As we left things last time, virtually all the basic building was done and we had a model ready to cover and detail. On Darrin's original Dr.l model he went a little over the top with scale fittings and included quite a bit of metalwork that all conspired to push the weight up. Whilst nobody could deny the realism of the model here, he was a little more restrained with what went on and what didn't. The result is that this present model is over a pound lighter than his first attempt. As we all know, if you don't want a Fokker Triplane that has to fly at the scale speed of an F-16, keep it as light as you can. I think that Darrin has demonstrated most admirably that with careful selection of what detail you include, and how you go about producing it, saving weight doesn't have to mean sacrificing scale realism. I've seen full size replicas that look less like the real thing than Darrin's model does. The one place you won't need to save weight is at the front of the model. I've very seldom seen models of WW1 types that end up nose heavy, so extra weight here is no bad thing at all. By contrast, the metal mounted, sprung tailskid of Darrin's original model wasn't such a good idea and required quite a bit of dead weight adding to the front to counter it.
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