popeye the sailor

I've always said that there are many lesser known subjects to model.......many kits out there today are suitable to fit the bill this is a perfect example.......you definitely had the desire to achieve this level of replica. it's nice to have such resource too

fiddled with the fuselage this morning, while looking through logs........which reminds me. you know......I went through every log I watch last night......cleaned them all up. I come in this morning, and it's all clogged up again! you guys gotta slow down.....or I gotta speed up........you darn folks are soooooooo prolific! keep it that way! anyway........I knew heat would be needed.......and I was going to get the admiral's hair dryer....... but it's like going to get a screw driver, and com'in back with a hammer.......I used my lighter! it was like a flame thrower!......I moved it around quick enough, I thought.....till I saw the bottom panel of the fuselage half starting to curl .....oh ph........ I got most of it to conform, but the damage was done..........I'll just have to see how bad. so I cemented the halves together, except for the area at the cowl.......got to let it dry while I was waiting, I figured I'd assemble the engine. the Dr 1 was powered by a Le Rhone 9J engine. later planes were equipped with Oberursel Ur.II engines....both of these engines were fairly equal to one another, putting out around 110 Hp. started by assembling the two halves together I also thought about the machine guns. thinking of what to do with the naked guns, I though of that piece of grating came in the Agillis kit {the Clotilda}. I thought this would be perfect! measuring and cutting the strip needed for the guns........ finding a suitable dowel, it was cut and wrapped....made round by press rolling it on the table and what you have is this........ happy about how it came out, I cemented the 9 heads and tail shaft on the engine. the other machine gun was finished........ now dry....the body joints were sanded with two different grits. the melted part of the slot was cut out. the short section by the cowl was cemented and taped........the admiral and I took Gibbs for a good walk. when we got back, that area was cleaned up some and sanded. at this point, it's down to fitting the bottom wing root and seeing how much more I'll need to do. I thought I still had that old tube of filler, but I must have thrown it away. that stuff was plenty old......it had begun to separate. I thought of auto body filler....but that's a tiny bit......not worth dealing with. saying the heck with it, the other side of that slot was trimmed out. the lip wasn't flush at the edge of the slot.....it wasn't cemented either. so, I added cement to the joint there, and created weighted 'prying' situation for it, to bring the joint flush with one another. the extra tot of cement should fill in the void now I guess I'll write this log, and then go shopping {make the admiral happy}. I'll check this out when I get back.

thanks for all the kind comments I'll show you where I'm at in a bit.........I think it'll be alright I'm kinda look'in towards Kempf's plane Ken.........I will do one of Udet's planes soon. tried to smooth talk the admiral.........put out the suggestion that I could do one for her M&M collection. can you imagine it???.....I can! hello ED! welcome...... no EG.....it was torture........by FIRE!!! yes....here I am Carl already found one mistake in the kit, and now beating down another one. this problem though had to come from the molds. the ejection time must have been off.....too early. my days of injection molding......waxing the molds {wipe as needed}, material injection......the stuff is at it's melt point, the cool cycle.....depending on the material, time matters, molds open and parts {sprues} are pushed off. might have stuck due to lack of wax. I think I have it in hand........build'in it come hell or high water Ltn. Jacobs plane is a bit bland, but would be essential if your doing a collection. I do like the artwork. I will likely do Ltn. Kempf's plane......more decals I need to get the right masking tape to do Ltn. Udet's plane. I've been work'in on it.......see............🔩 🔧

I've been say'in that for a while now.......there are so many lesser known ship that are begging to be modeled. there are kits that can be bashed......but sometimes takes a lot of work......if you want it bad enough. there is enough aftermarket out there to do a fairly decent job.

I do notice that the saddles are are in different positions......I hope they are movable. all I can say about armor is ....yup....all green with accented colors........mud optional some kit will have molded detail like tools, rope, cable and stuff. there are accessory kits out there, where you can add them back on. gives it a whole new look.

I noticed the 'camo' on the rudder OC.........we call it camo..........they call it 'patched bullet holes' !

