The 1/8th scale Albatros DV is built from scratch. It started it's life engineered to be an electric powered RC model by my ex-partner and friend Simon Smith. He gave up on it and it sat unfinished for years in his shop collecting dust. When he gave it to me it was in as bad shape as Stropp was at the Air and Space Museum prior to its restoration. I built the spandaus from scratch and all the rest of the parts. The fuselage was covered in balsa and had so many CA stains on it would have been impossible to stain a natural wood finish. To solve the problem, I sprayed the surface with a flat tan lacquer. Then I taped off the factory ply panels one at a time and used watercolor burnt umber with a 1" brush to create the wood grain. This was oversprayed with clear lacquer to protect the brush work. I then repeated the same procedure for each panel.