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1/72 Academy Fw 190A-8


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Great progress Jimmy and I'm once again impressed by your attention to detail.

Kind regards,

Stix

Thank you Stix!

Well the A-8's gun cover has dried and makes it look like an A-8. Still needs some cleaning up though.

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I couldn't resist a dry fit to see what it would look like. I'm still some way away from reaching for the model glue here though as I have to clean up, and make sure what other "modifications" I deem necessary.

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Same as on the rudder, the aileron trim tabs are huge. I cut it down to size.

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I also need to drill all the necessary holes before the final clean up begins, and felt like giving the pitot tube some attention.

The once that I cut off early in the build looks way too thick compared to photos, so I will be using this instead.

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I don't have any smaller needles that would fit inside this one, but a piece of electrical wire could do.

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I will drill a hole in the wing to insert the new pitot tube into

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I opted to use the position of the old pitot, but first I had to cut off what was left of the original

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Here's a comparison of the old and new pitot tubes, huge difference.

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And a test fit. Still a bit long, but will look the part. I will glue this much later in the build.

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Feels like I'm putting in a lot of time and not progressing much. As long as I take it one "mod" at a time and don't start rushing.

Till later.

Cheers

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No that is good work on the pitot tube and well worth the effort. I'm going to leave the one on my Airfix kit until I accidentally snap it off at some point - it's still there as of this morning session.

Kind regards,

Stix

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Got a little bit done today.

I like to make sure all holes that need to be drilled are drilled before painting, so I drilled a little hole in the top of the rear fuselage/tail fo the vertical part of the aerial wire to go in.

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I started looking at the nose and comparing to various photographs and diagrams, and there's some raised detail around where the cowling cheek blister are to go that shouldn't be there.

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I sanded it off.

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Also the actual blisters have weird raised detail which I cannot see on photos, so it had to go.

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I glues back the aileron control rods that I carefully cut off at the start. Needs some cleaning but should look okay

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While I was gluing stuff back that I cut off, the tail fin aerial was next

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Not much, but progress nonetheless.

Cheers

Jimmy

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Feels like progress has been slow, but I did get some stuff done.

I drilled a little hole in the top of the tailfin aerial for the aerial wire. Barely visible in my photo

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I also drilled a hole for the gun camera.

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Dry fitting the fuselage to the wings you can see fit isn't great.

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And it's glued.

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Nasty seams filled with PPP.

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This shows the underside after filling and smoothing where necessary

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Then I moved on to the spinner. Unfortunately the decal didn't give me any joy. After using Microset and buckets of Microsol it wouldn't budge down.

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So the decal had to go, no choice there really so I masked the swirl myself.

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First phase finished, next the centre.

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And done. Just needs to be smoothed with wet sanding paper and sprayed with matt coat. The pattern of the swirl is probably incorrect, though seems to me like they didn't all look exactly the same, and as there are no photographs of the subject I will argue that this is exactly what it looked like ;)

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Hopefully I can soon start painting. Though I find something else that must be done every time I pick the kit up.

Cheers

Jimmy

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Lovely progress Jimmy and you are doing wonders with it considering what you are having to do. Good work on the spinner too - I'm wondering if I'll have to go down that route - Airfix decals have not been my friend in the past! :fight:

Kind regards,

Stix

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It's now looking like a fw190 Jimmy good work

Lovely progress Jimmy and you are doing wonders with it considering what you are having to do. Good work on the spinner too - I'm wondering if I'll have to go down that route - Airfix decals have not been my friend in the past! :fight:

Kind regards,

Stix

Ye gods man!

All that and in 1/72 as well? You sir are a legend.

Regards,

Thanks guys!

Been a few days since I posted. I managed only a few short sessions in the last 3 days.

At last ready for painting (without the tail wings)

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After the first coat on the underside

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After a couple of quotes and the wheel wells painted.

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And the lighter of the grays on the top (RLM 75?)

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As usual the first cote shows some areas that need some work on the wings. But I carried on with the fuselage and the darker gray

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Here is my attempt at a "soft" demarcation line using a brush

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That's it for now.

Cheers

Jimmy

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Thank you!

So I wasn't happy with my "soft" demarcations, and decided to try something else. In the end I guess I used the same technique (dry brushing the edges), but with a stiffer brush. Probably tough to see the difference on photographs but it looks better

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Then it was ready for mottling

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I used a technique I found on the net. First I apply some acrylic thinner to the plane, then with a fine brush apply paint, which will then "bleed" and look soft. Here is is quite dark and prominent

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Then I painted very thinned layers of the base color to tone it down. I fear I made it too subtle, but it does look less subtle on the eye than on the photo. Pretty pleased with it even though it won't look as good as when done with an airbrush.

