Eduard 1/48 Albatross DV ProfiPACK My first attempt at P/E!!!!!!!

Eduard 1/48 Albatross DV ProfiPACK My first attempt at P/E!!!!!!!

At 1/48 scale, everything is 1/8th the bulk of 1/24 scale and very fiddly. Without doubt, this cockpit has been the hardest piece of modeling I have ever done. Took an absolute age. I'm in awe of anyone who can do this and smaller scales well.

After several nights work, I finaly have the cockpit finished.

I tried to make it look somewhat used but still see improvements to be made in my technique.

In the first photo you can see a small panel with levers and a single gauge on the right of the cockpit. Eduard include a p/e piece for this together with four absolutley microscopic levers. Well, after numerous abortive attempts at getting the levers to adhere and for my sanity, I gave up the ghost and went with the styrene piece. I made the four levers from piano wire



There are two hand pumps in the cockpit. The small one I think is for fuel pressure and the larger one I'm guessing is for oil pressure. The kit part for the larger pump bumped into the dust bunnies I'm afraid and hasn't been seen since!! So I had to make my own. While I was on I made up a pipe for it too.

The coloured handles for these pumps, are pure poetic license. Eduard call for all grey but I decided to liven the cockpit up a little with a splash of colour.

I just need to add the guns (More p/e) and I can close up the fuselage and hide most of the detail.

Apart from possibly the rigging, I think this next p/e stage is going to be the hardest step in this build. I've been putting it off for a few days but, hey! ho!, I just have to bite the bullet and get stuck in.

The pink bit of the machine guns you see in the instructions needs to be cut off. Also the gun nozzles too.

Then the p/e needs to be rolled, glued and assembled.

Got the mesh rolled and before I cut off the nozzles, I took the opportunity to drill them out a little.

Here you can see that I have cut of the original styrene piece. However, unlike the instuctions, I left on a little 'shoulder' to insert inside the mesh tube, in order to secure it better. The shoulder had to be filed down of course to fit inside.

Paint scheme may look simple but boy did it take a lot of masking.

And another thing, how the heck do I get decent photos without the wingy things looking all out of proportion???

This is the version I am doing. It's the plane of Ltn. Wilhem Lehmann, Jasta 5, 1918: