I also thinned down the wings, but this step could be considered unnecessary, as the wings are not all that thick. The main reason was that I wanted to add rib tapes to the surfaces to more accurately represent the real aircraft, so the old rib detail had to go anyway. This was accomplished by masking off the ribs with masking tape and applying Gunze-Sangyo Mr. Surfacer 500 with a paintbrush. After drying completely, I removed the masking tape and gently sanded to take the "edge" off the ribs. Of note, the wings as supplied represent the earlier wing found on the E.II with 11 ribs. The E.III wing had 12 ribs so if you are going to go to all the trouble to sand off and re-do the ribs as I did, don’t forget to add the extra rib. Please don’t count the ribs on my effort, as you will see that I failed basic math!

I then pre-painted all the parts as indicated in the instructions. Assembly of the fuselage components was accomplished using super-thin superglue and presented no major problems. Cockpit details are a little on the sparse side, however it is adequate (the cockpit on the Eindecker was fairly sparse anyway!) and allows super-detailers room to add extras.

The engine supplied with the kit was poorly molded so I replaced it with a spare Oberursel rotary engine from the DML Dr.I kit. This engine is the same basic engine for both aircraft, but the DML version is far superior and has the pushrod details molded on the cylinder heads. Unfortunately this extra detail meant the cowling would not fit so it was thinned with a Dremel.

The resin cockpit tub was superglued to the fuselage half and then the fuselage halves were glued together with liquid cement. Fit was poor, so putty was used extensively. The Eindecker had a prominent seam along the fuselage bottom where the fabric was joined, so don’t go overboard in cleaning up that seam! Next I drilled and dry-fitted all of the rigging, strut, and landing gear mounting holes to assist in final assembly as nothing is more frustrating as trying to get these pieces together with a fragile model. Next stop was the paint shop.

The model was painted, decaled, and weathered as described in the following subsections and then final assembly took place.

Now onto the fun part, putting on the wing! The engineering of this kit leaves much to be desired in that the wing is basically butt joined to the fuselage side, which would create a very fragile model. I decided to use brass pins to strengthen this join, but could only pin the front portion, as the rear would protrude into the cockpit. I used epoxy on the pins and a small portion of the wing to join to the fuselage and then followed this up with superglue to further strengthen the join. The horizontal stabilizer was carefully butt joined to fuselage end with epoxy also.

Assembly of the landing gear was also a problem in that butt joining all the parts together would create a very fragile model. I chose to use .005 stainless wire to pin each joint into a corresponding drilled hole and then apply superglue. This technique worked extremely well and assembly of the landing gear was really easy and relatively strong. The rudder also created a challenge in that butt joining at one point would be fragile and also difficult to correctly mount the rudder. Again, .005 stainless wire and superglue to the rescue!

After installing all the remaining "fiddly bits" I was faced with a substantial challenge in rigging. The kit comes with P/E turnbuckles but I could not find an acceptable way (translated: durable) to mount them with the rigging. So I "chickened out" and went back to my tried and true (and easy!) method of using .006-fishing line painted silver. I then hand painted the turnbuckles on with white glue.

The paint scheme is very simple; a clear doped linen (CDL) with riffled metal surfaces. I used Testor Model Master British Gulf Armor Light Stone airbrushed on for the CDL. After a short drying time, I masked the CDL surfaces and airbrushed Testor Metalizer Gunmetal for the metal surfaces. After the paint scheme cured for a day, I shot a light coat of Future to prepare the surface for decaling and the "riffled metals" finish. A distinctive feature that shows up in most photographs of Eindecker’s is the riffled metal pattern on the cowl and metal surfaces. To reproduce this effect I sparingly and finely applied a random silver pattern using a ZIG Painty Silver Oilbased Paint Marker (available at most art supply stores) over the gunmetal surfaces. The Painty has a fine petal shaped tip that allows for very fine drawn lines that closely approximates this effect which is actually caused by machining aluminum. I am not a talented enough painter and could never accomplish this effect with a paintbrush (in fact I tried and it stunk)!