1:72 Roden Albatros W.4

[Brews]

At the risk of raising the ire of a certain English lady who is aware that I have far too many builds "in progress" and a very low completion rate, I have started an Albatros W.4 (Late). The late models can be identified from the early ones by virtue of the wing-mounted radiator (similar to the mounting on the DV, for instance) rather than the fuselage side-mounted radiators of the DII, from which the W.4 was derived.

Production figures of the W.4 vary, with my most reliable source stating about 128 including the prototype.

Single-seat floatplane fighters were not favoured by the German Navy in WWI, which preferred to use Friedrichshafen and Hansa-Brandenberg two-seaters. The observer was normally the officer, and the pilot was a non-commissioned officer in the two-seaters. I'm not sure whether the pilots of the W.4 would have been officers or not. I have a picture book on "The German Naval Air Service in WWI" but it fails to mention the W.4. There is an entry, however, in my "Complete Book of Fighters".

Onto the kit:

Artwork

The artwork is quite nice. It features one of the two versions provided for in the kit decals (No. 1511) in a climbing attitude near a rocky coast at low level, with (I think) a Shorts 184 at an even lower level shooting at it with the rear-mounted Lewis gun, flying away from its 5 o'clock.

Decals

The decals provided include a full set of naval lozenge for the upper surfaces of the wings, floats, tailplane and fuselage. The remainder of the fuselage and floats are to be in Humbrol 27, except for the ventral fuselage, which is to be in Humbrol 64. The lower wings are to be in Humbrol 74. Large Maltese crosses are provided, the lower wing ones in a square white background, the upper ones and tailfin crosses are only bordered in white. An alternative machine is provided (No. 1486). It looks like both have the same camouflage. Decals for rib tapes are NOT provided, these will have to come from your own resources. My previous experience with Roden decals has not been inspiring. I will coat the rather large decal sheet in Klear prior to use!

Plastic

5 sprues are provided in the kit. These are labelled A, H, L, M and Z.

My guess is that Sprue A is common with an Albatros DI or DII, as it has appendages that need to be removed (as vaguely indicated in the instructions).

Sprue H contains wings, upper decking of fuselage, tailplane, fin and Propeller. It contains unused parts which are suitable for a twin-gun, early, W.4, without ailerons on the lower wing, and with fuselage-mounted radiators.

Sprue L contains the floats and float struts.

Sprue M contains a few struts and an exhaust manifold.

Sprue Z contains the engine parts and machine guns. The block (including inlet manifold) of an early Daimler DIII engine is not used, neither are two Scwarzlose MG and one LMG 08/15. These are going straight to the spares box.

The plastic is light grey, and on the brittle side. There is far more flash than I would like to see in a mainstream kit (is Roden considered mainstream these days?), with the flash on the wings in particular being rather thick (estimate about 0.010")and in some cases extending about 5mm from the wing, and along the entire span.

Instructions

The instructions have 12 steps. These are fairly logical, in the Roden style.

1. Engine assembly
   
2. Pilot Seat
   
3. Control Column / Rudder Pedals
   
4. Removal of Unwanted Features on Fuselage
   
5. Assembly of Fuselage, cockpit interior, engine, cowling, decking, lower wings and empennage
   
6. Floats
   
7. Upper wing
   
8. Assembly of Upper Wing and Struts
   
9. Assembly of Floats to Fuselage
   
10. Fit of prop and spinner to engine
    
11. Rigging
    
12. Rigging
    

Edited December 18, 2006 by Brews

[Dr Fester]

Artwork

The artwork is quite nice. It features one of the two versions provided for in the kit decals (No. 1511) in a climbing attitude near a rocky coast at low level, with (I think) a Shorts 184 at an even lower level shooting at it with the rear-mounted Lewis gun, flying away from its 5 o'clock.

Nice looking build

Doc

[Brews]

Thanks, Doc. My digital camera has flat batteries, and I'm missing the battery charger.

Therefore, I appreciate your picture!

[Zdenko]

Nice review. Thanks. Eager to see pictures.

[MoFo]

I sould *strongly* suggest just tossing the decals and going with an aftermarket sheet instead. Wouldn't even bother trying to use Roden's markings.

