1/249 Airship Graf Zeppelin (Hawk)
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by Gary Gobel |
1/249 Airship Graf Zeppelin (Hawk)
I built the Hawk model of the Graf Zeppelin with some modifications.
The gondola provided is inaccurate with a lobe for the lighting of the
interior on the bottom and the overall gondola appears to be about 20%
too large. The windows are incorrect in their layout. The hull does not
have vertical lines representing the internal structural rings, the balancers
on the fins are the wrong type and the struts on the engine nacelles are
heavy handed and should be cut off and new ones constructed. There are
few examples of rigid airship models so, I decided to go for it anyway.
Not wanting to construct a completely new gondola due to the large inaccuracies
of the overall model, I chose to modify it. I removed the lower lobe on
the gondola and decided to forgo the lighting system. The balancers on
the fins were the blade type and easy to make from styrene. I removed some
of the engine struts but kept most provided to simplify construction. I
painted the hull enamel flat black then a light coat of German Silver enamel
allowing the black to slightly show through. Next I used 1/16 masking tape
and outlined the vertical main rings and some of the mismatched patches
from fabric repair on the real airship. Over this I painted enamel bare
metal aluminum paint. The paint was put on thin and the variations of color
show through. I wanted a clean look so I kept it subtle but if you put
a thinner coat on you can get the patchy look. After applying decals, I
put several light coats of dullcoat after masking off the gondola windows.
I mounted a vertical sleeve of aluminum tube inside the hull during initial
hull construction and inserted a rod that fits snugly into this, thus making
a single rod mount for the airship. Plug the top of the pipe with JW Weld
and put on piece of sheet styrene like a capital T to pad the top and it
works well for display. Fun build, but it would be nice if either an after-market
gondola and engine nacelle set were available or the manufacturer
could update the kit with proper dimensions and better hull detail. Still,
a more esoteric part of aviation history that was fun to build. This airship
was the most successful in history, traveling around the world and on regularly
scheduled ocean flights long before airplanes could compete.
