'Brown 6' - Airfix 1/72 Fw190A-8 '(Starter Kit version) - 15/08/16 **Finished** and in the Gallery

[PlaStix]

I'm afraid this isn't going to be an exciting build to follow but I'm looking forward to it. To be honest this GB wasn't on my radar at all. I'm sorry to say I only realised it was happening when these threads appeared at the top of the GB section. The reason I'm here now is that, when I saw the title, I suddenly realised I had purchased the above Starter Kit a couple of years ago when Aldi were selling them cheap over the Christmas/New Year period. The kit was hidden away among the few bits of my limited stash but I managed to find it. I'm going to have to do a bit of research into the proper colours for the cockpit, wheel wells, etc. because, as this is the starter kit version, the instructions only give colour call-outs for the limited range of colours provided with the kit and I want to try and do it a little more accurately. It will be predominantly OOB. I won't be starting it straight away as I currently have two ongoing projects in the Vignette GB and one in the Great Patriotic War GB (plus I'm co-hosting the Vignette GB!)

Onto the photos - box:

This is the starter kit version but I cut off the top bit with the paints, brush and glue to make it easier to store and I won't be using them for this build anyway.

The contents of the box:










Sample of the instructions:


Decals:


Version to be made - WNr 175140 'Brown 6' 7, JG26, Melsbroek, Belgium, July 1944:


I have never made a German aircraft - I can't even remember making any when I was a child - so this will be a first for me. This is a new tool version and, to me, the detail looks quite nice - I have made newly tooled Airfix kits before (Spitfire and Hurricane) and they seem to go together okay.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Kind regards,

Stix

Edited August 15, 2016 by PlaStix

[Arniec]

Nice to see a Airfix build here. I have a few in the stash, so I will be watching this one.

Cheers,

[stevehnz]

I'll be keen to watch this one too, more than that, I better get A into G & get one on the go too, I'm sure I signed up for this one. I've got several Fw190s to choose from, including a couple of these.

Steve

[JimmyZ]

Sure I'll give you a follow. I'm (foolishly?) taking on the Academy 1/72.

Cheers

Jimmy

[dazdot]

Nice choice I understand the airfix kit is pretty good

[GREG DESTEC]

I have one of these in the stash.... Good luck with brush painting mottle!! Cheers Greg

[dazdot]

only thing I do remember with this kit is I think?

the tail wheel inspection hatch is repeated on both sides of the fin. it should only be on the port side so the other side may need filling.

if airfix sorted this please accept me as being wrong!!!!!!!

Edit: I've just looked again at your sprue shots and indeed it is there on both sides of the fin.

Edited July 7, 2016 by dazdot

[PattheCat]

only thing I do remember with this kit is I think?

the tail wheel inspection hatch is repeated on both sides of the fin. it should only be on the port side so the other side may need filling.

if airfix sorted this please accept me as being wrong!!!!!!!

Edit: I've just looked again at your sprue shots and indeed it is there on both sides of the fin.

Puttied mine on the same side, so if the need arises you won't be alone to say .

No real issues but quite a lot of sanding and dry fitting for this:

- the sides of the instrument panel to be able to close the fuselage

- the cover holding the MG's, either it will sit too high

- the part of the external cannons that has to be glued inside the wing

Also I couldn't get the right wing right, ended up with a step at the wing root and the leading edge. Don't know why (upper and lower wings being each a one piece affair??).

Last remark, (only for the ones as clumsy as I am; they shouldn't be numerous): these cannons keep getting in the way, so having broken two I took them all off and will replace these with some wire.

It's a simple but nice little kit. Have an enjoyable build PlaStix, I'll follow it with interest

Edited July 7, 2016 by PattheCat

[Troy Smith]

I'm afraid this isn't going to be an exciting build to follow but I'm looking forward to it. To be honest this GB wasn't on my radar at all. I'm sorry to say I only realised it was happening when these threads appeared at the top of the GB section. The reason I'm here now is that, when I saw the title, I suddenly realised I had purchased the above Starter Kit a couple of years ago when Aldi were selling them cheap over the Christmas/New Year period. The kit was hidden away among the few bits of my limited stash but I managed to find it. I'm going to have to do a bit of research into the proper colours for the cockpit, wheel wells, etc. because, as this is the starter kit version, the instructions only give colour call-outs for the limited range of colours provided with the kit and I want to try and do it a little more accurately. It will be predominantly OOB. I won't be starting it straight away as I currently have two ongoing projects in the Vignette GB and one in the Great Patriotic War GB (plus I'm co-hosting the Vignette GB!)

