KIT: Blue Max LVG C.VIBlue Max LVG C.VI

KIT # BM 204

PRICE: $39.96

DECALS: See review

REVIEWER: Otis Goodin

NOTES: Tough build but worth it if you're a WWI junkie

HISTORY

When most of us think about WWI aircraft, the name LVG(Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft mbH) is probably not a namethat immediately comes to mind. However, the companyfounded in 1910 by Alfred Muller went on to become thesecond most prolific German aircraft manufacturer ofWWI. The reason for the relative obscurity is that, for mostof the war, the firm manufactured aircraft under license forcompanies such as Albatros and Gotha. However, in 1916,LVG managed to design its own aircraft, the CV, to beused as an artillery observation and reconnaissanceaircraft. LVG delivered 1250 of them to the German AirService, and the favorable reviews led the company todevelop the CVI, a more streamlined version of the CV.Appearing in late 1917 and only in active use for the lastsix months of the war, the CVI proved to be versatileaircraft with good maneuverability, speed and rate ofclimb. Following the war, some 400 remaining CVIs found use in Latvia, Austria, Hungary, Belgium and Poland.

THE KIT

The kit is fairly typical Blue Max, which meansthat it is a limited run production (1500 units)with parts made of plastic and white metal.The plastic is a fairly soft variety, which ishelpful considering the amount of sanding andreshaping required. The white metal parts areof medium quality, requiring some work toremove flash and enhance detail. Theinstructions are very basic, with only anexploded view drawing supplemented with afew out of focus black and white photos ofvarious locations of a finished model. All in all,not very helpful. The instructions recommendthe use of the Datafile, and I concur. I built

mine without one, but it would have been helpful to have. My main complaint with Blue Max kits, besides theinadequate instructions and engineering, is the use of extruded plastic material to serve as wing struts. Thematerial, at least in the case of the LVG, is too flimsy to support the wings.

The model features decals for two versions of the LVG CVI, werke number 1510/18, and “Checkerboard 12,” whichis the one I chose to build.

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CONSTRUCTION

Construction began by separating and cleaning up the plastic and white metal parts. The parts are attached to thicktrees, and it is necessary to do a fair amount of sanding and filing to remove the excess material. Once the partswere clean, I then separated the elevator and rudder, and began drilling holes to accept the struts and rigging to beapplied later. To Blue Max’s credit, the ailerons are provided as separate parts and do not have to be cut off. This isa nice touch that I wish other model companies would emulate. I then turned my attention to the cockpit andencountered my first problem.

The cockpit consists of a floorboard, pilot’s seat, sidewallinstruments, joystick, and observer’s bench made ofplastic, along with 3 white metal bulkheads to bepositioned center, fore and aft. Exactly where to positionthem is not clear from the instructions, but I made aneducated guess. Unfortunately, after installing them, Inoticed that the fuselage halves would not mate with thebulkheads in place. I tried several locations but nothingwould work so I resolved that I would have to trim downthe fuselage sidewalls to create more room. Using myDremel, I trimmed and trimmed and trimmed some moreand the fuselage still would not mate with the bulkheads inplace. It became apparent that any more “trimming” wouldcompromise the structural integrity of the fuselage, so Iturned my attention to trimming the bulkheads. Again,using my Dremel, I ground down the bulkheads as much asI dared and I still could not get the parts to work. It becameapparent that both the size and shape of the bulkheads were such that they would not fit into the fuselage withoutsome serious surgery. I proceeded to cut them in half vertically and remove more material until I could get them to asize and shape that would fit. At this point I was pretty disgusted at the inept engineering of the kit and consideredjunking the whole thing, but at around $40 a pop, I decided I would hang in there with it. Of course, any thoughts ofdetailing the cockpit or entering the kit into competition pretty much vanished at this point. My goal was simply tobuild a model that looked like an LVG from the outside so I proceeded to, uh…..proceed.

Once I had the bulkhead problem solved, I ran into a problem with the lower half of the engine. Again, with this partin place, the fuselage would not mate, so I started whittling the engine down and also enlarging the fuselage cavityto contain it. By the time I finished, the engine was a shell of its former self, but at least the fuselage would mate.Once the fuselage halves were joined, I used a fair amount of gap filling glue and putty to seal the crevices thatremained. After a reasonable amount of sanding I was able to obtain a smooth finish.

I attached the stabilizer, tailplane and lower wings to the fuselage.When attaching the lower wings, I added bits of brass wire to the wingsand glued them into holes I had drilled into the sides of the fuselage.This gives more support than simply “butt-joining” them to the fuselage.At this point, I turned my attention to painting and finishing theremaining subassemblies (upper wings, wheels, engine, machine guns,etc.). This process will be discussed in more detail in the Paintingsection below.

Once all the subassemblies were finished, I was ready to put the wholething together. Believe me, I was plenty nervous at this point as I hadjust invested many hours in getting here. I fully expected the rest of themodel to fit together the way the previous parts had, so I was expectingthe worst. Maybe that’s a good philosophy to adopt because, thoughnot without problems, the rest of the construction went much betterthan the earlier stages.

