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Royal Class Fw.190A Dual Build 1:48


Mike

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I reviewed this lovely kit link here, as well as some aftermarket from Eduard's Brassin line, and just couldn't put it in the stash to linger there.  There's something kinda nice about Fw.190s, although the Ta.152H is my all-time favourite of the derivatives if I'm honest.  I broke out the instructions t'other day and picked options D and M from the two, as I had two cockpit sets, and one engine set.  The Tropicalised version already needed its nose cutting to fit the filters, but I suspect that might come back to bite me a little when assembling the cowling comes around.  Nevermind, I'll deal with that later ;)

 

The cockpits are ostensibly the same, with only a small detail in the side console of one of the tubs to tell them apart, so I've been labelling things with M and D for the very obvious reason.  I prepared all the resin and assembled things into sub-assemblies for painting, with only the infinitely fiddly gunsights causing much gnashing of teeth due to the tiny size of the parts, and the fact that there's a slight weak-point between the base and the business end.  Yes, I snapped one by way of finding out.  Please feel free to learn from my mistake :doh:

 

Next up was the engine, and that is a beautiful piece of resin & PE engineering, with clever methods used to put it together neatly without too much hassle.  The wiring loom is fiddly of course, but the stiffeners were a piece of cake!  They fit snugly into little c-shaped receivers that once you see them, are a doddle to hit with the parts dipped in CA at both ends.  The fit is astonishingly accurate :worthy: The parts can be made into assemblies for ease of main painting, so they along with all the cockpit parts have been prepared, attached to sticks & such, then painted with black primer so that any missed spots in the engine in particular can be passed off as shadows :wicked:

 

I said there were a lot of assemblies, didn't I?  I wasn't kidding! :frantic:

 

assemblies1.jpg

 

Not much detail to be seen yet in a sea of black, but I'll start getting some colour on shortly, and hopefully you'll be able to see a bit more.  You might notice I've been writing on the wood to remind me what base colour is intended for each area, but the detail painting is going to take the lion's share of the work before I can begin stuffing things inside fuselages :)

 

Wish me luck! :unsure:

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55 minutes ago, Mike said:

although the Ta.152H is my all-time favourite of the derivatives if I'm honest.

I'll second that.

 

Good luck. I've got the popcorn and have set up

a hammock between two sprues  trees.

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Good to know I'm not the only one :)

 

Don't expect super-quick progress, but I'm hoping to keep plugging away at this so that it doesn't end up on the shelf :innocent:

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After much painting, I've finally got something to show for it! :shocked: The engine and gun bay are works of art, and fit together very snugly, so don't go slapping the paint on a bit thick, or it'll baulk your fit in extreme cases.  The cockpits were easy to do, and I tried to add a little variety to them in terms of colour and lay of the seatbelts, as well as wear marks on the floor where the pilot's feet go.  I wanted to add a little sandy residue to the M, as it's going to be a Trop, which still needs doing before I glue it into the fuselage.  I'm also in the process of completing the landing gear legs and wheels, plus the prop, all of which are either resin or bronze.  Those bronze legs are excellent BTW :)

 

assemblies2.jpg

 

I haven't gone mad with the weathering, as these machines didn't really last long on balance, but I've added some oil spattering to the firewall, and some scuffs on the ammo boxes.  How much will be see however is anyone's guess! :shrug:

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A bit more progress to report.  I've got the cockpits glued into the fuselages, and the D is taking shape a little quicker than the M for the obvious reasons! :lol: The fuselage of the D is closed up, some of the cowling panels glued in place, and the wings clipped in place.  The fit is excellent, with things just going together without any fettling.  Eduard really have raised their game both in the styrene and resin department.  When I think back to the "olden days" of 10 years ago when you would have to grind the bejeezus out of resin parts to shoehorn them into a kit, it's astonishing how far we've come in a decade. :worthy:

 

I've painted the gear bays and washed them, with just a matt coat required now and maybe a little more grime in places.  Haven't decided. :hmmm:

 

assemblies3.jpg

 

engine1.jpg

 

gearbays1.jpg

 

I'll possibly get a bit more done tonight, but who knows? :)

