1/48 Eduard SSW D.III

Gallery Article by Mike Muth on June 24 2015

 

      

1/48 New Tooling product # 8256

     Eduard began producing World War One kits about the same time I got back into modeling, sometime in the 80s. One of their earliest kits was the Siemens-Schuckert Werke's D.III. It was a typical, limited run kit with a pe fret and decals for multiple planes. I never got around to building it, and was excited when Eduard announced it was doing a new tooling of this airplane. The two kits are like night and day, with all of Eduard's new molding techniques being fully utilized in the new kit. The new kit has 2 sprues covering the main parts of the plane, a colored pe fret that includes seat belts, a seat back and turnbuckles, masks for the wheels, a small clear film sheet for the windshield, and decals for 5 airplanes including the 5-color lozenge needed for the wings and elevator. 

 

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      The SSW D.III used the Siemens-Halske rotary engine, a unique setup that allowed for the rotary engine to spin in the opposite direction of the propeller. According to Eduard's instruction some 136 D.IIIs and D.IVs were issued to combat units. At one point Jasta 15 was fully equipped with the D.III.  Haupt. Berthold had all of his Jasta's aircraft painted with Prussian blue bodies and red noses. This makes for a striking model and so I decided on a Jasta 15 airplane. While kit the provides decals for a D.III from Jasta 15, I decided instead to model the plane flown by Oliver von Beaulieu-Marconnay, a 25 victory ace and the youngest recipient of Blue Max. The "4D" represented the branding iron used on their horses by his former regiment, the 4th Prussian Dragoons.

     The actual build itself is relatively trouble-free. The cockpit parts, while small, fit nicely. Some of the internal parts for the engine and cockpit aren't visible when the fuselage halves are closed up, so it won't be noticeable if you leave certain parts off (A53/54, A28, A24). There aren't many photos of Jasta 15's D.IIIs, so I took a little license and did not apply part A71, the optional headrest. Oh yeah, did I mention I forgot to attach parts B 51/52? I think they have something to do with the ailerons. Oh well, maybe next time. The attachment holes for the cabane struts and the lengthened pins on the struts made for an easy alignment of the top wing, a stress point whenever building a bi-plane. 

     About the next time. The finished version of this kit as made by yours truly isn't an award winner by any stretch of the imagination. There are 2 big problems with this kit. The first is that the rib tapes that appear on most WW I aircraft have been reproduced by Eduard in a very prominent manner. The best shot of this can be seen on the photo showing the white rudder. There are raised squiggly lines and prominent bumps representing the tapes. They make getting the supplied rib tapes very difficult to lay down properly. The rib tape decals aren't the problem...they work great. I think next time I might sand off the detail and just go with the tapes.

     As for the second problem, it is the lozenge. I used the kit supplied lozenge on the lower surfaces. Without getting into a long discussion on the "correct" color for 5-color lozenge, the decals look a little too washed out for my tastes. Anyway, the real problem with the lozenge is that it isn't big enough to cover the wings without leaving a gap at the leading edge of the 2 wings. After discovering this while decaling the top wing, I decided to use some old Super Scale 5 color day lozenge I had. Big mistake. It wouldn't conform to the surface of the wing no matter how much Micro-Sol, Solvaset and Future I applied. And it had a tendency to crack when I tried to bend it around the leading edge of the wing to meet with the lower lozenge. Oh yeah, it also left a lot of bubbles that I couldn't get to disappear. This is not the fault of the kit, but my ham-handedness and maybe the Super Scale decals. The ailerons were covered in the kit supplied lozenge so you can see the difference in color, more green than blue. Pheon decals has a listing for substitute lozenge in their "coming soon" section, so I will definitely use that once it is available. 

     In spite of the decal problems, I have already ordered another D.III from Eduard. This was an enjoyable build and I look forward to building another D.III once the Pheon decals become available.

Mike Muth

Photos and text © by Mike Muth