100th Anniversary Build - 1/72 Zeppelin Staaken R.VI

Well, it's been 100 years since the end of WWI (Nov. 11).  To commemorate this, I'm breaking out a monster of a WWI era kit.  It's 1/72nd scale, but it is truly massive.  There are 11 parts sprues and a whole lot of lozenge decals.  Timewise, it may take as long to complete it as WWI took to end.



One of these:


Four of these:


Two of these:


One of these:


One of these:


One of these:


One of these:


A lot of lozenge decals:


Templates for cutting lozenge decals:


And markings:


Wish me luck,
Mike

That is one of those projects that merits the acronym O.M.G.! Best of luck, I'll follow your progress.

OMG is right. There are a lot  of pieces that go into the interior of the plane which gets completely enclosed.  But, gotta do it - right?

Also, if anyone else should attempt this beast, Roden's instruction writers kinda fell asleep at the wheel when they redid the pages from a previous version (different lozenge camo).  They say to give the camo areas a brown basecoat to dull the decal color and fill in gaps between decals.  But the decals for this version are all blues!  A basecoat of dark blue will work much better.  It also said to paint the engine pods aluminum.  I painted those a dark metallic color before realizing the boxart showed them dark blue.  DUH!!  

Interior floor finished.




Bomb racks. To be mounted to floor underside.


Landing gear:


Engine mountings.


Ground servicing eqpt.


They don't tell you much about decalling this beast, but after gluing on the bomb bay doors I now know it would have been easier to apply the lozenge to them beforehand.

Thanks for looking,
Mike

I luv those details! A great kit deserves careful work. Excellent so far. Hope the energy holds thru all the rigging it looks to need. No wonder they were called "air ships!"

youre a brave man tackling this one!

look forward to seeing it go together

Braver than me! Great job so far, and what's the wing span. Even in 1/72 it's gotta be huge.

Brilliant detail, even though much will be hidden, we know it's there.

Incredible work! The amount of parts/detailing is staggering and the progress so far looks fabulous.

webby wrote:Braver than me! Great job so far, and what's the wing span. Even in 1/72 it's gotta be huge.

Wingspan was 42.2m - less than a meter short of the B29 Superfortress.  The kit is comprised of 463 pieces.

This is the top wing next to a 1/72nd Pfalz DIII fighter.


Thanks.

Found a proper paint for the basecoat - Blue Angels Blue.  Wasn't too particular about perfect coverage since its being covered by decals.  But it should do the trick of providing a good color for any gaps there may be and also dulling down the decal color brightness.



Currently working on the engine pods.  Roden's engineers seem to think we modellers have more than six hands to accomplish this.  LOL

Thanks,
Mike

I think you are spot on with that colour Mike.

What Gary said - that colour is beautiful.

The Blue Angels Blue provides a nice background for these decals.  Any gaps or small nicks are well disguised.  The decals, by the way, are the best I've ever encountered.  Online talk is that Roden went to a new supplier to provide these massive decal sheets.  No major tears, breakups, and they conform to small details perfectly.

Got a lot of pieces finished, here.


Getting the engine pods together is a task for folks with only 2 hands.  On this one, I had to remove the side wings on the inner engine stand as it wouldn't allow it to set straight inside the assembly.  But they're barely visible anyway.  I left the color metallic silver.  Archival photos show them closer to that than the dark blue suggested in the instructions.

The small cooler piping breaks easily coming off the sprue, so I'm using copper wire.


The exhaust is just a manifold on the engine - no outlet piping, nothing going to the outside of the pod.  I feel for the engine tenders that flew the mission inside that pod, monitoring the engines.  I wonder how many suffered from Carbon Monoxide poisoning.


Thanks for your comments,
Mike

Excellent progress! The decal work is stunning and the engine pods look wonderful.

Beautiful kit, beautiful work thus far. Big time thanx.

A little more progress here.  When I was removing the clear pieces from the sprue, one of the long window sections cracked.  The clear sprue seemed awfully brittle - I probably should have sawed them off instead of using the sprue cutters.  But, the damage is done and the piece is glued together, now.

The fuselage sides are attached to the floor/interior.  The window sections(3) are glued down, waiting for the roof section.


Lozenge decals applied on the underside.


And it waits for the cabin roof and more lozenge work.


So, while I gave the windows a few days for the glue to dry, I delved into some old projects from the WIP box.  This seems to be an annual ritual - look at the WIP's and try to recall why I gave up.  LOL

Thanks for looking,
Mike

That is looking great Mike, lovely work on the decals.

The roof section is on and more decals applied.  From far away the cracked window isn't that noticeable.





Never put so many decals on one model in my life!

Thanks for looking,
Mike

More great work, looks brilliant.

Excellent progress! The detailing is superb and the decal work as well. The crack in the window dosn't detract as it could easily be interpreted as 'wear and tear' from rigorous use.

Attached the lower wings to the fuselage.  The weight of the wings makes for a very fragile assembly.  Inverting it to work the underside requires all points being supported with Lego blocks.  Even when sitting for it's photo, I crossed my fingers as the wings sag down.

Another unexpected problem I encountered was locating all the attachment holes once everything is covered in decals.  A lot of measuring and careful poking got most of them so far.

Here's what the big beast looks like with full wingspan.


Thanks for following along,
Mike

Looks absolutely superb Mike.

Holy wingspan or what! That is just awesome, love the look with the decals.

Well, it just had to happen.  I laid the first decal section of the upper wing bottom the wrong way and these stick like glue when you first put them down.  An effort to lift it off just destroyed it.  Luckily, I now copy my decals when I begin a new project.  I ran off a piece of decal that would fill the gap and rearranged things so the new piece would be on the center bottom, least noticeable.  The color is slightly different than the original.





I will be taking this one slowly from here on, squeezing in a few other builds and WIP box revisits in between.

Mike