Roden 1/32 Fokker Dr.I
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Introduction
For a preview and history please see the May
2005 issue of Internet Modeler.
The subject of this full build review is Roden 1:32 scale kit of the
Fokker Dr.I, kit number 601. This is Roden's first venture into 1:32 scale
airplanes. As I've previously stated, I try to build my reviews  straight
out of the box without the use of aftermarket parts or putty, so that
you will have a much better idea of what comes in the box. I've chosen
to do the aircraft featured on the box cover art -- Rittmeister Manfred
Von Richthofen's Dr-I 477/17, an aircraft that is mostly streaked green,
trimmed with red on the wing, cowling and tail. An unusual feature of
these markings is that the airplane has both 'Iron Crosses' and 'Balken
Crosses' on it at the same time! And yes, there is photographic proof
of this odd configuration! (See https://www.fokkerdr1.com/Dr1-477-17.jpg,
and this picture is also found in the Osprey book "Fokker Dr I Aces
of World War 1".).
Pre-Assembly Preparations
The kit comes with 7 light brown/khaki very nicely done sprues holding
a total of 101 (my count on the sprue) parts. Included in this parts count
are the alternate horizontal stabilizer, elevator, and ailerons for the
F.I versions of the aircraft. Other options are a pair of machine guns
that are molded to accept a PE cooling jacket, but this version of the
kit entirely omits PE. There is also a choice of two different propellers.
The engine alone consists of 16 parts, featuring each cylinder head molded
as a separate part. There is an extensive amount of detail for the interior,
including all of the tubing and visible parts.
Preliminary painting
  The
preliminary painting consisted of using a dry brush technique to simulate
the large plywood fairings that are trapped between the fuselage structure
and the outer covering of the fuselage. As this was drying, all of the
tube steel components were given a covering of WW-II vintage RLM Gray.
It appears that this color, or something very similar to it, was a standard
finish on metal parts for both wars.
The Engine
  Then,
as the steel components were drying, I moved onto the engine. As I said
in the first look, I was most impressed that the little engine has 16
parts, all of which have exquisite detail. My first mistake was a naïve
assumption that the front and back halves of the engine case and cylinders
were flat, so I hit them with the flat sanding bar to make sure they were
flat, so that I'd get a better glue joint, and I promptly sanded off the
back half of eight spark plugs, and made the ninth one disappear altogether.
Lesson learned -the spark plugs are molded on the front of the engine
and act as alignment pins for the back half of the engine! So don't sand
them off! With a little patience, the front and rear halves were glued
together and lined up so that the majority of the cylinders and fins lined
up. The cylinder heads were installed followed by the back of the crankcase,
pushrods, and intake tubes. As for painting, the only color shot of an
Oberursel Ur.II I can find on line is here.
That is a cleaned up and restored engine at the US Air Force Museum in
Dayton, Ohio. I opted for this same clean configuration on mine. When
finished, the engine freely turned in the mounting tube, allowing one
to replicate the motion of the full-scale engine
The Engine
  Because
most of the decals do not include the white cross-fields, I moved on to
assembling the wings so that exterior could begin painting. I discovered
something new Roden has added alignment pins at the outer ends of the
wings. This made keeping the alignment of the leading edge and scalloped
trailing edge very easy. As mentioned in the preview, the separate wingtips
have been misidentified in the instructions, and putting the correct wingtip
on the correct wing made for a seamless installation. I opted to install
the ailerons in a neutral position. There was a little interference between
the wing tip and the inboard edge of the aileron counter balance. This
was quickly cleaned up with a little scraping on both parts. Take note
when installing your ailerons -there is a large amount of latitude as
to how high or low you can glue them on the simulated hinge points. Be
sure to get them where you really want them before the glue sets up.
The Cockpit/Fuselage Interior
 While
the wings were curing, I tackled the engine mount. This consists of the
firewall and a four-legged brace assembly. I carefully scraped off the
flash on the tubing on the brace, and was rewarded with a part that very
neatly mated with the steel tubing on the back of the firewall.