I looked up the number OC........it's not in the list of surviving B17's. it is listed in this other compilation I've got. I'll check it out further it's not uncommon for a B 17, crippled after a bomb run, to have landed at a friendly airfield....if they could make it. some had the misfortune to land at a hostile airstrip. the number also belonged to a Vought F4U Corsair named 'Annie Mo' flown by Lt. Guy Bordelon Jr. during the Korean conflict, he was credited for shooting down two Yak-18s and three La-11 fighters on three separate missions. on his third mission, he was awarded the Navy Cross for what went down during the mission. the plane didn't see another mission though.......a reservist crash landed it....total loss the B 17 in question went by three names it appears......the bearded lady, the bearded beauty, and Mitzpah. I think I decoded the hieroglyphics......it doesn't give a date.......listed in Mayen Germany, under 2 Lt. Everett Kenner....must have crashed, since it says that 5 were KIA and 5 were POW. it's a pretty extensive list......the Nine o Nine, the Memphis Belle, the Wulf Hound, and others we've either discussed of the kits offered, are in here it's all a jumble, until I realized that they are going by bomber group....it makes sense now. not a problem robert.......I'm guilty too. I do believe it's up to us to keep things runn'in smooth. I dunno EG.......I keep think'in back to that old Batman episode where King Tut had Batman {and I think Batgirl} locked in urns, dropp'in pebbles on their heads {kinda like a water torture}. it was driv'in then nutz, but they managed to get out of it more soon

I recall a time when I never had a stash......but getting back into the hobby, this changed. I don't have a huge stash, but what I have will keep me busy till the end of all things. what I think up........well, that just complicates the matter ...........or anti-matter

well.......if this don't beat all. I guess I have another problem...... I was mess'in with the fuselage, cleaning it up and fitting the halves together......I found that the starboard side is warped. port side is OK. but the starboard side is kicked in quite a bit where the cowling fits. likely cause would be at the factory......it's appears pushed in to the left of the slot. I tried to press the parts together, but I stopped when I saw the appearance of the white stress line of death. the epicenter is where the left side of the circle is. I'm gonna try heat to bring it back out.......it should alleviate the problem. if not........I'll still try to build it, but I'll have to take another direction. tell ya more tomorrow. I'm gonna go sleep on it.

yup.....as I've read, the plane had very good response banking to the right. duct tape wasn't invented at that time .....could have saved a lot of lives! welcome Mark

welcome to the fray EG, OC, and Ernie. Carl's squadron knocked me over the edge.........the D VII's and Dr 1's are among my favorite aircraft. glad to have ya aboard no PE Ernie......the detail in this kit is pretty good. hopefully I can be just as creative with the paint

