Review By: Paul Kirsopp
Model kindly supplied by Models4hobby.
Gallery and PDF
How amazing is this?
I’ll start with an apology.
I can’t find a lot of the pictures I took during construction, not that it makes that much difference as it’s a very basic model. Some parts are not at all bad, the engine for one I think looks OK, others however are so poor as to be next to useless, the guns being the worst offenders.
Construction was quite easy, except for the top fuselage seam. You really need to reinforce the seam as it keeps splitting. I got it together to an acceptable standard, but it’s cracked again while handling the kit to rig it! Very frustrating.
I started by painting the interior of the cockpit.
The cockpit
The cockpit is very basic with a poor representation of the seat and internal details that, as far as I can work out, have little in common with the real thing. However, what there is goes together without much bother.
Tech tip – Wood grain effect…
For anyone who doesn’t know…
Making plain plastic look like wood isn’t too hard. (It can’t be, I can get half decent looking effects!)
On the Dr.1 there’s a tri-angular area that’s made from wood on each side of the cockpit, as well as the struts and propeller. I painted a light sand colour first and let it dry for a day or two.
Next, you need some oil paint, raw umber seems to work best. Paint this on sparingly, making brush strokes that look like wood grain, leaving to dry for a few days then coat with Tamiya Clear Orange.
You can get different tones by using different base colours as well as oils, just experiment and see.
The fuselage is closed up and that’s where the trouble starts.
The top seam behind the cockpit almost got the kit its first flying lesson; it continually split. As I’ve already said, I got it right but it’s cracked again.
If you build one, I would recommend that you reinforce the entire fuselage join as the lower rear joint cracked as well, but I was able to fix that.
Engine…