Onto the photos - box:

This is the starter kit version but I cut off the top bit with the paints, brush and glue to make it easier to store and I won't be using them for this build anyway.

Version to be made - WNr 175140 'Brown 6' 7, JG26, Melsbroek, Belgium, July 1944:

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Kind regards,

Stix

RLM = Reich Luft Ministarium (German air ministry)

Luftwaffe buffs use the number shorthand, which is probably confusing to,well, people who weren't teenage Luftwaffe buffs. (what me...)

the standard mid war scheme is RLM 74/75/76....

the Airfix supplied colours look fairly close, 27 is Ocean grey, should be RLM 74 Grau-Grun, Ocean grey is a blue tint grey, I don't know about 27, adding a little bright green or yellow perhaps will shift it greenish, it's a green hued grey,

H 145 is medium matt grey, for RLM 75, Grau Violett, it's grey with a slight lilac hue.

64 is light grey, for RLM 76, which varies, but is a very pale grey blue.

prop blades are RLM 70 Schwarzgrun, cockpit is most likely RLM 66 Schwarz Grau, any really dark grey will do, as apparently there were 11 different formulas for RLM 66

Wheel wells and gear legs are RLM 02 Grau. There are Humbrol equivalents, and they also of a range of specific RLM colours,

http://www.humbrol.com/us-en/news/new-humbrol-rlm-colours/

this famous shot shows all the above colours!

wing in 74/75, fuselage in 76, with mottle of 74/75, plus

RLM 02 (yellow tinged grey) and 70 can be seen as part of the mottle, to the right of lead hanging down from the cockpit.

note the prop blades are 70, and engine beaers are 02.

the kit choice was a new one for me, but bunging the werk nummer into google reveals why it was picked.

of particular use as it shows the upper surface pattern, the RLM 75 looks quite pale, also note wavy leading edge and lack of fuselage mottling.

Edit - Airfix show the underside of the tailplane to be H27 /RLM 74, but this looks to be an odd shadow, note the drooping elevator could cast just enough shadow to make it appear darker as above even in the difuse light

... later on in the war all sorts of odd stuff happens,and for every luftwaffe painting rule, there are exceptions, but FWIW, I'd say it's a shadow.

this should help?

cheers

T

PS edited to tidy spelling etc.

this is a great shot which shows what the mid war grey offensive scheme was meant to do ..

Me 410 post war in the USA for testing BTW.

[stevehnz]

Nice post Troy, if I was a bit cleverer I'd like to do a dio of this, the third picture down of it cocked up is a IWM photo ( I think) & also featured in Clostermann's "The Big Show"

Steve.

[stevej60]

Good to see an entry Stix and a cracking little kit to,funny my eldest texted today he's found a load of kits in Sunderland's Home Bargains and got me

one of these but I have an Eduard 1/48 kit which if I do a build would be the one to go with.

[dazdot]

Yeah jump in Steve I don't want to be the only one trying to wrestle an Eduard kit lol

[FalkeEins]

..assemble fuselage halves and insert cockpit/instrument panel into assembled fuselage from below. And as Troy's post shows there isn't even much mottle to worry about

No real issues but quite a lot of sanding and dry fitting for this:

- the sides of the instrument panel to be able to close the fuselage

[PlaStix]

Nice to see a Airfix build here. I have a few in the stash, so I will be watching this one.

Cheers,

Thank you Arnold. I'm pleased I'd managed to remember I'd bought it! As I mentioned it does look nicely detailed.

I'll be keen to watch this one too, more than that, I better get A into G & get one on the go too, I'm sure I signed up for this one. I've got several Fw190s to choose from, including a couple of these.

Steve

Hi Steve. It'd be good to see more of these being built - I'm always interested to see other people's builds of the same kit. Dreamcatcher and I built the same version of a Revell Spitfire kit a while back at the same time - a sort of buddy build - and that was great fun!

Sure I'll give you a follow. I'm (foolishly?) taking on the Academy 1/72.

Cheers

Jimmy

Hi Jimmy. I'll check out your Academy build.

Nice choice I understand the airfix kit is pretty good

only thing I do remember with this kit is I think?

the tail wheel inspection hatch is repeated on both sides of the fin. it should only be on the port side so the other side may need filling.

if airfix sorted this please accept me as being wrong!!!!!!!

Edit: I've just looked again at your sprue shots and indeed it is there on both sides of the fin.

Hi Dazdot. Thank you for your advice - I'll sort out the one the starboard side.