On any biplane, the most critical issue is to get the wings on straight and level. If the kit is engineered well (a laEduard) it’s usually not a problem, but as we have seen with this kit,… well, you get the picture. I began by installingthe cabane struts. They are made of white metal and were generallypretty sturdy although one of them developed a tendency to bendduring installation of the upper wing. As discussed earlier, theinterplane struts were to be formed from the flimsy extruded plasticmaterial provided. I cut and formed the struts and tried using them, butthey simply would not support the weight of the rather large wingpeculiar to the LVG. Looking around for an alternate plan, I consideredusing brass rod but decided it was too round for the LVG struts. I thencame across some flat toothpicks and thought these might work. I cutthem close to the recommended size, sanded them to shape and begantrying them on a trial and error basis. I worked from the inside out onone side, and then did the same on the other side. Without too manyfailures, the toothpicks did a credible job, and were far better than theflimsy plastic originally intended.

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Once the wings were in place, I began rigging them immediately toprovide extra strength. I do a lot of my rigging before assemblybecause it is easier to reach the rigging points to attach the invisible thread I use for rigging. In this case, I “pre-rigged” the wings after I finished applying the lozenge camo, and before attaching the top wing. Once the top wingwas attached, it was simply a matter of sorting out the mass of threads hanging from the underside of the top wingand guiding each one into its respective pre-drilled hole in the lower wing. Once the respective thread has been

“threaded” into place, I place a small amount of gap filling glue into thehole, grab the end of the thread with self-clamping tweezers or ahemostat, and allow the weight of the tweezers to pull the threadtaught while the glue sets. Once the glue has set for a few minutes, Irelease the tweezers and move on to the next thread. The concept issimple, it’s just the execution that is a bit tedious, especially in thebeginning when it’s hard to tell which thread is which. I can usuallyfinish the whole process in about an hour on a simple kit such as aPfalz, but this one took 3-4 hours over a couple of nights. Once thewings were rigged, I trimmed off the excess thread and patched anydamaged spots underneath the wing with more lozenge decals. Once Iwas satisfied with the result, I added the rib tapes and underwingcrosses.

The remaining subassemblies to be added were the rudder,undercarriage struts and wheels, stabilizer flap, control horns, radiatorpipes and tailskid. The radiator pipes were made of brass rod andpainted Aluminum. All of these parts went on with no problem. Thenecessary rigging was added, and the observer’s machine gun wasinstalled. I misplaced the white metal support post for the gun so Imade one out of brass rod and painted it to match the rest of theassembly. As a final touch, I replaced the kit-supplied prop with one Imade myself, using the kit part as a template to get the shape right.This was my first successful attempt at propeller making, and I was

more or less pleased with the result. I made it with a piece of basswood board I purchased from Hobbytown. I tracedthe outline of the kit propeller onto the board and cut it out with a coping saw. I used my Dremel to do most of theheavy duty sanding and then finished it up by hand. Be careful with the Dremel. The basswood is very fragile and theDremel can snap it in two. I know because I did it. Once the prop was sanded to shape, I stained it with some MinwaxPolyshade and added the prop boss from Copper State Models. Overall, not bad.

PAINT & DECALS

The most important painted piece of this model is the wood-grained fuselage. LVGs, like many German aircraft ofWWI, had fuselages composed of various panels of birch plywood. The panels were attached to a frame of woodformers and stringers and then stained or finished in a clear varnish. The result is a beautiful “honey-colored” woodfinish that must be replicated for an accurate model. Almost every modeler who attempts this has his/her ownvariation to the theme, but the basic premise is to apply a base coat and then apply the wood grain effect withvarious washes of color. Bob Laskodi is one modeler who I think has the process down pat, but he and I differslightly in our approach and result. My method is as follows: I spray a base coat of Testors Model Master (Acrylic)Wood to the entire fuselage. Once dry, I then spray a light coat of Future over it to protect it from the next step.Once the Future coat had dried thoroughly (at least 24 hours) I then apply the wood grain effect. Some modelersuse artist’s oils. I use good old basic Testors gloss enamels, thinned with Testor’s thinner. I take a little black, brownand wood brown color, put it in an old paintlid, and then add thinner to it until I get it theconsistency and color I like. Somewherebetween pretty runny but not too runny isabout right. Basically I want the paint to floweasily but still stick to the surface when Iapply it. Trial and error is the best solution,but it’s hard to mess up. I take a brush I usefor drybrushing, dip it into the paint and thenapply it in small sections at a time. The goal isto make it look like separate panels so I varythe direction of the grain and intensity of thecolor with and within each panel.Occasionally I will make short stabbingstrokes to produce what appear to be “knots”in the wood. Once satisfied with an area, Imove on to another one, usually skipping overa panel rather than doing one adjacent to an area I have just completed. This gives the previous spot a chance todry somewhat so that it maintains its separate identity rather than the paint flowing together into the adjacent area.Once the entire fuselage has been covered I let it dry overnight. The next day I coat it again with Future to seal thewood grain and to provide a glossy surface for decals.

