The PE part to make the barrel cover. As it is to be rolled into a cylinder, I annealed it. From what I have read, the way to do this is to heat it to a bright red and let it cool naturally. Be very careful doing this because this metal is so thin, it could melt so easily. I used clamping tweezers to hold it and offered it over a low gas flame on the cooker. It went bright orange immediately and I snatched it away very quickly. Note to self, buy a cigarette lighter.... Let it cool and it looks like this.

Next the kit part is butchered, no going back now then

A gun barrel is made from stretched sprue, note for shopping list, buy some fine brass tube...

Then the PE is rolled into a cylinder, I used a cocktail stick to help shape it then rolled it between finger and thumb to slowly work the edges together and form the shape i wanted.

The PE barrel cover and end cap with sight is glued onto the plastic part with the flared barrel end.

Then a couple more PE parts are glued on and it is sprayed black. as you can see, it is a bit messy but you can see more on here than you can in real life. The whole ting is only 20mm long

[Guest]

Hi Graham, Thats a great improvement on the original, its nice when you can add these touches to personalize your model. Look forward to following the rest of your build. Cheers Derek

[stona]

Very cool and looking good. I'm looking forward to the "camo" scheme,sunglasses at the ready. What was the deal with the pink tyres? I seem to remember reading something about a lack of something or the other but can't remember what or where I read it.

Steve

[Guest]

I have n idea why it should have pink tyres, out of the four schemes, only one has grey tyres........ Me, like an idiot, has even bought the pot of Tamiya Pink to do them with.... What on earth am I going to do with the rest of the paint? Anyone got a Cadillac kit going spare????

[Gern]

Graham,

You could always buy a few pigs to go with the rest of your livestock! That'd use up the surplus pink!

Gern

[Guest]

Graham this is amazing work the cockpit detail is cool, love the little personel touch on the guns as well i will follow this thread with anticipation can't wait to see what it looks like.

scott

[Guest]

Got some pigs, a couple anyway with a few piglets to.... still not going to use that much pink lol. The actual colour, been doing a bit of reading up, is Cotta as in terracotta. Which I can only assume is some reference to a pinkish rather than red/orange of terracotta. The name does not help as Terracotta comes from the latin Terra Cotta, earth baked. But the only real reference I have seen to the actual colour is "A pinkish colour tinted with grey" but I have not been able to find out why, I assume it has to be something to do with the rubber manufacture.

[Ian M]

I dont know what you could call it but I think the colour you are after, is best described as a very light grey/off white with the tiniest hint of pink. I belive the house paint colour that comes to mind would be mushroom pink. Think it was a dulux. dont know if that helps?

Ian M

[PJP]

Tyres are black because they add a carbon compound during manufacture. Tyres of the period would have been latex based and even in WW1 the German industries suffered as a result of the blockade we set up.

Natural latex is grey coloured so it's probable that the pinkish bit was probably to do with the manufacturing process they used, to strecth limited rubber supplies as far as possible.

Doesn't help with the colour though. Apologies for that but hope this helps with a bit of background to it.

Best of luck.

Peter

[Guest]

Thanks Peter, that makes sense of it and adds weight to the "pinkish grey" colour, maybe not the bright Tamiya pink straight out the bottle. Great info.

[Guest]

Graham, that is awesome. Im not a plane person as much as a land crab lover but I am liking that very much.

More please sir!

Ade

[Guest]

Been a bit of progress with the Abatros (very apt name as it is weighing me down and stopping me doing much else). Anyway, the thing with Bi Planes is that you cannot build them then paint them. You virtually have to paint it then build it. This is OK so long as everything fits, which I still don't know if it will or not. It is going to have to though, I am not turning back now.

With a paint then build, you have to follow a logical routine. Now, logically, you paint the lightest bits first and progress to the darkest. OK, not set in stone but it has worked for me. So today, I decided was paint as much as I can day. The lightest bit is the fuselage, a very light grey, so that was to be first. Until I realised I had missed a few bits off so that plan fell apart and I decided to paint everything I could except the fuselage. So I did.

A mock up of how it may look with the top wing on

The rather gorgeous tail, not glued up so don't mind the gaps (unless you are on a railway station then please do mind the gaps) Don't know why but iy looks a bit Celtic, Irish to me and even more so when the decals go on but you will have to wait and see what I mean by that. (sorry it isn't very sharp. been rushing to get pics done)

Finally the 'wooden' propeller done by spraying with Tamiya desert yellow and then wiping Burnt Umber oil on with a little bit of sponge.

Still an awful lot of work to do but I have broken the back of this build and it has finally started to come together.

[Gern]

Looking real good so far Graham and I specially like the wood effect on the prop. How did you get the red outline on the tail?

Gern

[yak face]

this is looking super graham, really liking the unusual colours. Youve cracked the wood effect first go ,it looks real, well done . this is coming together nicely now, keep the pics coming. cheers tony