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

[ccoyle]

Well, friends, I have made an executive decision on this model, and maybe you saw this coming.

 

I sat down to attempt skinning the lower wing, and dry-fitting revealed several problems:

• The ribs are too long and need to be trimmed (this was the least problematic issue and could have been easily dealt with if it had been the only problem).
• The wing framing itself is too short from root to tip, i.e., shorter than the wing skin. When the wing skin is held tight to the fuselage, the skin overlaps the outboard rib by at least a millimeter, meaning the upper and lower wingtips, which are separate parts, have no sub-structure to adhere to. 
• And lastly, there is simply no way to make the wing root join neatly (i.e., flush) to the fuselage without doing some significant surgery -- there are significant gaps on both the upper and lower surfaces.

None of these issues is insurmountable, but they are individually annoying and collectively beyond annoying: they simply make the model not fun to build. And model building should be fun. IMO, a designer whose kits are not fun to build is asking me to invest more creative problem-solving into his design than he could be bothered with himself before the design went to print. Any card model requires a bit of such effort here and there, but this kit seems to be dogged by fun-killing design issues at every step. As I stated somewhere earlier in this thread, this may be why I was unable to find any finished examples of this kit online.

 

So, this kit has been moved to the Shelf of Shame, and I will now take some time to think hard about what to work on next. That Sakae radial in resin might be hard to resist . . .

[Gene K]

13 hours ago, ccoyle said:

So, this kit has been moved to the Shelf of Shame, and I will now take some time to think hard about what to work on next. 

 

Sounds like a wise decision, but I'll miss your comments and great photos - I learn a lot from them.

 

I don't know if you've built any Luis Igualada kits, but I think they are outstanding in all respects. Luis' kits are can be purchased/downloaded here. They are more detailed and time consuming (in a good way) than those of your (and my) favorite Pawel Mistewicz

 

... speaking of which:

 

 

Gene K

 

Edited 18 hours ago by Gene K