on Sept 1st the first prototype was rolled out to test fly. Anthony Fokker instructed Reinhold Platz to build a triplane........what he came up was the V4. test flights were poor, citing poor handling and couldn't control the forces of climbs and turns. they came back with the F5 prototype which featured balanced ailerons and elevators........and they made the wings longer. they also added interplane struts to aide with the extra wing load. the retest proved to be much better, and Idflieg ordered 20 of them to be built. meanwhile, they took 101/17 and literally tested it to destruction, to see if it could take a beating. ailerons and elevators.....hmmmmmm, so where does these changes occur. I don't see any difference in the elevators {these parts are about 1mm thick}.....but the ailerons show a difference. my guess, with what I've found, the bottom one is the V4 protype, and the top one is the V5 prototype. first I began to assemble the wings. there aren't pronounce tabs or pins to guide you in the assembly...not that they are really needed. it's plain to see how they go together. there is some flash to contend with......sanding will be needed to smooth out the leading edges of the three wings. I found that it wasn't the elevators that were in question, in the initial tests, it was the stabilizer fin itself. if you look real close, there is a slight curvature to the leading edge to the one on the left. that is the stabilizer fin that's designated not to be used in the instructions. I have never seen a model of a V4.....could be interesting to build one. as mentioned......I've seen this in past kits, but never understood or read anything pointing to these changes. for all I know......I could have been building them wrong all along. I looked at my other Fokkers....they are all correct with my findings thinking of past kits made me thing about the D VII's I've built, so I did some reading on them as well. the D VII went through the same changes, including adding length {1 bay cell} to the rear section of the fuselage. this tells me that the fuselage of the D VII was about the same length as the Dr 1 prototype. by mid August, two V5's were delivered to Idflieg {bureau for German Military Aviation}. these two planes {102/17 & 103/17} were the only two plane to be renamed F1. one {102/17} was sent to Jasta 10, and the other {103/17} was sent to Jasta 11. Manfred Von Richthofen flew 102/17 and shot down two planes the next day. pleased with the planes flyability, he reported to the commander his assessment of the plane, suggesting that more should be built. he made that assessment on the 1st of Sept.........it was dampened when Oberluetnant Kurt Wolff, flying 102/17, was shot down and killed on Sept 15, and Luetnant Werner Voss, flying 103/17, was also shot down and killed on Sept 23 {a very interesting bio of him I read}. I digress.........there's so much to tell. after the leading edges were sanded, the wing tips were added. here there is a mistake in the instructions. starting with the top wing, they tell you to use parts 11D. I cemented them in place, and found them to protrude past the aileron cut outs. thinking that this was correct {or they wouldn't have printed it}, I did the other wings...the center wing took a pair of 11D's too.....that was OK. it wasn't till I added part 7A {8A is for the other side}, that I noticed the problem.....it fell short of the trailing edge. seeing the solution right away, I removed the tips off of the top wing. they came off without too much damage, and I swapped them. there's a little sanding to do, but there was really no harm done. the fuselage is another story......I need to remove some flash. there is some to deal with....this is probably the worst of it. it looks like all that needs to be removed, but looking at the instructions, that shelf may be needed for the cockpit floor. the bottom wing root will cover it, so if I cut too much, it won't hurt. I'll do some test fitting to see the impact, and what I can get away with. matching up the top wing and stabilizer configuration, this is what they look like: the V4 prototype the V5 / F1 prototype all future planes that were delivered, 104/17 onward, was renamed the Dr 1. there were three other variants built......the V6 prototype, given a longer fuselage {like the D VII} and equipped with a Mercedes D II engine, the V7 prototype, equipped with a Siemans Halske SH.III engine.........and the Vogel Grip Sp.5 Grief, a two seat observation plane built after the war. one last note......all Dr 1's were fitted with wing skids to help prevent ground looping. in landing the plane, the force of the engine rotation would cause one wing to pitch and touch the ground. this resulted in a bad outcome.

I see a lot of new faces here in this forum.......I welcome you I think that at one time or another, most of us have cut our teeth on a plastic kit. some have moved on to wood models for more of a challenge.....to pick up one now reminds us of the challenges we left behind {or so we thought}. so welcome.......did in........perhaps it will bring memories back and make you feel like a kid again. I have never built one of these kits, let along heard about the manufacturer. the Roden company is based in the Ukraine and produces a wide variety of plastic model kits. I got this one from Oldmodelkits.com this past Christmas. from the kit, four different aircraft can be built.....save the box, since the paint scheme in the instructions are in black and white. the decal sheet is quite large enough to hold all of the decals required. the plastic appears to be of a hard plastic.......the parts have very little sheen, as in most kits I've worked with. I had taken some pictures of the sprues earlier, but they were still in the bag that they came in. so I ditched that and opened the bag to show you all of the parts involved. the kit itself is fairly detailed and does give you some room for options. keen to note here that there are two propellers......depending on where the plane was built, different manufacturers were used. Axial, Wolff, Wotan, and Heine were the major manufacturers at the time. I've yet to ascertain the specifics on what prop was used.......heck, I haven't even decided on which one I'm going to model yet I'll let ya know though another thing about this kit, is that there are two stabilizer fins and elevators.....I've yet to figure that out, although other Fokker D VII and Dr 1 kits I've built had a choice of ailerons and stabilizer / elevators. I went to Revell {which is now Hobbico} to view instructions of their kits.....I know that some of them had this option. I found that Hobbico.......nor Revell/Germany, allows you to view or obtain instruction sheets {sad to see......but that settles that}. so I went on my own research jaunt for answers. these are the wings.....easy to denote the top wing halves.......the cut outs for the ailerons.......the center wing halves above them, and the bottom wing halves on the other sprue. the instructions tells you which stabilizer fin to use......part of my research too. these are the small parts sprues.......note that there is a choice of ailerons........more research. the wing parts are of a thicker plastic.....not much of an airspace when assembled. the fuselage however is of a thinner plastic.......this is prevalent throughout the kit....what needs to have some beef........does. I think the scale factor is good....I don't see anything out of scale, as I've seen in other kits . the width of the prop blades is the main difference. one may provide more push and likely had a slightly different pitch. the Sopwith Triplane was wreaking havoc in the skies during the first half of 1917. armed with a single Vickers machine gun, it was out maneuvering the German fighters. the Germans struggled to maintain, but they came to the conclusion that they needed to counter this new menace. they managed to bring one down....how intact is not known. Anthony Fokker visited Jasta 11 to take a look at it. it was April 1917, that the idea for the Dr1 had begun. one nice feature in the kit, is that they give you two sets of "Spandau' machine guns. one set does not have the cooling cans on them, in the event one chooses to use PE. I'm not going to use pe for this model........but the machine guns does give me an idea or two. more on the story next........

