Roden 1/72 Scale Albatros W.4 By Tim Cromartie

History

The W.4 was a response by Albatros Flugzeugwerke to a 1916 order by the German High Command for a floatplane fighter to protect naval bases along the Flanders coast. Albatros redesigned its then-new D.I fighter to meet naval requirements. The result, the W.4, underwent extensive testing through the end of 1917, receiving many engineering and structural improvements, but Albatros’ floatplane was ultimately abandoned in favor of larger two-seater types such as the Hansa Brandenburg W.12 and Friedrichshafen FF33. There are conflicting accounts about how many of the 118 W.4’s built were in active military service, and how many remained so by war’s end. Many were undoubtedly lost in action due to the hazardous nature of combat aviation in those early days, but by late 1918, at least nine remained, four on the North Sea and five in Turkey.

The Kit

 I overcame my prejudice against WWI fighters in 1/72nd scale, which I think are generally too small, and bought this kit, figuring it would be a quick, fun build. It was a seaplane, it looked cool, and yes, I was naïve. Fun, maybe, quick, no. This kit is not for beginners. Comments about Roden kits run the gamut from “mildly frustrating” to “masochists only.” This was my first Roden, and there’s a little truth in both statements. But Roden makes kits no one else does, and they present a challenge. Having said that, the quality was very different than what I’m used to.

The merits of the Albatros: Unique subject; engraved panel lines; an amazingly detailed engine for this scale; individual control components in the cockpit; fairly good detail in the wing surfaces; surprisingly good decals, particularly if you’re using the right aftermarket prep products; and, if you can hang in there, a finished product with a level of realism that looks more familiar in 1/48 scale.

Construction

You begin with the engine, and this component alone (not including propeller) is eight separate pieces, two of them so delicate they broke as I was removing them from the parts tree and had to be refashioned from scratch. This was my first 1/72 scale kit where the engine was more than a perfunctory one to three pieces. The quality of the plastic could be better, contributing to the fragility of the smaller pieces, several of which could not withstand even the minimal physical stress of being removed from the sprue -- it's worse than on some of the older Revell models.Extreme care must be taken with fully half the pieces in the kit, owing to their delicacy. The Albatros W4 is both a biplane and a floatplane, and the struts for the wings and floats are spindly at best. The struts may well be to scale, but in my opinion they’re way too delicate, requiring almost a surgeon’s touch to safely free them from the parts tree and then sand them off properly without breaking. Working with these spider-leg pieces was no easy task, and required a pin vise to drill holes in the wings and fuselage, as the machined holes appearing in the wings were either too small or too shallow. I also had to drill additional holes in the fuselage underside for the float struts, after estimating their proper placement, since there were no marks on this part of the fuselage to serve as even a rough guide. In this regard, the quality is not even on par with 1960’s era Airfix kits. Tiny pins to guide placement of the lower wings on the fuselage were useless, and I sanded them off and went by the box photos and got away with it, but that's not how I like to do it. Standard glue, whether tube or liquid, did not work well with this kit, partly due to the properties of the plastic and partly due to the kit’s spindly quality, so after getting the fuselage together, I cemented most of the kit using extra thick 10-25 second cyanoacrylate glue. Once I clued into this, the structural strength of the kit seemed to improve with each piece glued on. This was especially true once I began gluing on lengths of .008 metal wire to reinforce the struts. The one defect I could not overlook were the sink marks in the air coolers positioned on either side of the fuselage for the engine.

There are a pair of final surprises when it comes to mounting the propeller that highlight the problem with Roden molds. One is that the propeller needs a hole in the rear of its hub to fit over the propeller shaft. Instead it has a stubby little pin dead center where a hole should be, as if for gluing into a depression at the front of the engine block. Sanding the pin down is simple enough, but drilling a hole dead center in a propeller shaft in this scale with a pin vise is challenging. The second surprise is that the propeller shaft is longer than it should be if the spinner is to fit flush against the fuselage. I discovered this just before the c.a. glue had hardened, and managed to pry the prop off and sand down the shaft before mounting the propeller again, but the shaft was still a bit too long. A proper test fit would have discovered this, but would have been extremely difficult since there is no assembly for the spinner to rest on. It has to be glued directly onto the propeller, which I opted to do after mounting the propeller. This step would be easier if the center of the propeller hub were hollow, so the shaft could pass right through it, and fit into a machined hole on the interior of the spinner.

I brush-painted the Albatros in the colors of a test aircraft flown by Oberleutnant Friedrich Christiansen at the German Naval Test Center at Warnemude, Autumn 1916. With the exception of Model Master Rust on the fuselage, I used Humbrol enamels almost exclusively, as called for by the kit instructions. I painted the wings Matt Linen, which came out looking more yellow than expected, even after I applied an oil wash of Burnt Sienna in an effort to give them the orange tint they seemed to have in the box art. The floats, spinner, cowl and forward upper fuselage near the machine guns are Matt Slate Grey, which looked too much like German Uniform Grey to me, so I stained it with a very thin wash of Model Master Panzer Grey to tone down the greenness. I painted the engine, machine guns and air coolers Humbrol Steel, giving the machine guns a wash of Model Master Gunmetal. The radiator and struts are Polly Scale Anodized Aluminum, a great acrylic that requires a lot of stirring but gives a perfect medium metallic sheen halfway between silver and gunmetal. I painted the cockpit interior Humbrol Natural Wood, the interior controls Anodized Aluminum, the cockpit seat and control wheel Humbrol Red Leather, and the leather lip around the cockpit Testors Gloss Brown. The metal wires accentuating the struts I left in their original condition. I painted the propeller Natural Wood and finished it with a coat of Gunze Sangyo Clear Yellow lacquer. Last came the decals. The big ones for the wings are a bit oversized and have to be trimmed to ensure a good fit. I treated parts of the kit with Micro Gloss to prep them for decals, and gave the entire model a coat of Micro Flat once the decals were dry.

Conclusion

Roden’s Albatros W.4 is a challenging and satisfying kit, but requires significant persistence and patience. To be honest, I put in lots more work than I anticipated. If you buy one of Roden’s 1/72 fighters, prepare for surgery if you want a kit you can be proud of. These are good kits, with work – but they don’t assemble with anywhere near the ease of their Japanese/British/American counterparts. Save yourself some heartache and do a bit of research first, as the kit's paint guide is excellent but you’re on your own in determining the precise placement of certain parts. Since I also have Roden's 1/72 He 111B 'Pedro' (Spanish Civil War), I know I'm in for just a bit of work with that kit...