Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Dornier DO-335 "Pfeil" (Arrow)

The Dornier DO-335 "Pfeil" (arrow), also known as the Ameisebaer (anteater) was the fastest piston (prop) driven fighter plane of WW2. Unfortunately, it never saw action.

You'll find more information on this fascinating aircraft at the Dornier Do 335 page.

The DO-335 kit was designed by Marek. It's a 1:32 scale model, a bit complex and has a lot of bad fitting parts. But despite that, I persevered and finally completed the model.

Here's a summary of the entire build.

Front Engine


Unlike most prop-driven card models I've encountered, this one does not have any provisions for a rotating shaft. Damn! I don't want to end up with non-rotating props!

I must come up with something.

Before proceeding with my mini-solution, I do a dry fit to ensure that everything is lined up properly.

I create my make-shift spinner shaft by rilling paper on a bamboo toothpick. As you see in the picture above, the outer 'roll' of paper is fixed to the toothpick. The inner roll, is not.

The propeller cone will be attached to the 'fixed' roll. The non-fixed roll on the other hand will be attached to the main engine part. Once done, I'll plug the shaft with another 'fixed' roll of paper.



All done!


And it spins!




-- end of part 1 --

5 comments:

Allan rei said...

sir, where can I buy paper models dito sa Manila? Particularly the hobby model brand

eric said...

Hi Allan,

Unfortunately, I don't know. I myself would love to build stuff from Halinski and GPM. But I am hesitant to order online for fear of it getting damaged in transit by our friends at PhilPost. Baka i-rolyo or itupi! Or worse, baka hindi dumating sa akin!

The commercial models I have are all digital and I got them from http://www.teuton.org/dbarnett/
and from http://ecardmodels.com

Allan rei said...

i see, gusto ko din sana subukan gumawa ng paper models, what i do build are plastic scale models, normally 1/72. Anyhow, may mga nakuha ko na ilang paper model designs, if you don't mind, can you tell me kung pano ko yun ma print keeping the scale, what kind of paper and gagamitin and kung meron na special paste to stick it together. thanks boss, appreciate it.

eric said...

Hi,

Mas okay kung makahanap ka ng 1/72 na kit. Check this out: http://www.papermodels.co.il/Store.htm

I haven't tried re-scaling yet but I bookmarked this nice forum thread for future reference:
http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/tips-techniques/10168-rescaling-printing-pdf-models.html

RE: Paper & Glue
I use the generic card stock that NBS sells. 120gsm ata.
For glue, elmers lang yung gamit ko.
I also use mighty bond, but not for adhesion. I use mighty bond to seal the edges (butt ends) of wing spars to prevent them from fraying.


I hope that helps. :)

Allan rei said...

thanks boss, let me try this out