  The
cockpit floor was next. Just a smattering of parts here: the shaft that
supports the rudder bar, the rudder bar itself, and the aileron bell crank
- all at the front end of the floor. This is followed by the joystick
and its attached handles and triggers, and the compass at the rear end
of the floorboard. Two items to note on this assembly - the assembly diagram
in the instructions implies the aileron bell crank somehow goes on the
rudder pedal shaft. It should go on the torque tube on the floor, with
both arms pointing up.
I attached the joystick to the floor then
attempted to attach the gun triggers/handles to the top of the stick.
This gave me some alignment problems. If I had it to do over, I'd attach
the gun triggers/handle assembly to the stick first. For the final fuselage
internal sub assembly, I joined the two halves of the fuel tank together
and added the filler neck.
 As
all of this dries, it is a good time to work on getting the interplane
struts to easily fit into the appropriate slots in the wings. On my kit,
I waited until just before I glued the middle wing to the fuselage. Trying
to fit these struts after the wings are mated, as shown in Step 11, would
have risked major damage to the wings and /or fuselage. So it is best
to get this fitting done early.
  The
Fuselage
I cleaned up all of the seams on the wings and gave the appropriate
areas of the wings and fuselage a coat of white paint, then started fuselage
closeout.
 I
masked the interior of the fuselage in the wood fairing area and painted
the remainder a 'sand' color to represent the linen fabric interior. This
was followed by the fuselage's internal tubing as shown in Step 9 of the
instructions. The interior tubing was the next little stumbling block.
The diagram in the instructions implies that these parts should go as
far forward as possible. Yet, the small triangular piece that braces the
wing spar pass-through will not allow this. In the end, I chose to pull
the parts as far aft as possible so that they'd match the tubing molded
on the inside of the fuselage. But this solution now forces one to trim
the corners of the cockpit aft closeout panel to clear these tubes. If
I could do this step over again, I'd mark the gap needed to allow this
closeout panel to sit between the fore and aft tubing, then attach the
tubing, creating this gap. Don't worry that the upper tube is a little
taller than the sidewall of the fuselage. There is room in the upper fairing
allowing for this.
 Moving
on to fuselage closeout, I trimmed the cockpit closeout/seat assembly
to fit then glued it in position perpendicular to the centerline of the
fuselage. This was followed by gluing just the bottom of the fuselage
haves together.
This provided a little 'give' in the top halves, to allow positioning
of the floorboard and other parts. Another discrepancy in the instruction
drawings appeared. The crossbar that forms the rudder pedal   hinge
is shown lining up with the aft most set of pins protruding from the fuselage
sides. If you do this, the floor will be too far aft. This crossbar should
line up and attach to the second set of pins from the aft side. The rear
gun mount part number 16C attaches to the aft pins. This is opposite of
what is shown on the Step 13 drawings. Another point to notice here is
that the ammo cans and the fuel tank are glued to the BOTTOM of the fuselage
tubing. They are modeled to hang down, not mount on top. If you glue them
to the top  you
will have interference problems with the upper decking. There are a couple
of trouble points in this area. First, the ammo cans are not adjacent
to each other but separated by the front gun mount/cross bar. If you look
at Step 13, it could imply that the cans go in together, but Step 14 shows
the proper position.
 As
for the fuel tank, its location on the fuselage tubing is clearly indicated
by some mounting points on the tubing. But, if you attach it as indicated
by Step 13, there may be some fit problems down the road. Let me suggest
that you leave the fuel tank out until you have the upper decking in place.
This allows the fuselage to be spread open slightly to match the decking,
and allows you to line up the fuel tank filler neck and cap with the hole
in the upper decking. As to the upper decking, I took quite a bit of time
doing a  lot
of filing and test fitting to ensure this part fell into place. The square
cutouts in the lower half of this part are too small to clear the fuselage
tubing in the lower parts of the fuselage. Five minutes of filing makes
these L-shaped slots large enough to clear whatever may be sticking up
above the edge of the fuselage.
