Sunday 5 October 2014

SMER 1/44th Fokker Dr. 1 Jasta Boelcke




..something that's been sitting on the 'shelf of doom' for an age - the SMER Fokker Triplane in 1:44th scale!.. This must be the 'oldest' kit I've ever attempted - it may well be the old Aurora kit IIRC which came out in 1955 apparently. It still has the German Balkenkreuze outlines embossed in the plastic. I made a start on it once upon a time, but when I realised how hopelessly inaccurate it was (well, perhaps the scale should have been a clue..) it ended up on the 'never-to-be-finished' shelf. It actually fell off this shelf at least three times, various parts, wheels, struts etc being detached and/or shattering. For some reason I've never been able to bring myself to throw it away..so I thought I'd treat it as a bit of a practise build and finish it.





Above; here I'm constructing a new wheel axle from one of my daughter's hair-clips - there's always an abundant supply of them lying around the house! Note the broken undercarriage strut alongside, this 're-build' was largely an exercise in drilling and pinning.

Below; I've attempted some concessions to 'accuracy' - note the white-metal Aeroclub Spandaus. They required mounting into some gun troughs which I filed out into the forward fuselage decking, no easy task as the plastic was very thick and hard! The ring sights and the ammo feeds disappearing into the fuselage were taken from a 48th scale Luftwaffe etch sheet...


This is of course not the most accurate kit - the struts appear to be rather 'over-scale'especially - but the finished result is 'semi-acceptable' IMHO. I have added stabiliser struts, foot-step, wing skids, rudder control wires etc etc with fuse wire...




Fokker Dr. 1 204/17 finished in the markings of Lt Paul Bäumer of Jasta Boelcke. It proved impossible to find two sources that agreed on the finish of this machine so I opted for the colourful wing and fuselage stripes and the early Balkenkreuze and brushed on the olive green Tripe streaking over a pale cream undercoat...





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