1/48 Eduard Fw 190A-5, Hptm. Egon Mayer, France 1943

[Mottlemaster]

Look like the hard part ha been done and the relaxation of painting can begin , or as Winston said " The end of the beginning "

[PlaStix]

Wonderfully detailed progress Kent! Very nice.

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks Gents,

Plodding along nicely. I dipped the windscreen and canopy in Future and let them dry for a good while. I was pleased with the dip and started masking. The canopy masks went on without issue. I was applying one of the side of the windshield and inadvertently applied too much inward pressure. Result? Nice long fracture straight down the middle! A quick face palm, binned that one and dug out the spare, dipped and set aside to dry. Whilst that was on the go, I had wired the MLG and retract struts so I broke out BMF and cut some slivers for the bindings and attached them prior to getting out the Warbirds RLM02 and did all the MLG components, door inners:

Once the windscreen had dried and been masked, a test fit showed my scratchbuilt shroud padding was a tad bulbous on the sides, interfering with the fit. Some sanding and some more leather paint has almost got it but I may need to tidy it up a bit more with some putty on the starboard edge:

Regards,

[PlaStix]

Hi Kent. Shame about the first windscreen but good you had a spare. Progress is looking good!

[Kahunaminor]

Yeah thanks Stix,

A dash of colour to the retraction gear wiring:

The canopy internals are done. PE brace and bolts from the D9 PE set and 0.2mm lead wire for the braces. All coated with Aeromaster RLM 66, including masked canopy interior (yes, I am one of those), PE warning sign attached and leather pad:

Checked the seams with some leftover....hmmm a bit of work to do, particularly that port wing root:

Regards,

[Calum]

You're fairly rocking along on this one mate. Good stuff

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks again for your comments,

Not a big update, just trying to get the forward wing root areas smoothed out. Some tape to protect the rivet detail then an application of PPP, smoothed with the Little Pinky Mk. I:

I shall let that set up and hopefully a swipe or three with sanding sticks will see it all smooth.

Regards,

[PlaStix]

Wonderfully patient modelling progress Kent. Very nicely done.

[Kahunaminor]

Moving inexorably forward,

Well more than three swipes but I think it's close:

I have been busy on other areas too. The the brass armaments have been blackened with Uschi and all the painted parts such as undercarriage, doors, armaments and head armour have had a coat of gloss lacquer in preparation for a wash:

The missing panel underneath has been scribed. As luck would have it, the panel is an elongated circle and I did not have the correct size. The panel piece from the Eduard A8 doors and panels was removed and shaped to fit the underside. It was then taped across the width and carefully scribed around the outside. Once that was done, it was taped lengthwise and the two side tapes lifted so I could carefully scribe the remaining edges. Not the easiest way but the result is passable:

I then couldn't resist a dry fit of the prop and spinner, followed by a quick circuit with appropriate engine growling sounds:

Regards,

[Biggles87]

Lost track of this for a while, but I can see that it's coming on really well. I was impressed with the brake lines in 1/32 elsewhere, but in 1/48 scale? Wow!

John

[Kahunaminor]

Welcome back,

The thing I like about our hobby is that it is a leveller. That is, you can be moving forward on a build, where seemingly nothing has gone wrong, you get some nice comments about your work, your head starts to swell slightly and then the modelling gods throw you a curve ball and you get smacked back to reality. Such happened to me today, not as drastic as I may have made out, but just enough to cause me to say "Pay attention to what you are doing." The incidents and there are two, that have caused this rant is simple in its execution. First, I was flipping through my Squadron walk around reference, revelling in the glory of my rescribe D lower panel when I came across this photo:

The panel I had scribed and then showed to all with such hubris was the one that is on the A8, not the A5! Out with the PPP and fill the mistake, await it to dry and then rescribe the correct panel, using some scribing templates and some swearing. The second occurred just after I had remedied the last, I was drilling out the port side MGFF opening, where I had installed the styrene rod to reduce the gaping hole I had created. The drill was travelling fine and I wasn't really paying attention, pushed just a bit more and the styrene rod gave way from the wing leading edge and I now had the same hole, in fact maybe slightly bigger! Ah well, back to earth and some more styrene rod has been inserted and I will wait and try again:

So a couple of hours I could have used better. I did have a win though, just to even it out. I gave the pilot's head armour plate and canopy internals a wash with AK Neutral Grey. Whilst this was drying, I drilled a small hole through the canopy from the inside and threaded EZ Line through the hole. Then through the canopy upper guide and the hole in the rear mounting plate. Secure with CA and then secure the internals into the canopy. Let that dry a bit and then carefully stretch the EZ line and a small drop of CA to secure it to the hole in the canopy:

The free end will be attached to the tail in due course. I then masked the canopy to keep dust out and protect the fragile innards:

So, in theory, the canopy is now complete except for final external painting.

