) as the "Ace of Spades" mentioned in the short story of the same name, the paint job is based on Theo Osterkamp's D.VIII but with orange in place of yellow. There is a build thread in the Biggles Forum WW1 Group Build that I have been running: http://www.bigglesforum.net/forum/viewt ... =92&t=2350; It all went together fairly smoothly until it came time to attach the wing. Beware when building - the struts are just fractionally short, placing the whole strut assembly under tension if you use the exact locating holes/points. It came unstuck on the first attempt. On the second, I cut off the locating nubs on the struts, set up all the struts at mostly correct angles with gel glue ready to go at the tips, then lowered the wing and judged its position by eye from the fuselage centreline and the cockpit position. After it set, I filled in any locating holes that didn't line up well. A LOT of gel superglue was harmed in the making of this one.
In short, the usual Roden troublesome-but-not-catastrophic fitment issues reared their heads.
I unwisely put the first rudder decal in water without taking precautions. It instantly fragmented into pieces of approximately the Planck length.
Other decals received 3 coats of liquid decal film and sort of held together, with only 3 or 4 breakages each
Yay Roden decals.The Ace of Spades decal was custom printed.
Paint was hardware rattle can and Humbrol enamel for the wing. Prop was two tones of wood effect with 1/2mm tape masks to make the laminations. Rigging was EZ line.
I like Roden kits for their detail/cost ratio and for their subjects, but I wouldn't call them a joy to build...