I have one of these in the stash.... Good luck with brush painting mottle!! Cheers Greg

Hi Greg and thank you for stopping by. I think I'm lucky in that, according to Troy's research, there wasn't any mottle!

HI TROY. Well what can I say? A huge thank you as always! Thank you very much for tha advice about the paint - that is very helpful. And thank you for all the photographs - they are brilliant. When I saw the crashed version I did think, for a moment or two, about making my kit like that but for my first German aircraft build I think I'm going to do it as Airfix intended. I'm going to do it wheels down.

Good to see an entry Stix and a cracking little kit to,funny my eldest texted today he's found a load of kits in Sunderland's Home Bargains and got me

one of these but I have an Eduard 1/48 kit which if I do a build would be the one to go with.

Hi Steve - hopefully we'll see your Eduard build soon.

Puttied mine on the same side, so if the need arises you won't be alone to say .

No real issues but quite a lot of sanding and dry fitting for this:

- the sides of the instrument panel to be able to close the fuselage

- the cover holding the MG's, either it will sit too high

- the part of the external cannons that has to be glued inside the wing

Also I couldn't get the right wing right, ended up with a step at the wing root and the leading edge. Don't know why (upper and lower wings being each a one piece affair??).

Last remark, (only for the ones as clumsy as I am; they shouldn't be numerous): these cannons keep getting in the way, so having broken two I took them all off and will replace these with some wire.

It's a simple but nice little kit. Have an enjoyable build PlaStix, I'll follow it with interest

Hi PattheCat. Thank you very much for all your advice - I've made a note of all of them so I can watch out for them when I get to the relevant stages.

..assemble fuselage halves and insert cockpit/instrument panel into assembled fuselage from below. And as Troy's post shows there isn't even much mottle to worry about

Thank you FalkeEins - I've made a note of your suggestion too.

I did think I'd get some time to start this project today but finishing off my IS-2 build build for the Great Patriotic War GB took longer than I expected. I have got it washed - I've made a list of things to watch out for courtesy of the fine people above and I've now got Troy's information too. Hopefully next weekend...............

Thank you all again.

Kind regards,

Stix

Edited July 10, 2016 by PlaStix

[dazdot]

Stix always a pleasure to see what you do looking forward to it whenever you start

[JOCKNEY]

Hi Stix

You didn't build any German aircraft as a nipper !

What were the spitfires and hurricanes chasing on your bedroom ceiling ?

Good luck with the build mate.

Cheers Pat

[jrlx]

Hi Stix!

Great to see your entry in this GB! I hope you enjoy doing your first " bad guy" and you may even become a Luftwaffe buff

I'm sure you'll produce another of your stunning models!

I also intend to enter this GB with Tamiya's FW 190A-3 but it will have to wait for my finishing the on-going Ju 88 and Harrier GR.3.

Cheers

Jaime

[dazdot]

It's a nice kit Jamie look forward to seeing it

[PlaStix]

Stix always a pleasure to see what you do looking forward to it whenever you start

You are too kind!

Hi Stix

You didn't build any German aircraft as a nipper !

What were the spitfires and hurricanes chasing on your bedroom ceiling ?

Good luck with the build mate.

Cheers Pat

Hi Pat. No I don't think I did - can't remember any - I do remember Spitfires, Hurricanes, a Sopwith camel, Lancaster, an American bomber and fighter of some kind, tanks and cars but no German aircraft.

And thank you.

Hi Stix!

Great to see your entry in this GB! I hope you enjoy doing your first " bad guy" and you may even become a Luftwaffe buff

I'm sure you'll produce another of your stunning models!

I also intend to enter this GB with Tamiya's FW 190A-3 but it will have to wait for my finishing the on-going Ju 88 and Harrier GR.3.

Cheers

Jaime

Hi Jaime and thank you. When I bought the Fw190 cheap I also picked up the Airfix Messerschmitt Bf109E Starter Set so I will make another at some point. And I will hopefully get to follow your Tamiya build here if you get chance.

I have done a lot of work on this kit over the weekend and I'll do a post of the photos as soon as I get chance.

Kind regards,

Stix

[PlaStix]

Over the past two days I have done quite a bit on this aircraft but, considering the amount of time I have dedicated to it, I didn't get as far along with it as I thought I would. This is primarily because this kit isn't great. On first inspection of this newly tooled kit there is some really lovely detail. On closer inspection some of it, like in the cockpit, is a little soft. There is also some flash and seam lines that need removing before assembly. Some of the sprue gates are quite large and attach to surfaces which will be very visible when the aircraft is assembled so these require careful cleaning up before assembly too. And then there is the fit of some of the parts. In some places there are no positive location points and some pieces - like the front two cowls just do not fit together at all well. Then there's the wonderfully warped fuselage sides - best to see the photo below for that.