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Thanks guys, Biggu :)  It even fits now! :shocked: I had to adze a bit off the top of the main gear bay to get it to fit well, and pare back the cut that I'd already made to the underside front of the wing.  I've cleaned that up and repainted the RLM02, even though most of it won't be seen, and I now have the engine fitting how I want it.  I'll have to touch up some of the piston heads and other bits due to some of the paint rubbing off during handling, but it's nothing too major, and I'm not far off gluing it in.  Then I'll be able to put in the tropical intakes that I cut off the resin parts that came in the Royal Class boxing, as the underside panels hinge down to expose the engine greeblies.  I've got the landing gear painted and varnished, have glued the wings on both airframes, and the cowling on the A-3 (option D).  I'm also using the flying surfaces that I reviewed here in the build, and those have been attached to the A-3 too.  In fact, all of the sets that were reviewed there will be used in the build, even the A-2 gear legs, with substituted kit inner gear bay covers to make them suitable for an A-3/4.  They're not quite as good as the resin ones, but they'll do :yes:

 

I'll post a few more pics of things once I'm done, so check back later ;)

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50 minutes ago, Tim T said:

Good to see you back in the saddle.  

 

Thanks Tim ^_^ Got the landing gear squared away late on in the session, so here's a pic:

 

assemblies4.jpg

 

Now I've just got to figure out how to keep all the assemblies safe until they're needed.  Not my strongest point :hmmm:

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Both airframes are now coming together, and I need to put the coamings on, then the windscreens before I can start thinking about masking up for painting.  There's a bigger difference between the resin flying surfaces and the kit parts than I'd thought, but I only had the one set, so I put the resin ones on the complete airframe, and the kit parts on the desert one.  I'm not looking forward to masking the engine (fear of small parts lifting away) or fitting the nose ring, as it's a tight fit at the moment.

 

airframes1.jpg

 

I've also built a piece of hard-standing in preparation for the dio for the airframe on the right, using some 55mm lengths of 5mm wide coffee stirrers, stripped of their wax coating in a bath of acetoone and suitably abused by knives and sanders, placed in 4x4 squares.  I've started weathering the wood a little, and will find a frame to put it in sometime soon, so I can think about positioning etc.

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Cheers Jeff :) I suspect that fitting the nose ring and getting it to mate up with those tropical filters is going to be a pain, but it'll be worth it.  I've been messing about with the coamings today, coaxing them to fit, as I was having trouble.  Possibly my fault, but the instructions are a bit vague in that area, so it's easy to screw up.  TBH, the kit coaming and gunsight aren't too much different, so if you're using the Cockpit set and don't fancy fiddling with TINY PE parts that hold the glazing in, I'd just bottle it and use the kit coaming and gunsight, which will fit into the resin/PE instrument panel ;)

 

The glazing has been Kleared and is under a pot protecting it from dust while it dries, then I'll add the windscreens and start thinking about priming. :frantic: Nothing worth photographing at the moment, and not much I can do on them, so I've decided to press the spare fuselage halves into service as paint demo mules while I get around to stripping my old 1:72 He.111 wing that I use normally, :) so in a way, I've kind of got some paint on the airframe already :wicked:

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The nose ring on the engined version was a bit of a tricky fit, partially due to me using non-standard intake panels (resin ones with filters), but also due to some issues with build-up of glue between parts, but I suspect there's a little amount of fettling that will need doing anyway.  Miles better than back in the day, but something to be aware of.  make sure you fit the bulkhead, engine bearers and the engine mounting points nice & snug, scraping out any residue if you need to re-glue them.  I've masked up the basic airframes for priming, for which I've used black, sprayed fairly lightly in order to highlight any imperfections before I apply the top coats.  The detail is still stunningly crisp under primer, so it should show through to completion if I don't hash it up.  No pressure then... :unsure:

 

airframes2.jpg

 

After buffing out the primer and fixing any issues, I'll be breaking out the RLM65 for a low dermarcation on the A-3 and a higher one on the A-4/Trop.  I've also got to carefully align the panels that cross the line so they'll look right if anyone's giving them a Paddington stare. <_<

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Reet! :)  A modicum of progress to report, so here I am.  I got the masking done, painted the yellow and white stripes plus the yellow recognition panels under the nose(s), then masked those chaps up and sprayed the undersides in their initial coat.  As it was over black, I used that to do the initial colour modulation, and will spray a lighter shade over each one next session.  They couldn't both be the same colour though, could they?  Oh no... far too convenient. RLM76 and RLM78 :rolleyes:

 

airframes3.jpg

 

More news as and when it happens.  Stay tuned for another Muppet Newsflash :)

 

Kermit.png

 

 

 

 

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