.........should never had looked in the kit

nice done KP..........cool looking vehicle

I don't use it myself, there are other ways. a lot of time, you might be able to paint the parts on the sprues, or you can assemble parts that are to be the same color.

very nice work.....it looks awesome.........I'll send a message to Hogan right away

to me....I wouldn't ..........you did a great job imitating the wood maybe muck it up a little?

dry sanding produces a lot of loose dust.......wet sanding you can wipe off......doesn't go everywhere. that's what I hate about metallics......I've done a few planes........never again til I get it right I'd say you could use an air brush with thinned down paint, but I'd be too afraid that it would make the undercoat solvent. then you'd see wrinkles and raised paint......not so good that what I call it, when you can see the brush strokes...regular paint will either give you a bumpy finish or ghosting. I'm surprised that the other paint gurus haven't chimed in for you. {there...I'll get their ears burning }

awwww.....it's just paint do ya really want to watch it dry? soon

awesome........a completely eye popping model! great job!

ship modeling has always dealt with brass.......it's the tiny bits that PE offers that is new. it's found a nitch. I was looking at one of these planes the other day.......I was taken by the gull wings over the canopy. kinda cool nice model!

very nice looking plane........must be quite a bit of PE in the cockpit

he flew the albatross......the time factor was way off for the D VII. he tested the V4 on the 1st of Sept.......it needed only minor changes to the ailerons and stabilizer fin surfaces. he didn't test the D VII till Jan of 1918. it needed changes as well. one extra bay length was added to the rear section of the fuselage, as well as the same change to the stabilizer fin surfaces that the V4 needed. I'm thinking that the ailerons were also an issue too, since these two planes are basically the same design. the similarities lie with the wing design, the stabilizer fin design, and the rudder design. the fuselage may look different, but almost identical design was used here as well. this is what I was looking into........the V4 became the F1......the second test proved to his liking. he likely kept 101/17 for himself. two other F1's {102/17 & 103/17} were delivered to Jasta 10 & 11, to be flown by Oberluetnant Kurt Wolff of Jasta 11 and Luetnant Werner Voss of Jasta 10. it shook Richthofen's boots to hear these two died within a week of each other.....Wolff on 15 Sept and Voss on 23 Sept. his first all red fighter was an Albatros DIII 789/16 ......this is where he earned the nickname Red Baron. he died in an all red Dr 1 425/17. but he flew a few versions of the Albatros, as well as an Halberstadt D II. he oversaw the development of the D VII, but never got to fly one. he also oversaw the problems they were having with the Dr 1........the top wing coming off. BTW........you won.........I started the Roden Dr1

I'm on my third Facebook........never kept up with it enough now I use it to post my models basically........oh, all right.......a few rants too. I looked into your page......I think it's pretty cool! we buy these model cars and build 'em...........but to see them run on a track adds more fulfillment for the efforts we put into them I've only dealt with the small scale tracks........how old is the large scale hobby? I do recall a hobby store back in the day that had a track. you could build your own car and run them there....great PR for the business. I do wonder if these types of models were made for this particular application, having no engine or undercarriage detail, or multitude of parts. I like the idea that you painted your car silver, but I'm sure you know that metallic paints, can actually show 'grain'........they are almost like wood. to apply paint by brush or even spray can, one needs to go in one direction, without any opposite stroke direction. it will show like a sore thumb. as you pointed out......thinning is crucial for a good level sheen. really like what your doing with this model......the dash board looks great