[Brews]

Nice review. Thanks. Eager to see pictures.

Why do you say that? I'm actually hoping to be able to use the Roden decals, unless there is some inaccuracy about them that you can advise of. If it's just that they tend to tear, I can deal with that.

[Brews]

Well, here is the artwork on the back of the box (the painting suggestions):

And here, you can see a bit of the flash on the unused wing parts:

Here are all the major parts removed from the sprues and cleaned up (mostly):

And here are the lovely decals:

[MoFo]

Not so much tear as explode/shatter/peel/lift/not settle/ink flake/any other possible problem that can afflict a set of decals.

I had a Felixstowe ruined by Roden's decals (literally - I'll have to strip and re-paint it because peeled in MOST places, but the ink absolutely welded itself to the model in a few areas; stripping is the only solution, but I ain't gonna re-glue, and re-rig those wings), and every other test I've done with every other sheet from every other one of their kits I own shows them to be similarly terrible. Really nicely printed, but unuseably terrible. At this point, I wouldn't even bother trying, I'd just pitch 'em and go aftermarket. Why risk the problems, and go through the stress.

[Brews]

Here is a bit of info on the W.4 that I found in a book by K. Munson called "German War Birds from World War 1 to NATO Ally"

[jrallman]

very cool looking build!

[desmojen]

You are right Brews, that does very much qualify as a PLB! (pretty little biplane folks)

And if anyone was wondering, I am the English lady of whom he speaks

Like the paint job too, shame if the decals are no good.

Jen.

[Brews]

Ok. I think I can confirm that the decals are shot (or something with three of those letters, anyway).

I cut the ailerons off the upper wing, and after having coated the decal sheet in Klear, I primed an aileron with Gunze Mr Surfacer 1000. I accidentally used Micro SOL rather than Micro SET, though, and maybe that explains why the decal broke apart when I tried to move it slightly.

Playing Devil's Advocate, I'll give it another go with another Decal #17.

If that fails, then I'll scan the decals and print my own.

[erwin]

Nice to see a WW-1 plane.

[Brews]

Right, well, I've been struggling with the Roden fit (or lack of it).

The left engine block piece was shaved down to align vertically with the right.

I'll have to fill and sand to get a nice contour to the cowling, now.

The engine, though well-detailed, will not be seen once the cowling, spinner and deck is in place. However, the space where the fuel tank should be will be seen to be empty.

[Brews]

I just finished the artwork for my own decal sheet for this ... based on the Roden sheet. I suppose I could have used the Munsell book.

[Dr Fester]

I just finished the artwork for my own decal sheet for this

They look fantastic Bruce, looking forward to seeing them applied.

Doc

[The Keeper]

Yes, that's wonderful. Did you just scan and print or do some of your own work? I'm hoping to get a decent printer and scanner setup by next year. For now I'm using Microscale Decal Film which does a great job of preserving cantankerous decals.

Cheers,

[Brews]

Did you just scan and print or do some of your own work?

I spent ages scouring the interwebthingy for free fonts of the type that would be appropriate for the numbers. All to no avail, though I suspect that it might be available as some sort of Gothic script. I scanned the sheet and printed it as a first cut. This gave me the confidence that the colour calibration of the printer and scanner was quite good, however the black of the crosses was kind of grey, and in general, the colours looked a little 'washed-out', so I imported the scan into a layer on Corel Draw, which I set to visible but not printable, and inserted a new layer on top of that, on which I drew new hexagons in the four colours, and copied these about the place, and traced around the numbers etc.

For the "linen" I used a woodgrain fill, but adjusted the colours so that these are variations on a CDL theme. For the woodgrain, I used various colours on a woodgrain fill texture. Then for the hexagons, I varied these as well. I didn't vary the colour of the rib tapes.

It was a lot more stuffing-around than just scanning the originals, but then, I wasn't overly impressed with the colours on the originals either.

The crosses were replicated by drawing rectangles, then converting the rectangles to curves, and curving two sides to match the cross. I then rotated this rectangle, as a copy of the original, and voila - Maltese cross. That was probably easier than tracing the original cross.

[Brews]

Here's the wing underside with decal on ..