Silver Bird Pfalz D.IIIa

[DocRob]

Hola Senhores,

Some years ago, while I was still living in Berlin, I started this kit and left it partly build in the box until recently, where I felt the urge to build something from that period and wanted to finish some of the started kits. The big time lag is the main reason, why I didn't wrote a WIP, the other is, it is my first WNW kit, first rigging experience and first kit of it's time with all these different materials to reproduce, like metal, wood, cloth...

The kit itself is a gem, fit is almost perfect, details are sharp and the fragile bird is somewhat sturdy in the end. Most things went well, with the exception of decaling, my process of applying and sealing needs to be improved.

After some evaluations I chose the factory fresh Colour scheme for my Pfalz, mainly because the Pfalz Silbergrau (silver grey) is the perfect appearance for this very elegant (maybe the most elegant of it's time) plane and because it's Pilot Hans Joachim Buddecke was born in Berlin like me.

For the build I used some aftermarket like Master barrels, HGW exterior PE, Bob's buckles and eyelets from Gaspatch. My first rigging job was daunting, but everything went right, after testing different methods.

The finish was achieved using RLM 2 on the fuselage for ports and hatches, then masking these and applying my own mix of Pfalz Silbergrau, which consisted of Tamiya White and Dark metal. Afterwards I misted some AK Aluminum onto it. I used some tonal variations for giving some depth to the base Colour and used some Neptune Blue Mig-Pigments for post shading mainly the wings.

If you never build a WNW kit, you should try, I am hooked now and have some more in my stash. A Fokker D.VII in Lozenge, a Hansa Brandenburg W.12, a Snipe and a Fokker Eindecker and a FE.2b which still gives me the creeps, when I look at the rigging. Bur I think my next WW1 plane will be a Micro Mir Fokker Ev/DVIII. This will be a not so easy project with some scratching involved including brass soldering for the flimsy struts.

Cheers Rob

 

[HubertB]

Most excellent ! I can but dream of when WnW will apply their magic to a Spad XIII or Breguet XIV 

Hubert

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, HubertB said:

Most excellent ! I can but dream of when WnW will apply their magic to a Spad XIII or Breguet XIV 

Thanks Hubert, I missed the Gotha G.IV initally and hope that there will be a re-release.
Since I was a young I dreamt of a decent Spad XIII kit, but without being able to tell a reason that has changed recently.
I 'am more fascinated by German WW1 planes lately, colourful paintjobs everywhere and even the Lozenge camo is fancy. I would like to do a Felixstowe in a Razzle Dazzle scheme, but it's to big for me.

Cheers Rob

[Fran]

Nice work!!

[Sir Desmond Glazebrook]

Very lovely indeed. Great work. 

[GazzaS]

Well done!!!  Stand up and take a bow! Really love the way you used pigments on the wings.

[DocRob]

19 hours ago, Pardelhas said:

Nice work!!

 

8 hours ago, Sir Desmond Glazebrook said:

Very lovely indeed. Great work. 

 

5 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Well done!!!  Stand up and take a bow! Really love the way you used pigments on the wings.

Muchas Gracias Senhores.

@Gaz; I wanted do achieve a mostly factory fresh look of the plane with minimal weathering, because weathering would have had a great effect on the Silbergrau finish, which I tried to depict. The initially shading was hard to see in bright light. After browsing through my washes and pigments I found a jar of Neptune blue pigments and tried it on a dummy. The blue postshading imitates the effect of shadows on the spars which normally would be highlighted. But in this case it gives a 'cheap' illusion of a little translucency which can be detect on historic pics.

Cheers Rob

 

[bob_von_buckles]

The most elegant airframe to come out of the Great War. 

Lovely looking Pfalz - Very well done 

 

vB 

[DocRob]

11 minutes ago, bob_von_buckles said:

The most elegant airframe to come out of the Great War. 

Lovely looking Pfalz - Very well done 

Thanks, it was my first WWI build including rigging and your buckles helped to do the job. It will definitely be the last, since my stash is well filled .

The sleek Pfalz design looks like a diet Albatros to me, without the enormous Albatros beaver tail. The Pfalz seemed to have been a fragile airframe, which didn't perform too well, but hey, go down in style.

Cheers Rob

[Bomber_County]

Swwwwweeeeeeeettttttttt. How did I let this slip by

Rob that’s &#£&-&#& gorgeous, congrats..........

[DocRob]

Thanks Phil and do some magic with your Camel , these birds are a lot of fun to build.

Cheers Rob