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A pair of butcher birds - Eduard Fw109D-9 and H2k Ta152H-1


jackroadkill

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After a long period of inactivity, it makes sense to join the year's first GB with a nice, simple, unambitious build to get me back into the swing of things.  My Gannet build has stalled due to canopies that cracked down their seam lines and the Bf110 is creeping steadily forward, so again, a gentle easing back into the game makes sense.

 

With my own sage advice ringing in my ears and the encouragement of several respectable BM'ers I decided to abandon common sense and get stuck in with one of these two beauties:

 

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Both have the full engine exposed option, which is guaranteed to be a nightmare, and both have some startlingly fiddly, teeny-tiny parts and complicated assembly instructions.  I consulted my shamen, @81-er, who advised me that the only option was to seek the true path of WWEMD?, so I decided that the only sensible course of action was to build both.  I know, I'm my own worst enemy....

 

The plan is to build them more-or-less together, so that I can share airbrushing sessions between them without having to chop and change paints too much, as the lack of regular airbrushing availability is a serious thorn in my side at the moment.  The final schemes will be quite different, so the builds will probably diverge significantly at the point where I'm ready to get the main colours on.  The Dora will be painted in the scheme of the lower aircraft on the box art, as it was when discovered at Flensburg at the end of the war.  I'm not sure about the Ta152 - I might choose either scheme (or do both, one on each side....!)

 

So, I cracked on really well, and managed to close up both fuselages!  Okay, so I didn't; I got this far with each:

 

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This is the Hobby2000 reboxing of the ancient Dragon/Trimasters/Revell etc etc kit, and whilst it is definitely aged it's pretty detailed and goes together well, at least so far.  The seat will be fixed in when the fuselage is closed up because there's no obvious way of getting it smack-on in position until then.  I'm going to build this kit OOB other than the exhausts, I think, unless I discover anything that changes my mind dramatically.

 

 

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Eduard's Dora looks like it might build better but doesn't have the detail, at least as far as the cockpit is concerned, that the H2k kit has.  I decided to build this kit without the PE, which I'll save for another Eduard Dora Weekend edition that I have.  I'd just made that decision when I pinged a rudder pedal off across the room, lost it instantly forever and raided the spares box, where I (unexpectedly) found an old PE fret that had some pedals on it, so I pressed them into service and cracked on.

 

The next job is to splash around some RLM66 on the interiors of the cockpits and fuselages (oh, I'd better do the canopies too, whilst I'm at it), and then I need to think about the engines and what I'm going to do with them.  Maybe I should do one with the cowling panels open and leave the other one all buttoned up.  Who knows - I'll decide that when I get to it.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

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22 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

Both have the full engine exposed option, which is guaranteed to be a nightmare,

The Eduard D-9 doesn't have a full engine, just the rear end and some other related gubbins to fill the void in-front of the fire-wall, this is because all the D and later versions of FW's & Ta's did not have a closing panel over the main wheels like the earlier short nose versions.  I'm building the same kit, I've made a start and should have something worth taking photos of tomorrow.

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2 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

The Eduard D-9 doesn't have a full engine, just the rear end and some other related gubbins to fill the void in-front of the fire-wall, this is because all the D and later versions of FW's & Ta's did not have a closing panel over the main wheels like the earlier short nose versions.  I'm building the same kit, I've made a start and should have something worth taking photos of tomorrow.

 

Ha, funny you should say, that, sir - I've just built the section you refer to and was about to correct myself!

 

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Excuse the TET fingerprint; I'll clean it up before this section goes inside the fuselage.  As I'm not having the gun panel open you'll see very little of this at all through the U/C wells, so I'm just going to paint it simply so as to avoid the gaping void found on other kits (looking at you, HobbyBoss).

 

I've also chucked a load of RLM66 around the cockpits, canopy frames etc.  The next job is to assemble the rear of the engine in the Hobby2000 kit in an attempt to keep the builds at roughly the same stage.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

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Hi JRK, I'm assembling my engine section as I paint it, though the real thing is mostly un-painted metal components, I'm not having my gun panel open either but I thought it would be easier doing it this way.  I've sprayed the cockpit parts with RLM66 and I have a set of Quinta 3D cockpit decals to apply, I forgot I had them so I'll compare them to the pre-painted p/e that came with the kit.  The only thing I've noticed that's not included in the kit is the small deflector over the right hand exhaust stack, it prevented the exhaust gases being sucked into the supercharger intake.  I'll show it on a photo when I've made mine.