  A
little more work needs to be done on removing a small amount of flash
on the fuselage to wing fairings.
Lastly, take a little more time to get a good fit of this fairing on
to the upper wing. Be sure to glue the fairing edges and the main spar
for a good strong joint.
 Installing
the upper decking and the wing consists of first getting the fairing attached
between the cockpit and the wing fairing. Then open the sides of the top
edge of the fuselage as needed to get a good fit and alignment with the
upper decking. After this has thoroughly dried, add the fuel tank in a
location that will allow the fuel filler neck to sit in the opening in
the upper decking. Now add the firewall and the fuselage is closed out.
I had a little interference between the engine mount and the front end
of the fuselage tubing, so I trimmed back the tubing.
I considered the fuselage done and closed out with the attachment of
the lower wing and interplane struts. My last two sub-assemblies were
to drill out and install all of the flight control arms. In this scale,
these items are big enough to have a hole easily drilled in them to accept
the control cables. And lastly, I installed the landing gear sub-wing
and the associated struts. These fit extremely well in the provided sockets
on the lower surface of the fuselage and wing.
This looked like a good time for decals, so on they went with a little
Micro Sol, two days of drying and one brush coat of Future to seal them.
Special note: if you are doing the MvR airplane, it is easier to apply
the fuselage cross and white background BEFORE you attach the horizontal
stabilizer. And for my good South American friend "D," the upper
wing decals were applied whole, in one piece. Allowed to dry for an hour
then they were sliced through at the aileron gap, and re-soaked with Micro
Sol to lie down into the gap.
Final Assembly and Rigging
 With
the decals dry and protected, a quiet Sunday evening was spent on final
assembly and rigging. The engine was lubed with light oil, and permanently
installed in the firewall; this was covered by the red cowling. The wheels
and axels were assembled and installed as shown on the instructions. The
stabilizer was installed, and the elevator was given the now traditional
'on the ground' droop. I was surprised to learn that the fuselage of the
Dr-I does, indeed, go past the end of the stabilizer by about a foot.
Roden accurately repeats this feature. With the upper wing still off,
it is a good time to accomplish  what
little rigging is found on the Dr-I. I usually use 0.003-inch diameter
"invisible" sewing thread. This product comes in a clear and
a smoked color. I used the smoked color for all of the flight control
cables. In this scale, this works out to be a 0.096-inch diameter cable,
just a little small for the usual 1/8 inch (0.125) flight control cabling.
A single #77 hole was drilled in all of the fuselage and wing cable pass
throughs. A  single
knot was tied in a piece of the thread and this was dipped in quick-set
CA glue. The wetted knot is placed in the drilled pass-through hole and
the CA is activated with a drop of accelerator. In some cases the knot
in the hole is given another drop of CA before it is activated. The free
end of the thread is then passed through the associated flight control
arm, pulled in tension with a set of clamping tweezers that are allowed
to hang by the thread.
 Then
the thread secured with another drop of CA and accelerator. The last step
is to trim the excess flush at the control arm. For the landing gear and
cabane strut cross-bracing, I switched to 6-pound-test fishing line, primarily
because that was the next smallest product I had and the invisible line
turned out to be just that, virtually invisible.
  Before
adding the top wing, the guns and feed chutes were cleaned up, assembled,
and painted. Roden has done a fantastic job in distinguishing the ammo
feed belts, brass casings, and metal rounds in the ammo feed-side of the
guns. When dry, these were dropped in position on the fuselage. Another
nice feature is that the feed and eject chutes line up nicely with the
appropriate ammo can in the fuselage. Guns were finished by adding the
butt end padding for our pilot.
