Fokker D.VI by ccoyle - MPModel - 1/33 - CARD

[ccoyle]

Hello!

 

While I was away on Christmas vacation for a week, my Next Project (which I ordered on my birthday back in August) still did not arrive at my house, though the Polish Post swears it is on its way. So in lieu of the Next Project I have decided to go ahead with an interim next project. I have chosen to build the Fokker D.VI from MPModel for a couple of reasons:

• The D.VI is mercifully short of rigging.
• The model is designed by Marek Pacynski.

 

That second point needs some additional explanation. Mr. Pacynski's designs have been a mixed bag for me (see here for a prior example). I have completed two of them, but two others wound up in the trash can. The two finished models were both WW2 monoplanes; this one is a WW1 biplane. I have many of the other MPModel biplane kits designed by Mr. Pacynski in my stash, so this one is a guinea pig of sorts -- a build to see how the Pacynski WW1 kits stack up against the WW2 kits. Call me a masochist, but I'm always willing to give a designer another chance at redemption.

 

The D.VI, of which only 59 examples were built, is a relatively small and simple aircraft, so this kit shouldn't take too long to build if everything goes together with a minimum of fuss. That's what we're here to find out if it will do.

 

Stay tuned!

 

P.S. Mr. Pacynski is nothing if not extremely prolific -- you'll note that this kit is #9 in the MPModels series. That line now includes a whopping 124 titles.

 

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Looking forward to this one!

[ccoyle]

Assembling the cockpit required one evening's work.

 

 

[ccoyle]

Marek vs. Pawel: A Hard Lesson in Competing Card Model Design Philosophies

 

Well, it's only Day 2 of construction on this kit and I've already found the answer to the question of how Mr. Pacynski's WW1 kits stack up against his WW2 kits.

 

Answer: They are just as fraught with unforeseen perils for the unwary and unsuspecting as any of Mr. Pacynski's designs. 😑

 

How did I discover this? Let's examine the attached photo:

 

I began to suspect I was going to run into trouble when I discovered that the laminated cockpit floor (printed part + laser-cut frame) is thicker than the width of the attached side framing, with the result being that the floor protrudes below the side framing. I then checked the instructions using Google Lens to translate them. The instructions (as minimal as they are) mention that all parts with red numbers need to be laminated onto 0.5 mm card stock. That's odd, because the laser-cut frames set I purchased along with the kit is cut from 1.0 mm card, not 0.5 mm. You can see why this is a problem in the red-circled portions of the photo. The rear bulkhead of the cockpit is aligned on the aft end of the printed cockpit interior, so the glued-up cockpit framing should just reach the forward end of the printed cockpit interior. But the forward projections of the side framing, which attach to the forward bulkhead, clearly already extend beyond the printed sidewall before the forward bulkhead has even been added. If the forward bulkhead is glued to the framing without any adjustments being made, then the forward bulkhead will not be properly positioned relative to the interior skin.

 

This is a super annoying situation to have to rectify, and there is at least one designer out there whose kits never have this problem. Here's a shot from my construction of Pawel Mistewicz's Nieuport 11c published by Kartonowa Kolekcja:

 

The white areas of the printed parts in Mr. Mistewicz's design clearly indicate both where structural parts are to be glued together and how thick the laminated parts should be. There is no guesswork involved. Also, the entire side panel of Pawel's design is a single rigid piece of heavy card, which produces a very strong model. The D.VI is essentially designed as a tube with a number of transverse bulkheads. This is why I have always raved about Pawel's models and have completed six of them without any ending up in the trash. It's also worth mentioning that Pawel's kits are superior to Marek's on almost every metric: ease of build, logical instructions, and number and quality of diagrams.

 

Oh, well. Back to the fun(?). I have a fix in mind for the D.VI, so we'll see how it goes.

[ccoyle]

Upon further examination, the fix I mentioned in my previous post will not work. The assembled cockpit structure is simply too large in every dimension, making a quick fix impossible. So, I have cut the framing apart and will work on fitting most of the parts within the allowable space on the interior skins. Of course, post-assembly surgery isn't always neat, and this time that means that the side pieces cannot be reused. As I always point out, finished cockpits are a lot of work that can't be truly appreciated once the model gets zipped up, so I'm not overly upset about the parts that must be omitted. What I am annoyed about is the possibility that most or perhaps even all of my laser-cut frames set may be unusable as well -- which kind of defeats the purpose of buying the laser-cut frames in the first place. This is not exactly a ringing endorsement of MPModels.

[Egilman]

8 hours ago, ccoyle said:

Of course, post-assembly surgery isn't always neat, and this time that means that the side pieces cannot be reused.

......

8 hours ago, ccoyle said:

 

What I am annoyed about is the possibility that most or perhaps even all of my laser-cut frames set may be unusable as well -- which kind of defeats the purpose of buying the laser-cut frames in the first place. This is not exactly a ringing endorsement of MPModels.

For a designer, there is no excuse one can make... wrong is wrong.... Sad Very Sad...

[Jsk]

Is this really a design issue or a production one? Maybe the manufacturer simply used the wrong thickness of card for the laser cut parts? Still, a better design may have helped identify the problem earlier rather than after constructing the cockpit.

 

A rare plane. I'm not sure I've ever seen another model of a Fokker D.6. Looks like a Dr.I fuselage mated to D.VII wings.

[ccoyle]

58 minutes ago, Jsk said:

Maybe the manufacturer simply used the wrong thickness of card for the laser cut parts?

 

That is a possibility, but one that should never have made it out of the barn. There are also other niggling design issues that are definitely the fault of the designer and not production issues. For example, cut-outs for the lower wing spars are marked on the exterior cockpit skins, but not the interior skins through which the spars will need to pass. And since the spars must be able to pass through the fuselage structure, that means that at least half of the lower wing, as designed, can only be skinned after the wing substructure has been added to the model.

 

1 hour ago, Jsk said:

Looks like a Dr.I fuselage mated to D.VII wings.

 

That's kinda what it is, although I believe I read somewhere that the wing area is reduced compared to the D.VII. Also, the D.VI was supposed to be mated to a more powerful engine, which as I recall never made it into large scale production. The plane thus never achieved its maximum potential, and the war ended before much could be done about that.

[ccoyle]

So, here's the basic fuselage parts. The bulkheads and salvaged cockpit bits have already been added to the interior skins.

 

 

The fuselage is kinda flimsy at this point.

 

 

The main exterior skin is now added.

 

 

That's it for now.