Andrew's Blue Max Fokker D.VII **sprue missing in action**

[AndrewR]

The Blue Max,starring George Peppard, Ursula Andress and James Mason, used a wide variety of aircraft to simulate WW1 combatants.
Several replica Fokker D.VIIs were used.

http://impdb.org/index.php?title=The_Blue_Max;

I will be building one, using the very old ESCI kit, and a lot of lozenge decals!

[AndrewR]

Not much in the box!



Not as nice as the Revell version of the D.VII. Quite a bit of flash and very prominent rib detail.



Some cleanup needed. On the whole, it goes together quite well. The front of the engine is completely the wrong size to fit however.



The major bits are together, and some putty applied after an hour.
The slot for the vertical tail is far too wide and needed filling.



The underside is not great, but "Out of sight, out of mind." applies here.



I'm going to do the machine with the red band over the cockpit. Front end primed and interior primed in sand

[DazDaMan]

Really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Lozenge markings scare the hell out of me, though!

[AndrewR]

Really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Lozenge markings scare the hell out of me, though!

Who Dares, Wins.



This one will take a bit longer than that Hansa-Brandenburg, as I will have to cut the lozenge decals to size.

[JohnRatzenberger]

The very few times I did lozenge, I cut the upper side oversize to account for the camber and to wrap around the LE & TE. Then I cut the lower side to fit, meaning cover the ragged edges from above. I made zero attempt to get the hexes to line up.

[AndrewR]

The very few times I did lozenge, I cut the upper side oversize to account for the camber and to wrap around the LE & TE. Then I cut the lower side to fit, meaning cover the ragged edges from above. I made zero attempt to get the hexes to line up.

That was pretty much my idea too John!

[AndrewR]

I've looked out my lozenge camo decals and decided to use the four-colour stuff, as I have a lot of it!
The camo used on the replicas looks suspiciously like an Imperial Navy lozenge scheme!

[DazDaMan]

Any help?

[AndrewR]

Any help?

It's lozenge camo, Daz, but not as we know it!

From the film stills it looks like they have wrapped the same lozenge under the wings. Definitely not the done thing!

[DazDaMan]

Yep!

[AndrewR]

I have two theories

1 They had no clue about the real colours and bodged it.

2 They wanted something with more contrast to show up better on the film.

[DazDaMan]

I've watched The Blue Max dozens of times over the years, but I have only just realised that the replicas in those shots have bracing wires...!

[AndrewR]

I've watched The Blue Max dozens of times over the years, but I have only just realised that the replicas in those shots have bracing wires...!

I will not be that dedicated!



Anyhow, we are mostly primed, and will spray red next. The struts have been painted in RLM 02 - a colour Fokker used a lot.

[AndrewR]

A very dark brown on the nose, and red over the cockpit:





The Print Scale lozenge decals are not behaving that well and keep splitting. However, it's not to difficult to patch up.



It will take several patient decal sessions to get this right!

cheers


Andrew

[AndrewR]

And here are the results of the second decal session



The upper wing is being slowly patched up. Some panels have been fitted to the fuselage and lower wings too