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Eduard 1/48 Albatros D.III 'Profipack'

By Rob Stewart

Introduction

This kit is another in Eduard's 'Profipack' series of advanced kits (kit 8097), and although it may be a bit of a challenge for beginners, but great for WWI enthusiasts, or just about anyone with a need to have some extra detail added to their kit. However for anyone not wishing to use the PE, the kit can still be assembled and a very nice model produced.

As per the rest of the Profipack series, the kit comes with a detailed PE fret and a sheet of express masks. The instruction booklet is in colour and very detailed and includes markings for 5 interesting aircraft. For a detailed first look review, please see my First Look.

First steps

As a first step, I sprayed both sides of each sprue with Tamiya primer, and left them for 24 hours to dry thoroughly. This is because I use cheap, craft store acrylics for my top coats and they don't seem to "bite" into the styrene very well, and tend to make a mess and require many coats and it can look awful.

Interior

The interior is as beautifully detailed with plastic and PE as you'd expect from a Profipack kit, with 34 parts and 3 decals all to be fit into a 10cm³ space!

Engine

The engine is a standard Mercedes D.IIIa which does lend itself to some extra detailing, primarily in HT leads to the spark plugs. However they are pretty much impossible to see on the finished model. The masochist or the very skilled modeller may try to scratch build valve springs, which would be visible, but I haven't quite got the precision skills to consistently make these the same size, so I went with an OOB engine.

Assembly

The fuselage assembly is straight forward and is a good fit. Be careful that the engine sits along the center line, as otherwise the guns will be all skew-whiff, as they say.

With most of the PE goodies in the interior the rest of the assembly was straight forward. Once the fuselage was buttoned up, I coated it with a light tan, then added a mix of oils to the panels to simulate the wood grain. Usually oils take a few days to dry thoroughly, but the Arizona summer sun does it in about 5 hours!

I glued the outer struts to the lower wing then immediately added and aligned the upper wing and let it dry before adding the inner struts. This approach suits me better for a single bay biplane.

Before working on the upper wing, make sure it is the one with the correctly positioned radiator for the marking option you have chosen!

Painting and Markings

The camouflage is simple to paint and the metal panels were painted with a detail brush in a grey-green mix of my own. The decals were, as always, thin and easy to work with, and took the setting solution without difficulty. They are quite thin and only required a few seconds of wetting before being usable, but that might again be a feature of the Arizona summer.

Rigging

There is minimal rigging on this aircraft, and what there is is not too tricky. I used stainless steel wire of 0.005" diameter (0.127mm). Start at the inside and work your way out, and it should go smoothly enough.

Conclusion

All in all, a very nice and detailed kit. The molding is great, there were no problems with the plastic and the detail is perfect. The marking options are interesting and unusual, and give the modeller a great chance to practice the wood effect.

Thanks to Eduard for the review sample, and to IM and Matt Bittner for letting me build it.