Having said all that there is quite a nice model under all the issues. My concern is that this kit is sold as a starter set - I think if this was my first kit I doubt I would bother with a second one. I actually quite enjoyed trying to solve the problems and luckily they were fixable with a lot of trimming and filing in places and more filler than I've used before on a small kit. I do wonder if any one at Airfix has ever actually made this kit.

Onto the photos - first off I cut away the parts I was going to work on but left some sprue pieces in place so I had something to hold while painting:

Normally, at this stage of a build, I leave the pieces attached to the sprues but they seemed way too close together, and the sprues gates too large for me able to work on the parts.

Next was an application of Revell's Tank Grey to various areas:

These areas were then dry-brushed with Revell's Gunship Grey followed by Revell's Light Grey to pick out the details and get the overall appearance closer to RLM 66 Schwarz Grau as suggested by Troy for the cockpit and RLM 02 Grau for the wheel wells:

A quick test fit:

After adding the decals for the IP and adding some Tamiya tape seat-belts I assembled the parts for the cockpit tub:

I know it's unusual for me but I decided not to worry too much about the detail in the cockpit because hardly any of it can be seen in this aircraft. Then I glued the tub to the starboard fuselage side:

Then it was time to glue the fuselage sides together and this is where it got interesting - in this view the cockpit tub is not keeping the halves apart at the front - rather there is a little bit of a warp somewhere!!:

I meant to take a photo to show this before the tub was glued in place but I forgot.

So first I glued the back half together and then glued the front half and with some careful use of masking tape I got to:

While this was setting I moved on to thinking about getting the wings glued together. The machine guns need fitting in place before the top and bottom can be joined. The machine guns seem quite prominent on this aircraft and Airfix provide the guns like this:

Some careful work with a micro-drill and they looked like this:

After a coat of Revell's Anthracite and some dry-brushing with Humbrol's Gunmetal this was the result:

The outer guns were quite tricky to install in the wings. They are too thick for the space Airfix require them to go in, inside the wings, but after some careful filing I managed to get them in and the wings glued together. And then I got bogged down with trying to fit the two part top cowl. These two pieces did not want to fit at all to start with, but with some careful trimming and filing I managed to get them in but they still needed quite a bit of filler to make them look okay. It was good I tried to fit them before gluing the wings in place because they needed forcing into place with tape as can be seen in these two photos:

Once set, I glued the wings under the fuselage. I also had to do some filling at the wing roots and in a couple of other places too. The fuselage to wing joint on this kit is not the best.

These photos show it after I had completed most of the filling and cleaning up:

I reckon it's not looking too bad but if I hadn't had to do all the extra things to get this kit to fit together I would have probably been onto painting - but there's no real rush.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Kind regards,

Stix

Edited July 18, 2016 by PlaStix

[dazdot]

Nice wrestling stix it looks pretty good to me maybe the wheel well is a bit dark but it's looking the business

[PlaStix]

Yeah I may have left the wheel well a bit darker than I intended. I started with all these areas in the same colour and was working on the principle of lightening some areas more than others with dry-brushing of mid greys and a light grey. In comparison to the cockpit, say, it is lighter but not when it's all sealed up and seen on it's own. In my defense the lighting in the kitchen wasn't great and everything looks darker in the photos than when actually looking at the aircraft. Live and learn!

Edited July 18, 2016 by PlaStix

[almac]

Good job there Stix. I built this and had the same issues but in the end it turned out to not to bad looking. I tend to have issues with most of my builds so it was no big deal really. Anyway looking forward to seeing this one progress.


Cheers Allan

[PlaStix]

Good job there Stix. I built this and had the same issues but in the end it turned out to not to bad looking. I tend to have issues with most of my builds so it was no big deal really. Anyway looking forward to seeing this one progress.

Cheers Allan

Hi Allen and thank you. By the sound of it most of the people who have made this kit have found problems with it. Glad yours turned out well.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Hook]

Nice wrestling stix it looks pretty good to me maybe the wheel well is a bit dark but it's looking the business

I think this is because the wel well is painted the same as the cockpit (RLM66 Schwarzgrau / Black Grey), while on the real thing it's the rather lighter RLM02 Grüngrau / Green Grey).

Cheers,

Andre