Revell 1/72 Fokker D.VII

Revell kit 04177
Almark decals A-31 and A-32

Purchased: kit from eBay, $AUD 10.50, decals from Hannants, £2.95 per sheet
Completed: 5 February 2007

• Nation: Germany
• Era: 1910-1919
• Justification: The zenith of German fighter development during World War I, the Fokker D.VII was even named specifically in the Armistice treaty (Germany was required to surrender all aircraft of this type).

The kit

I don't know the history of this particular kit, but the inclusion of a pilot figure and a slot for a display stand (flashed over) makes me think that it's been around for a while. Nevertheless, the moulding is of extremely high quality, with next to no flash or alignment problems. The wings and tail surfaces sport rib detail that is, to my eye, just right. The honeycomb pattern of the radiator is beautifully represented, and there's the faintest of faint fabric traces moulded into the plastic. This is so fine that I can't imagine it surviving even a single coat of paint. The quality of the moulding is really quite incredible. Unfortunately, the level of detail doesn't carry over to the engine or cockpit, but the guns are quite nice too. In fairness, if the pilot figure was installed, you really wouldn't be able to see the absence of the cockpit. The engine is provided as cylinder heads and exhaust only - and with this assembly as exposed as it is, there's plenty of opportunity to add details of the valve gear if one were so inclined (I wasn't).

Decals are provided for two aircraft: Rudolph Berthold's famous eye-catching red-and-blue example, and (much to my surprise) Hermann Göring's machine! I would have thought in a marketplace where the populous is protected from seeing a swastika, little mementos like this of Göring would be similarly verboten, but apparently not. The decals themselves are exquisitely printed: perfectly in register, and opaque, and with no excess of carrier film surrounding them - very impressive. One peculiarity is Revell's provision of pre-printed lozenge patterns for the underside of Berthold's aircraft - as black-and-white outlines only! The paint plan on the instruction sheet informs the modeller of how to paint in the colours, but who's going to do that? Surely printing this in colour wouldn't have broken the bank for Revell.

The build

Construction

Assembly was a breeze, with everything fitting together well and hardly any gaps to speak of. A little putty was needed under the nose, but that was it. I made a generic instrument panel and seat from 0.5 mm styrene and popped them in and then it was time for paint and the extensive decal job. I left all the tail surfaces off at this point to help facilitate the latter process.

Painting

As with previous aircraft in this series, I wanted to do a fairly generic machine, and wanted very much to use the distinctive lozenge camouflage of the era. Looking at photos online of preserved aircraft, I settled on a four-colour lozenge, and bought Almark's upper and lower sheets. Each of these provides four strips of camouflage, with rib tapes in a self-colour. The lower colours seemed a good match for the aircraft in Paris and the two in Canada, but the upper colours didn't look so close to me. I don't know whether this is because it's meant to represent a different fabric from the one used on these aircraft though. The lower colours sheet seemed to have some registration issues - I think some of the lozenges have been deliberately printed slightly oversize to eliminate the possibility of any blank spots between them. In any case, it's only noticeable under really close inspection. Choosing a museum aircraft as a starting point, I initially selected the one at the Deutsches Museum. Although I was aware that this is apparently a post-war Dutch aircraft now wearing spurious markings, I felt that it is at least preserved in Germany, as the Camel and SPAD I modelled are preserved in their home countries as well. I therefore mixed up a dull red from Tamiya Flat Red XF-7 with a dash of Hull Red XF-9 (really more a brown, if you ask me...) and sprayed it on. At this point, disaster struck for the first time. Although the mix looked fine to me, it sprayed on very transparent and runny, making for a really horrible finish. I waited for this to dry, then tried again without any thinner in the mix at all, and got the same result.

I still don't know what really went wrong, but it was while I was waiting for this mess to dry that I started looking very closely at photos of various D.VIIs to try to plan how I would apply the lozenge. The more I looked at the Deutsches Museum's aircraft, the less satisfied I was with it as a subject. For a start, the upper and lower surfaces both appear to wear the same fabric - I don't know whether this was true of any WWI examples or not. I also noted that this machine's red cowling and struts were at odds with three other authentically-preserved machines, whose were a grey-green. Again, I don't know which was more typical. Finally, I came to realise that the most direct solution to the problem I was having with my red paint was to choose another colour! I mixed up what looked like a suitable shade from XF-19 Sky Grey and XF-26 Deep Green in about a 3:1 ratio, and pressed on. At this stage, I made another decision that I was to be very glad of later - undercoating the entire aircraft in that same colour. I reasoned that this would be less obvious than the bare white plastic under any stratches or gaps in the lozenge decals.

Decals

The Almark decals were a real joy to work with; everything a decal should be! At first, they seemed rather thick to me, but once on the model, they settled down of their own accord, clinging tightly even to the rib detail, and this without any softening agent. They were also strong enough to withstand a little bit of tugging that was sometimes needed to manoeuver them exactly into place. Because they were covering so much of this model, I wanted to take no risks of them lifting or peeling, and used Mr Mark Setter as I went, but I got the impression that they would have adhered quite happily even without this. For guidance as to its application, I looked to the photos on the World War I Modeling Page. I was able to make out the patterns on the upper and lower wings, as well as the fuselage sides and top, but was unable to discern the pattern on the underside of the fuselage and tailplane. Fortunately, a call for help on the Hyperscaleforums yielded almost immediate results in the form of a scan from a Windsock datafile on the D.VII. I completed the undersides first and then wondered about rib tapes. At first I thought I wouldn't worry about this little detail, but realised that I would agonise about it afterwards if I didn't. So I set to it. Instead of using the tapes provided on the sheets, I thought I would use thin strips of lozenge, as I know was done on some aircraft. Covering the undersides had used all of three of the four strips of lozenge supplied, and a little of the fourth. With a steel rule and a new #11 blade, I cut the remaining decal into thin strips. When I started applying this to the underside of the top wing, I found that the strips broke up the pattern far too much for my liking. No doubt this was because the strips I had made were too wide for this scale. I had only applied four at this point, and was still able to remove them before they had set. As it turned out, this was another very fortuitous decision.

Everything went well until I was reaching the end of the upper surface decalling. I had finished the wings and fuselage top, and now had both fuselage sides and the horizontal stabiliser to go... and only one strip of decal left! As I started on the broad tailplane upper surface, it was already apparent that I would run short. I did the best I could, but had to complete the decalling with scraps and offcuts from the workbench and is therefore far from correct. Still, this was far more palatable than springing for a whole new sheet for the sake of only a few centimetres of decal. I think that if I had been more frugal as I worked, I would just have made it, so take note! I definitely wouldn't have had any decal left to make rib tapes for the upper surfaces though.

Final assembly

Final assembly was as easy as it gets with biplanes - the struts lined up perfectly, and really, it all just about fell into place. The almost complete lack of rigging was also welcome! I used the Revell decals for the national markings in all eight positions. In use, these lived up to their promise on the sheet. The white parts of the insignia were nicely opaque and yet they also hugged the model nicely. Very impressive.

Conclusions

Overall, this was a really pleasant build. About the only thing I would do differently is be more frugal with the upper surface decals.
Parking the finished model on the shelf next to my Camel and SPAD saw the new arrival dwarfing the Allied fighters. Annoyed, I assumed that the kit must be slightly out-of-scale. However, measuring it showed it to be pretty much spot-on to dimensions I found on-line.

Lessons

If I had to build this kit again, I would:

• be more frugal with the upper-surface lozenge decals

Special Thanks

To "Mira from Czech" on the Hyperscale forums for the Windsock scan

Images