 

Cheers

 

Bob

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Nice progress, Owen, and I'm happy to see you building both. It's all part of a masterplan to feel less embarrassed by my own voluminous shelf of shame; encouraging others to start too many projects at once until their unfinished projects thoroughly overshadow mine… :whistle:

 

More seriously though, that’s a great start and I’m really happy to see you getting some bench time. Looking forward to watching these progress :popcorn:

 

James

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Time for a small update; the week hasn't been great in terms of bench time, but I've at least got a little bit of work done on the builds.  I was going to post a picture of the completed (but unpainted) engines but the picture I uploaded to Flickr looks so shonky I think I'll wait until I've painted them up - not that I'll be going crazy in that respect - before I have another try.  The engines have both been needlessly tricky, and, in the case of the H2k kit, not very well-fitting.  I'm still debating opening a cowling on the H2k, but we'll see.

 

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So, as you can see, I've done the cockpit interiors.  Painted details, drybrushed the IPs, sloshed some brown wash about.... You know the drill. 

 

The next jobs are to paint the engines and get them fitted, cutting cowlings open notwithstanding.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

 

 

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I managed to do a bit more today before the boiler tried to kill us all (long story, the TL;DR of which is that I fixed it and nobody died), and here are the results:

 

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I was all ready to go with my RLM02 but following some nosying at @Retired Bob's thread decided that aluminium was the way forward.  I brush-painted the above areas, as I'm not good at spraying metallic enamels.  When it comes to the wheel wells and undersides (and the Dora's gun panel) I have some lacquers that I'm going to try but  seeing as you won't see much of this little lot I went with the hairy stick approach.  I'll slap a bit of a wash around to stave off the worst of the shine before fitting the engines.

 

Talking of engines:

 

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Crummy iPhone pictures notwithstanding, you can see that I've got the base colour down on the engines.  I'll add some detailing but not too much as I've decided to close the cowlings up, but of course there's the gaping hole under the pilot's bum to consider, so a little effort should be give, I suppose.  I'll try to get this done tomorrow, as I'm keen to move on with the builds.  I'm having fun now, so I want to bat on with things before I lose the momentum I'm building.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

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Good going JRK, I just brushed aluminium paint on as well, it's not as though much of it will be seen.  As to the Ta 152, when Trimaster initially released the kit in1989, there was an option to have the engine panels openable as they supplied hinge strips.  I'm with you, keep the momentum going so you don't get bored with the build.

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14 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

As to the Ta 152, when Trimaster initially released the kit in1989, there was an option to have the engine panels openable as they supplied hinge strips. 

 

I've got one in my stash, and that hinge terrifies me!

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53 minutes ago, 81-er said:

Nice progress, Owen :) I've got some catching up to do...

 

James

 

Thanks James; I did make a bit more progress last night but none of it was very camera-freindly.  Hopefully I can get another crack at it tonight - my new lacquers are keen to be involved in the process.

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It's been a busy week so far and so I've not had as much time to crack on as I'd like, but I've managed to fit some bench time in, at least.  Also both kits have begun fighting back, so some creativity will feature in the not too distant future.  I expected this of the H2k kit but not the Eduard, frankly.  Ill-fitting major components are the main issue, as these pictures will attest:

 

 

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Can anyone explain why there's a huge gap here?!  Looking at you, Eduard......  I sense a spreader bar in my near future, and possibly some filler.  Yay.  The gun covers might help in this respect too, but I get the feeling there's a good bit of plastic-mangling to be done before everything behaves itself as I'd like.

 

 

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This is the same kit's leading edge, complete with huge step.  The U/C bay's internals and the main spar needed tweaking to get the trailing edge joint to line up, which left the leading edge like this.  I wasn't expecting this from the kit, so maybe I got something wrong somewhere.  In any event, filler will be my friend here, I suspect, and at least this way there'll be no distortion of the wing.

 

 

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Did someone say distortion of the wing?  The H2k kit has huge long wings, and the starboard one took so much clamping that it was pulled well out of true.  I did manage to get it all settled down by clamping the underside flat on my bench, in the end, but it was a ballache to achieve.  The above picture shows that process in action....

