Airfix Fokker E.III Eindecker

Box and Contents. 

First step - Cockpit and pilot construct and paint. 

Pilot and engine finished. 

Cockpit weathering 

I drilled out the mounting points for the rigging as I find this makes it easier for the rigging steps. 

Fuselage went together easily, good fit. 

Engine components. 

Engine assembly completed. Radial engine rotates with the prop. 

Top engine cover and instrument panel ready for assembly 

Undercarriage components prepared. 

Dry assembly for fit then cemented. 

Fuselage assembly completed. 

Engine and cowling added. 

All components primed. 

Gun needed to have barrel extension added so I drilled it out to take some stretched sprue. 

Base coat applied. No pre-shading as I wanted to try a post shade for the linen between the wooden frames. See below. 

Sub components painted. 

Rudder painted flat white. 

Props painted base color as undecided whether to fit stationary prop or go for a in-flight spinning prop. 

Stretch sprue used for missing gun barrel extension 

Came out OK. Now looks like a machine gun. 

Rear skid painted/ 

Wheels painted 

Gloss black base for aluminum finish coat.  

).5mm strips of masking tape cut for wing rib shading. 

Tape applied to ribs of wings ready for darker post shade to be added. 

Going a=with and in flight spinning prop. Created a paper print of the spinning prop first to size the prop. 

Not too shabby. 

Painted the prop the dark brown. 

Wings masked for for post shade. 

Good effect but a bit dark so I used a very thin coat of the base shade to tone it down. 

Wings and fuselage painted. 

Props finished but only need to short hub for the spinning prop effect. 

Used transparent printable film to print the spinning prop. I use GIMP to create the spinning effect. 

I then cut the film using a Cricut machine. I can cut circles better then me! 

What the film looks like with the props laid over. 

Decals went down really well. Used Micro Sol and Micro Set. 

I placed the first wing decal and used to it to line up the decals on the other wing so they are symetical. 

Decals finished. 

Rigging time - I started with the undercarriage before fitting to model. 

Undercarriage installed. 

Just a bit of Tamiya black panel liner added. Tried not to go overboard as it is a linen covered aircraft. 

Matt clear applied. I masked to aluminum as I don't want this to be a matt finish. 

Time to fit the wings. 

A test fit on the scratch built stand. 

Time to rig the wings. AK elastic rigging thread and thin CA glue. Drilling the holes in the wings allowed me to fit long threads with two attachment points rather than individual threads with all their associated mounting points. 

Rigging finished. 

Spinning prop test fit. 

Completed model.