 The
top wing was attached to the interplane struts, and the cabanes were maneuvered
between the fuselage mounting points and the cabane attachments on the
wing. While this was drying, the rudder was glued to its hinges, with
a little offset to the right. The 6-pound-test cross cables were installed
on the cabanes, the rudder cabling installed, and the stabilizer braces
were added to the aft of the fuselage. I made an attempt at painting the
laminated seven-layer propeller, then painted the bolt plate in steel
and attached to the engine shaft.
Out of parts, I must be done!
The "MALTESE CROSS" NOT!!!
Please note: the flared cross used by the Central Powers early in the
war is commonly called an
'Eisenkreuz' or 'Iron Cross' it is a variation of the cross pâté.
It remained in use, albeit with an overlaid swastika, as an award through
WW-II. The straight cross, used at the end of the war is a 'Balken Cross'
(with an 'e') or "bar" cross. Please don't use Maltese for the
first and Balkan (with an "a") for the second. The problem is
further compounded by the transition period between the two markings.
There is much photographic evidence that the ground crews' simple solution
to remarking the airplanes was to straighten the lines from the points
of the Iron Cross. This formed a very broad Bar Cross. At a later date,
the aircraft were again repainted to the regulation standard narrow bar
cross. We started this monologue because Roden has included all of these
markings on the decal sheet, and if you are building the MvR airplane,
you will have to make a decision as to which of the three decals on the
sheet you will want on your airplane.
  The
Dr-I was delivered to squadron service in Fokker's streaky olive drab
over light blue finish. Pages can be written on the exact hue and tone
of these colors, but in this case I'm just using X-tra color enamels straight
out of the can. For Von Richthofen's airplane, many folks on the WW-I
modeling list subscribe to the belief that his airplanes were painted
vermillion, a very bright red. But red paint also has very poor coverage
ability. So on this plane we see a dark red were the vermillion was applied
over the olive drab, and a bright red where the red covered any light
blue or white.
 Roden's
instructions cause some confusion as to what are the correct markings
for the cover aircraft. As stated above, there is photographic evidence
of MvR's airplane with both the Iron Cross and Balken Cross applied at
the same time. The trouble is the photo doesn't show the top wing. Roden,
in the paint illustrations, indicates that a white outlined Iron Cross
(#37) should be used in both positions on the upper wing. The problem
arises because decal #37 is a late configuration white outlined Balken
cross, not white outlined Iron Crosse! So I went with one of each so that
you can see what each looks like.
What I didn't use was #38, which I believe, would most likely be the
best candidate for the upper wing on the MvR airplane.
 Things
Roden could do better, and they should consider revising in future kits
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Thankfully, the only shortcomings in this great kit are simple mis-marked
or mis-identified items and installations on the instructions. These are:
In Steps 7 and 11, correct the part numbers for the wing tips.
In Step 4, clarify the installation of part number 2C the aileron cable
bell crack.
In Step 9, clarify the installation of part number 5C and 6C the fuselage
tubing, indicating that it should go as far forward as possible to leave
a small gap at the rear ends to allow the fuselage closeout panel (#2E)
to fit.
 In
Step 13, clarify the installation of the floor assembly from step 4, switching
the position of the cross brace and part number 16C.
They need to verify and clarify which decals are correct for the MvR version.
Lastly the two pieces of the horizontal reference line decal #12 and #13
are mis-marked.
Paints used in finishing this kit:
 Testors
Model Master enamels
Wood
Sand
RLM Gray
Steel
Aluminum
Gloss Insignia White
 Gunmetal
X-tra Color Enamels
German Underside Blue
German Topside Green.
Glues used were Tenax R7 and Testors plastic glue in the odd square black
plastic container.
Conclusion
  As
I said in the in the box, we are finally blessed with a GREAT 1:32 kit
of the Fokker Dr-I. And it appears that it has triggered a waterfall of
Great War airplanes in this scale. (Just have a look at the back of the
July Squadron flyer) It is extremely easy to build and detail. And from
the looks of the kit Roden has great plans for the Profi version. Again
thanks to Roden and IM for the
opportunity to build this kit.
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