 

 

 

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...And this one shows how hard it was to get the last bit to cement together with all those tensions in play.  Fortunately the end result has justified the means, which is good, because short of annealing it with a blowtorch I was running out of ideas, and everything is straight and well behaved.

 

 

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So, this is where we're at, with the fuselages just resting in place.  Not too bad, considering the fighting that's going on, and I'm hopeful that I can pull a result out of the bag with each kit.  Although, in the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that I've just realised that I forgot to fit the tailwheel on the Eduard kit...  Grrr!!!!  Ah well, some jiggery-pokery will no doubt come into play and sort that one out for me.

 

I probably won't get much done over the weekend as I'm walking up Aran Fawddwy tomorrow and then I've got band practise on Sunday (crikey, better get some songs rehearsed for that).  I might have a crack on Sunday night, if I can keep my eyes open long enough.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

 

 

 

 

 

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On 03/02/2023 at 08:39, jackroadkill said:

Can anyone explain why there's a huge gap here?!  Looking at you, Eduard......  I sense a spreader bar in my near future, and possibly some filler.  Yay.  The gun covers might help in this respect too, but I get the feeling there's a good bit of plastic-mangling to be done before everything behaves itself as I'd like.

Not sure why you have a problem like this, as I said in my thread, I started gluing the fuselage together from the tail forward, the cockpit and engine assembly helped line up the rest of the fuselage, running Tamiya extra thin into the joints it all went better than I expected.  I have since attached the upper wings, that did have some problems.  I attached the Quickboost gun covers to the upper wings with ca glue.  When they were dry I placed the upper wings into position, the wings fitted ok but the gun covers did not line up with the fuselage. :shrug:

 I got round this problem by fitting a spare pair of wings from one of the newer kits, since they have the gun covers moulded with the wings they fitted a lot better.  Hope your gun covers fit better.

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5 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

Me neither - it's a bit of a poser, really.  I'll make it work, somehow.

The trouble if you use a spreader bar it may push out the fit of the cockpit but it's worth a try.  Plus I owe you a thanks, reading your thread when you joined your fuselage, it reminded me to fit the tailwheel. :like:

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7 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

Ha, one man's cock-up is another man's timely reminder, as the old saying goes!

We can blame the new FW kits, with them you can slip it in at the end of the build.... phnarrr!

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I've finally plucked up the courage to spray the aluminium lacquer in the wheel wells etc.  I don't know why I was prevaricating so much because it was an absolute morceau de gateau and everything went startlingly well (okay, everything other than the thumbprint).  I didn't do any priming but when it comes to the undersides and the 190's fuselage gun cover panel I will prime accordingly.

 

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I'm so chuffed with the result I might build an NMF Jug for the P-47 STGB later this year instead of the dark green one I was planning.  Anyway, the next job is to somehow get the wings and fuselages joined up; wish me luck!

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

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9 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

Nice job on the u/c bays JRK, I put a wash of burnt umber in mine to tone them down and give them a weathered look.

I'll be doing something similar before the builds are wrapped up.  I'm not sure what colour etc yet but I'll come up with something.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Progress has been slower than I'd like, thanks in part to the Eduard kit needing so much wrangling just to get it to go together.  To give you some idea of the effort required, here are two pictures:

 

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This was what was needed to get the lower cowling and the underwing surface to align.

 

 

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And this is an attempt to close up the gulf gap chasm canyon seam between the fuselage and the wing root.

 

Happily the H2k kit has been simpler (so far) and looks like this:

 

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Botha re going to need a lot of seam-tidying etc, but things are happening.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

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15 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

And this is an attempt to close up the gulf gap chasm canyon seam between the fuselage and the wing root.

This seems to be a problem with these kits.  Next problem you will have, will be fitting the gun covers. :unsure:

The problem I found with another of my D-9 builds is where the Quickboost resin covers would not line up with the fuselage, They had been glued to the upper wings but because the cavity for the gun bay in the wings is slightly too far forward they do not align with the cavity in the fuselage.  I'm trying to remedy this by fitting a piece of plastic card to fill the wing gun bay cavity and then  modify the gun covers so they can sit on top of the filled wing. 😬

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