Once the wood grain was complete, I painted the metal panel parts, struts and wheel wells in RLM Grau 02. Theengine and machine guns were painted in MM Gun Metal. I really like the Model Master Gun Metal because it has that

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blue steel color to it, unlike other paint makers whose gunmetal is too gray for my tastes. The exhaust pipe waspainted with Gunze Burnt Iron and drybrushed with various metallic shades and pastels. The tires were painted inMM Lichtgrau, then drybrushed with gray pastels to give some variance to the color. The wing-mounted radiatorwas painted in Aluminum and given a wash of thinned black and brown.

The next major project on this model was to apply the lozenge decals to the wings and stabilizer. Before applyingthe decals, I first sprayed the surfaces with RLM Grau and then with a heavy coat of Future to create a slicksurface. I chose the new Eagle Strike five-color lozenge decals, primarily for two reasons. First, Eagle Strike is noneother than the old Aeromaster folks so I knew the quality was good. Secondly, I actually had a hand in thedevelopment of these decals so I was confident that the colors were right. There’s a story here so I might as well tellit. A few years ago I contacted Aeromaster to ask them to improve their existing lozenge decals. The quality wasgood but I felt the colors were a bit off. Aeromaster promptly responded and stated that they had been working onthe project for some time but had hit a roadblock because they were not able to get agreement on the colors amongtheir consultants. I offered to assist and to involve members of the WWI Modeling List. Aeromaster agreed and BobLaskodi, Steve Hustad, others and myself reviewed the Aeromaster samples and offered suggestions. Apparentlythey took our advice because shortly thereafter the Eagle Strike lozenge appeared. In the instructions, Eagle Strikeextends thanks to several folks, including those mentioned, for their help in the development of the decals. I truly dobelieve that these lozenge decals are the best available on the market today, and I encourage everyone to buysome so they will be a hit and Eagle Strike will make more.

Applying lozenge decals is not difficult, but it istedious and time consuming. Lozenge fabric wasapplied in a number of different ways depending onthe aircraft and the manufacturer so it is importantto closely review your reference materials to besure that you are applying them in the correctmanner. On this particular aircraft, the fabric wasapplied chordwise, meaning from leading edge totrailing edge (or vice versa). In addition, it appearsthat the rolls were applied in alternating directionsso that the pattern on one side of the roll matchedthe pattern on the other side of the roll. Think of itthis way. The wing was in the middle with lozenge“installers” on either side. I presume that rolls oflozenge fabric were positioned so that the fabriccould be easily pulled from the rolls and placed onthe wings. One installer pulls from the leading edgeside and another pulls from the trailing edge side.The pieces are stitched into place and they move

onto the next location.

In applying the lozenge to this model I attempted to duplicate that effect. I have found it best to apply the lowersurface lozenge first, trim it off, and then apply the upper surface so that it slightly overlaps the previous application.I use the Micro Set/Micro Sol method and with these decals it works quite well. Once the base fabric has beenapplied, it is then time to apply the rib tapes. Talk about fun. Imagine applying about 50 thin strips of decal andmaking sure they are all straight and line up with each other. In reality you can forget about that actually happening.They won’t all be straight and they won’t all line up perfectly, but if you can get the general effect, you will have doneall right. The hardest part is applying rib tapes to the edges of the wings. If you are lucky and have a fairly thick winglike the LVG, it’s not altogether impossible. In this case, I used strips of lozenge fabric rather than the pink or bluerib tapes so I had to make them myself by cutting strips from the lozenge fabric decal. I wish Eagle Strike would goone better and make rib tapes out of lozenge fabric, then they really would boldly go where no decal maker has gonebefore. But I digress.

Once the lozenge fabric and rib tapes were applied, I sealed them with a light coat of Future. Once dry, I thenapplied the wing crosses. These decals were supplied with the kit and the quality is very good. If you have ever builta Blue Max kit before, then you know that they take a special pride in their decals and it is usually warranted. Theyare very thin and no solvent is needed. In fact, if you apply any solvent you will very likely ruin the decals and end upwith a curly mess that you will have to remove and discard. Seriously, simply apply the decals to a wet surface,press out the bubbles and that is it. Let them dry and seal them with Future. All the other decals were from the kit,and were applied in the aforementioned manner with no trouble.

Once all the decals were applied, the whole model was given a shot of Future. Later, the lozenge areas were givena light coat of Polly Scale Satin. As a final touch, the wheels were given a black/brown wash, and I highlighted therigging with Polly Scale graphite.

CONCLUSIONS

Obviously this kit will only appeal to a limited number of modelers. Given the early difficulties I had with the fuselage,I was ultimately pleased with the result. In my opinion, the model certainly looks like an LVG CVI, and Blue Max is tobe commended for offering this subject. However, I do wish they had paid more attention to the engineering and fitof the interior parts. I’m sure a modeler with more skill than I possess could do a fabulous job with the kit, but thefact is, most modelers will likely get discouraged running into such problems so early in the construction. Also, BlueMax could really stand to improve their instructions.

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REFERENCES

Blue Max kit box, C.J.B. Gannon

Classic Aircraft of WWI, Melvyn Hiscock, Osprey Aerospace, 1994.

Review kit courtesy of my kit collection.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has well over 100,000 visitors a month,please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.

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