Regards,

[PlaStix]

Glad you've managed to make some more progress despite the issues.

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks Stix,

Even if the issues are of my own creation! Here's that underside panel:

I finished up the prep work on the fuselage Including replacing the two strengthening plates on the rear of the wing joins which I had removed by sanding. I cut two pieces of BMF to length and set them in place, using the end of a toothpick to make the circular impressions:

The repaired MGFF opening in the port wing:

I then shot a coat of Tamiya Fine Grey Primer overall and a couple of smaller parts such as the wheels and rudder (which will be all yellow). The work on the wing root joins came up well and I am happy with what I have so far. I have touched up some areas that needed it, including the windscreen join on the starboard side:

Many thanks,

[Kahunaminor]

Welcome back,

Not a great deal of bench time. I did manage go over the minor gaps in the wing LE with some CA and light sandpaper. I also tidied up the gaps around the wing root gun covers and I masked the MLG openings with damp tissue and managed to paint and mask the RLM 04 yellow underside engine panel. After a couple of days, I shot the RLM 76 on the undersides and fuselage sides. The strips on the side are the PE gun cover hinges which I forgot to add prior to painting. All the masking came off and I was left with this:

I also painted the rudder in RLM 04, did the MLG covers on their undersides as well as the prop and spinner in RLM 70. The wheels were done with RLM 66:

Regards,

[PlaStix]

Any progress is still progress and it's all looking excellent!

[Canso65]

You've made some great progress!

Those gun covers are a bear on this kit. I've been hung up on them for a couple of weeks now.

Looking great Kent!

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks guys,

Stick with the gun covers, they can be beaten into submission!

The first task was to add the windscreen washer conduits to the windscreen from 0.02 lead wire and BMF straps:

Okay so I have masked the demarcation lines on the fuselage with blu-tac rolls, Tamiya tape and damp tissue. The areas around the lower fuselage/wing have had Tamiya 3mm tape for curves added. I had to tread carefully as the wing root cover hinges are only attached with Future. I sprayed the Aeromaster Warbirds RLM 75 thinly about the demarcations then more broadly to fill in the areas. The tail had its mottle done in RLM 75. The wings were freehand at this stage:

Once that was dry I masked the areas to remain RLM 75 and did the remaining areas in Aeromaster Warbirds RLM 74. On the wings I used blu-tac rolls and damp tissue. When I had finished the masking was removed and the rear stabilisers fitted and aligned. I have a couple of areas of overspray on the starboard wing root area and I will probably go back to soften the fuselage demarcations a little. I have also added some card and rod to the wing root gun underside ejection ports to make it a little more busy:

Regards,

[PlaStix]

Your paintwork is looking excellent!

[Kahunaminor]

So I have softened the demarcation on the fuselage and it looks much better. I am going to paint the exhaust markings and the black/white fuselage stripe. I made a copy of the decals then cut out the exhaust markings to use as a template, stuck them down and masked around them accordingly. The bottom is Tamiya 2mm curved tape.

The forward edge of the fuselage stripe was positioned with 3mm curved tape. When I was happy with the placement, I butted sections of 2mm curved tape against the rear of the tape already in place. I then added another piece of 3mm curved tape, keeping the front aligned to the 2mm tape pieces in the middle. Then I remove the 2mm pieces for painting:

Regards,

[Calum]

Nice one Kent

[Kahunaminor]

Welcome back,

The exhaust markings and fuselage stripe have been completed. Not without a couple of touch ups but I am now happy with what I have:

Now the basic colours are on, the whole lot has been given a lacquer gloss coat in preparation for decals and weathering:

The underside isn't too bad. The wing root gun ejections have had some gizmology added and painted gun metal:

MLG components awaiting final assembly and flat coat:

That's all for now, thanks for looking.

Regards,

[PlaStix]

Looking very impressive Kent and not far from the finish line now!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks lads,

I am happy with the effort so far and haven't really found any real problems (well none that I will tell bout because they came about through laziness!). The decals went on and being Cartograf, performed beutifully. I did all the stencils first then the individual markings. The only real drama I had was one of the wing upper crosses needed to be re positioned and through ham fisted handling, I botched it up. Considered masking and spraying but it was late at night, so I just reached into the trusty stash for one of the other Eduard 190 kits and replaced the decal:

It was then time to get some guns. The Master barrel set has been blackened in Uschi blackening agent and went in without too much issue, one of the wing root forward barrels required dome manhandling and consequent touch up but we now have guns:

Next up is more weathering and the final run to the wire.

Regards,

[Caerbannog]

Great progress - I should have had a closer look on your canopy. I had some trouble with the correct masking of the areas which need to be painted. Now I know that there must be a short stripe on top at the very front which seems to be a flex area on the real thing.

I will copy the way you installed the antennae - very clever.

René

[Arniec]

That is a good looking model. I love the paint job.

Cheers,