Eduard 1/48 Fokker D.VII (OAW) "ProfiPACK"

By Rob Stewart

Introduction

This kit is another beauty in Eduard's 'Profipack' series of advanced kits (8131), and although it may be a bit of a challenge for beginners, but great for WWI enthusiasts, or just about anyone with a need to have some extra detail added to their kit. However for anyone not wishing to use the PE, the kit can still be assembled and a very nice model produced.

As per the rest of the Profipack series, the kit comes with a detailed PE fret and a sheet of express masks. The instruction booklet is in colour and very detailed and includes markings for stunning aircraft. For a detailed first look review, please see my First Look.

Interior

Right at the start you have to choose the marking option you'll be doing, and that's a tough choice, because fuselage halves and an engine part depend to an extent on that choice. I went with Rudolf Starks mount "Li", because I think the lilac stripes go well with the lozenge. The interior is very detailed and care must be taken fitting all the PE parts etc together. If you use the PE dashboard, I suggest you don't apply it to plastic part A14, as together it wont fit into the little slot in the fuselage interior and you'll have problems closing the fuselage. Three excellent colour 3D renderings by Mark Miller show the engine compartment and the cockpit in great detail, and are a great help to get everything the way it should be. I hope this is the start of a new trend from Eduard.

Engine

The engine is pretty much a straight forward OOB build, with some copper wire added to the spark plugs. It was a bit superfluous as they can't be seen once the model is complete. Parts are provided to build either a Mercedes D.IIIa or a BMW III engine. Basically the noticeable difference is on the inlet side and the carburetor.

Assembly

Take care not to squeeze too tight in closing the fuselage, as the stitching strip which runs along the center of the underside needs to fit in there. It is a difficult part to trim if the gap is too tight. Don't ask why I know this.

At this stage I veer slightly from the instructions. I now assemble the wings and tail parts and dry fit them to the fuselage making sure it is not too tight. Once the lozenge is on, and I fit the part for real, I don't want to tear off some of the decalling. Then I spent a day doing lozenge, rib-tapes and decals, and coating all the parts in future to protect them from the work to follow.

I follow the instructions from now on.

When it comes to adding the the upper wing, I glued the outer struts to the lower wing then immediately added and aligned the upper wing and let it dry before adding the inner struts. I like this approach and it suits me better for a single bay biplane. Some swift action is again necessary for the undercarriage, but with a bit of rehearsal it is straight forward enough.

Painting and Markings

This was a tough choice, as each of the options given would make a stunning display. In the end I went for Rudolf Stark's "Li", as I feel the lilac colouring is more unusual than the others on offer. I added the black decalling border over the fuselage lozenge then carefully painted the lilac areas. I then touched up the black border with a sharpie. I also used a sharpie for the black border round the tail surfaces.

The propellor was painted with a tan acryllic paint then dull coated and left to dry. The darker laminate strips wer then added with a sharp artists pencil and the whole prop coated in Furture. I then added the decals and gloss coated it. The important part of this process is the dull coat. It is needed to give the artists pencil something to grip. Thanks Karen!

Disaster Strikes

The instructions call for a lilac chevron on the upper wing and no decal is provided. I pondered how to do this and got a good tip from fellow WWI modeller Karen Rychlewski. I also thought I might be able to mask and paint a strip using thin low tack artists film, known in the US as Frisket Film. I applied some lozenge decal to a test wing from the spares box, Futured it, gloss coated it and waited for it to dry. I then applied the frisket film and painted. It was a success. I moved to the real wing and applied the frisket film to the porepared surface. It needed to be repositioned so I lifted it off and up came about 1 inch² of lozenge decal. AAAARGH! I had already used the spare decal piece in the test. Luckily there was enough decal and rib tape left to repair the damage. I then went with Karen's suggestion. I cut a 4mm strip of white decal paper and applied that to the wing. I then carefully painted it lilac. I was worried about the thickness, but it looks ok to me!

Rigging

There is hardly any rigging on this aircraft, and what there is is not too tricky. I used stainless steel wire of 0.005" diameter (0.127mm). Particular care needs to be taken with the double control cables going from the cockpit side wall to the upper wing.

Conclusion

All in all, a very nice and detailed kit that produces a stunningly attractive addition to the display cabinet, whichever marking option you choose. The molding is great, there were no problems with the plastic and the detail is perfect.

Thanks to Eduard for the review sample, and to IM and Matt Bittner for letting me build it.

Eduard 1/48 Fokker D.VII (OAW) "ProfiPACK"

By Rob Stewart

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