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Focke Wulf FW 190A-3, Dogs on a Plane.


Retired Bob

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This aircraft was flown by Ofw. Josef Heinzeller, as an experienced, older pilot he was allowed to display the artwork of his dog 'Schnauzl' on both sides of the engine cowling of his aircraft.  He had a smaller artwork of his German Schnauzer on his previous aircraft, a Bf 109F-4.  He also had the inscription "Old Shap" in English beneath the cockpit of his Focke Wulf 190, Yellow 13.  It was obviously his lucky number because he flew from the start of the war, served on both the Western and Eastern fronts and managed to survive with a final score of 35 kills, after the war he emigrated to the USA.

The kit I'm using is the Eduard A-3 kit, It's not certain if this aircraft was an A-2 or an A-3 as they are externally identical, the difference is the engine, the A-2 had a BMW 801C-2 engine, the A-3 had a BMW 801D-2 engine.  Here is the kit box art and the kit contents still bagged up.

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Here is the artwork for the paint scheme and decals.

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Ready to start on this straight away, as it's the same construction as my A-2 build it should be much quicker.

Any comments or questions are, as always, most welcome.

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8 hours ago, franky boy said:

Nice choice Bob. These Eduard 190’s build up so quickly I’m sure you’ll have it together in no time. 

 

Thanks James, they certainly go together well.  I spent this morning assembling the u/c bay structure and getting some RLM 02 paint on it, then a dark wash to give some depth to the bay and a dry brush with lightened 02 to make the raised details pop.  Now this is dry I can attach the upper wing surfaces.  The engine front had a coat of black paint and then dry brushed with some silver paint, once behind the cooling fan and propeller not much will be seen of it.  The kit gives both early and late types of wheels and a choice of smooth or treaded tyres but I seem to have amassed quite a few sets of Eduard resin wheels so I may as well use them.

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While the wings were drying I got on with the fuselage, I attached the engine front and the p/e parts for the cockpit sides and the tub.  This was then sprayed with some RLM 66 dark grey and dry brushed with some dark Gull grey to pick out the details.  I attached the supplied p/e side panels and applied a dark wash to tone them down.  The seat belts were their usual fun to attach with some verbal assistance. :wtf:  That cockpit is on the left, I still have a spare cockpit with the painted raised kit parts for the 'Weekend' edition on the right side, still needing some seat belts, I appear to have put them in a safe place, I'm sure they'll turn up soon. :shrug:

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I can glue all this up now and get the wings and tail planes on.

Thanks for looking, any comments or questions are always welcome.

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There's some nice work in those cockpits, Bob. While everything on the PE is probably more correct in terms of what's shown, it's far flatter. Particularly the righthand side looks far better with the plastic detailed to my eyes, rather than the PE. Not that either is a bad result

 

James

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I assembled the wings and glued the fuselage together, I've left the gun covers off for now so that I can attach the Master gun barrels after painting.  I used the cockpit with the p/e side panels, it matches the instrument panels and was ready to go.  As usual it just clicked together and I ran some Tamiya thin glue around the joints.

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Time to get the rest of the airframe together then get some primer on.

Thanks for looking.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One of the problems of building a production line of kits is that even though I spend a lot of time modelling, progress on each aircraft appears slow.  Anyhow, after lots of cleaning up of seams, priming, more tidying and re-scribing, re-riveting and re-priming all my builds are getting to the painting stage.

This FW has the underside RLM 76 sprayed on, I have added the RLM 75, freehanded roughly in the camouflage pattern, I can now make some paper masks to add the RLM 74 to make a tight overspray.  With the undercowl and rudder painted in Tamiya yellow, progress is slow but it's getting there.

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Thanks for looking, any comments or questions are welcome.

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5 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

Looking good Bob, nice idea with the paper masks - can you re-use them for some of the others on the production line or do you make a new one for each?

As quite a few of these models on the production line have the same camouflage pattern I have cut out a set, covered them with plastic tape so I can wipe them clean with IPA and then re-use them.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Best plans and all that.  I finally managed to paint the upper camouflage on this aircraft, I used Mr Color paint thinned with self levelling thinner, as usual it sprayed without a problem.  The wobbly effect on the front of the wings is the masking tape still in place, photos show these early Focke-Wulfs had the underside colour quite high along the wing leading edges, the upper camo starting on a ragged line above the canon barrels.  There is not much mottling on this aircraft, just some on the engine cowlings around the dog and his name.

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Glad you got some decent painting weather at last Bob, must have been a bit frustrating sitting on your hands waiting with a backlog of spraying needing done :) 

 

They're looking good mate, coming along nicely B) 

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

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  • 3 weeks later...

Between awful weather and other distractions it's been a while since I last posted.  I completed the camouflage and applied a gloss varnish, as I used Mr Color varnish and SLT so I left it for a week to harden, didn't want it covered with fingerprints.  The decals went on really well, I used some Tamiya decalfix to help them snuggle down into panel lines and rivets, just got to add the stencils next.

 

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