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I can live with it, and with that my longstanding fear of mottling is over! :yahoo:

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Jimmy

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Top job Jimmy. I've been watching your build and I must say your skills and patience in correcting errors in this kit are admirable. I would have given up at the start and picked up easy kit.Anyway keep up the good work it looks like you'll be finished soon.

Cheers Allan

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Top job Jimmy. I've been watching your build and I must say your skills and patience in correcting errors in this kit are admirable. I would have given up at the start and picked up easy kit.Anyway keep up the good work it looks like you'll be finished soon.

Cheers Allan

Thanks Allan, you are way too kind.

I must say I have at several points (so far) considered binning this kit. Though since I know that this wont ever be a very accurate Fw190, even after many corrections, I am trying different techniques and experimenting much more than I would have otherwise. As a result of this I actually came across new techniques and ideas I will try with future builds.

Nice work Jimmy that is a great technique I like I tell done

Thanks so much!

Next up I will actually attempt to paint the Luftwaffe markings instead of using the dreadful decals!

Stay tuned.

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Only a tiny update tonight.

Painted the blue fuselage band.

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I've also started painting the tail plane, and I need to glue the belly bomb rack. However I cannot figure out if it should be painted same as the underside, or a dark metal color.

In this picture it is a dark metallic color, along with the front of the "finlett" but in others it's same color as the underside.

Does anyone have any more info?

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There are also lots of pictures that show them black. don't look at the planes that are standing in museums, but look more to black and white pictures.

The rack you are refering to is the etc 501 rack. Maybee was the rack standard in black because it was behind the underside exhausts?! If they weren't black they would be soon becomming black.

Cheers,

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Thanks for the info, appreciated!

Tonight I painted the Luftwaffe markings on the fuselage. Not sure if I mentioned but the decals are horrible. And that's not only the quality, but the Luftwaffe markings decals are skew! Anyway, for a change, no explanation needed, I'll let the photos do the talking.

Must say I am pretty pleased with the results (note some light touch ups required), even though it took the whole evening to do this! Really hard and precise work masking this....

Cheers

Jimmy

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That has turned out really good Jimmy. Once again I'm impressed by your patience and precise work.

Cheers Allan

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A bigger update today to show the weekend's progress. I think I'll relax in front of the television for the rest of the day.

This photo shows the overall status at the start of the weekend, though I did paint all the trim tabs

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Then I took on the tedious task of painting yet another set of Luftwaffe markings. This time on the wings. A significant amount of measuring goes into this.

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Port one finished

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Starboard done as well. They may be a tad on the thick side, but not going to fix it now. The port one isn't identical to the starboard which looks better.

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I touched up the port on a bit, looks better now. Still annoys be a bit, but oh well.

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Then it was time to glue the horisontal fins. Nice little gap there

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Putty and sanding at this stage will destroy my paintwork completely (okay exaggerated a bit there) so I just used Tamiya surface primer to make it look a bit better. Just needs some light sanding.

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Then I remembered the black behind the exhausts on each side. I used a dark metalic colour that's close to black, but not quite. Might look black on the photos.

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I thought it was time to glue the little finlet and "rack" underneath. Very skew here, but I have fixed it since.

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Okay, I have now officially had enough of painting Luftwaffe markings. It's tedious and takes a lot of time. Since only the bottom was left, I decided to try the decals...

First I glossed the necessary areas

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Then applied the decals. Here you can see just how thick they are. Might as well have been stickers.

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Looks somewhat better after matte coat was applied to the bottom.

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The decals saved me at least an hour. Glad I used them at the bottom, and glad I painted the top markings.

Then I weathered the gear bay

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I couldn't really carry on after that since I had to clear up some uncertainties.

I have two options of canopies and the pieces behind the cockpit. This is the instructions

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The instructions states for an A-8 I use the bulged canopy and for the A-6 the normal one. Is this correct? Did all A-8's have bulged canopies?

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/11/stuff_eng_fw190_01.htm

On this reference at the "summary of features" for the A-8 it says it's got a "blown" canopy. Though the picture doesn't reflect it. However at the summary of the A-9 and the changes from A-8 to A-9 it shows the canopy changed, and the picture diagram shows it. It's confusing.

My guess is it would be the normal canopy. Anyone have any more info?

As for the part behind the cockpit (part A13 vs part C6), I'm guessing it's A13 for the A-8?

Cheers

Jimmy

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I have seen a few side drawings and they suggest the normal hood. Now is a drawing not always a good reference, but that is the only thing I found.

I have also seen some drawings from other 190's in this scheme and they all have the normal hood.

Cheers,

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The change from standard was between normal and blown was at a8 so to answer your question unless you have pics of your aircraft it could be either

I have seen a few side drawings and they suggest the normal hood. Now is a drawing not always a good reference, but that is the only thing I found.

I have also seen some drawings from other 190's in this scheme and they all have the normal hood.

Cheers,

Thank you dazdot and Arniec.

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