1/32 Hasegawa Fw 190D-9 "Black One"

[JKim]

Thanks for the comments! Time for some paint repair!

I started by sanding down the edges of the lifted paint on the tail with some coarse Micromesh. I then shot this area lightly with Tamiya Lacquer thinner. I was hoping it would somehow soak through the multiple layers of paint and magically fuse everything to the model's plastic surface.

The magic thinner trick didn't work and the edges of the "hole" got bigger. I had to stop at some point or else I'd be taking the paint off the whole tail.

I shot the area with some neutral gray to kill the hard-edged color contrast and then the yellow. It's hard to see in the photos but there is a VERY slight edge to the repair areas but I'm hoping to eliminate those by a combination of light Micromesh work and the clear coats that are yet to come. I'm pleased with how the repair came out and can breathe a sigh of relief.

Jumping over the white ID band on the other side, I masked the stripe using de-tackified Tamiya tape (dabbed the adhesive side on my finger tips a few times).

Again, the repair area was sprayed with neutral gray and then white. And again, there is a very slight edge to the repair area.

Time to pause and game plan for the next step. Here is how Black 1 looks to this point.

Immediate next step will be to chip the leading edge of the tail fin. And then the masked markings.

 

[Wurger]

Well fixed John.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, good save.

 

[JKim]

I was initially happy with the repairs made to the lifted paint on the tail and on the white fuselage band. Paint chipping via the hairspray method was hard so I stopped a little bit short of what I would've liked.

I moved on to the front of the aircraft where I masked and painted the black panels surrounding the exhausts. Many early Doras had this feature.

I kept looking at the ragged edges of the repaired areas and it irked me. Once I notice something I don't like, it is very hard to leave it alone.

Committed to trying to tone down the edges, I elected to use fine grit sandpaper instead of Micromesh for a little more cutting power.

The new, bigger repair area was primed with neutral gray. The edge was still there but reduced.

Here is the tail after another coat of yellow. I think I can live with this.

Similar steps were employed on the white ID stripe.

I gave the model another quick layer of Alclad Aqua Gloss in preparation for the masked markings.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Good job man.

 

[JKim]

Thanks guys! Spent a full day in the workshop so I got a lot done!

The national markings are next on the agenda. For most of the markings, I am using a Montext Mask set. Ironically, the set is intended for Bruce's Red 1 in 1/32 scale, as well as Red 13. What I was looking for was the size and style of the crosses. Black 1 had the older style of crosses... black with white borders on the wing bottoms and on the fuselage. At least this is what Crandall's Dora book asserts. Most references and builds, including EagleCal's decal sheets for Red 1, Black 1 and Yellow 1, indicate a black-only cross on the bottom of the wings. Red 13 happens to have the same size and style of crosses as Black 1: 800mm Black and White crosses on the fusleage, 910mm White crosses on top of the wing and 900mm Black and White crosses underwing.

Starting with the bottom crosses, I use a digital caliper to make sure I use the right crosses for the right locations.

Montex masks are made of transparent vinyl. They have a bit of thickness to them so they are not the best choice for curved surfaces. I use pieces of Post-It to frame each mask... it makes it much easier to handle and slide the mask into place.

For multi-color masks, you can choose the order of painting by the mask components that you use. Using the central "+" piece is much easier than placing four individual "L" pieces so I chose to paint the black first.

Actually a very dark gray, not black, to represent some fading. Once the dark gray dries, the central "+" piece is put into place. Due to a bit of stretching upon application, the "+" piece may need to be extended, as shown by the bits of yellow tape. I am not being aggressive in pushing down the mask due to my fears of paint lifting. As long as you keep the spray perpendicular to the surface and not let paint pool, this should not be an issue.

The white is sprayed on. Note the spray pattern. I've used a tight and random spray pattern to create some unevenness to the white.

After the white, the masks can be removed. A tiny dot of paint lifted from the starboard underwing cross... easy fix once the paint dries.

The same procedure for the top of the wings, except this is a single step process being a single color.

 

[JKim]

The transparency of the Montex masks really help in placement. The swastika masks would be impossible to center if the masks were opaque. There is some black overspray on both sides of the tail that need to be corrected.

Finally, the fuselage crosses are painted. Dark gray was used since the crosses are assumed to be older (and more worn/faded) than the fuselage band. Another bit of paint lifting in one of the crosses.

After some minor paint repairs, the whole model was given another coat of Aqua Gloss to seal the national markings and to prepare for decals.

 

[JKim]

Before I forget... if you are careful with the Montex masks, they can be re-used. I've put them each mask carefully back onto their backing sheet just in case I need to use them again.

Continuing on with the markings... I thought I'd be at the decal stage but looking closer at the Montex masks, I had the choice of a couple of "1" numeral masks that I could use. Red 1 was actually too small but the "1" in "13" seemed to be the right size. If given a choice, I'd rather paint markings rather than use decals.

It's a simple matter of blocking the "3" using a Post-It.

First the black. Compared to the fuselage cross, this is actually sprayed black to match the relative newness of the Black 1 marking.

The inner "1" is CAREFULLY placed within the outline mask, trying to keep an even border around the entire numeral. The white is sprayed on after that.

Here, I've removed the outer mask but the inner mask is still in place. A small piece of paint lifted but I think I can work that "chip" into the weathering.

And here is the finished numeral 1. It turned out ok but do you know what I notice? The little trace of black long the bottom edges of the fuselage cross. One of the dangers when spraying the dark color first... I'll fix that!

Here's the other side. The 1 is ok but same thing with the cross.

Seeing the end in sight, I decided to crank out some painting on the smaller bits. After a flat coat, these will be weathered a bit.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Torch]

 

[Robert Porter]

Excellent Job! The masks work well, but their canopy masks are truly horrendous. I like their insignia masks and so forth but I have 5 sets of canopy masks for different aircraft. NONE of them are even close to correct or the right size unlike the insignia masks which seem to be spot on.

Would make one suggestion, never de-tack tape with your finger. Use a hard surface like clean glass or even a clean spot on your cutting matt. Fingers will deposit oils as well as removing some of the sticky. Saw a really good video on detacking tape and what methods work best vs worst and why.

 

[Crimea_River]

Looking very sharp. The end is in sight.

 

[turbo]

Looking fantastic John! Painted markings look so much better, especially if you've got surface detail.

Bummer about the paint lifting. If it's all the way back to the plastic perhaps an issue with the primer?

Excellent Job! The masks work well, but their canopy masks are truly horrendous. I like their insignia masks and so forth but I have 5 sets of canopy masks for different aircraft. NONE of them are even close to correct or the right size unlike the insignia masks which seem to be spot on.

That's odd Robert, I've used Montex canopy masks a couple of times and they've been spot on and produced beautiful canopies. I presume you've got them for the correct kit manufacturer/product number?

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far John!

 

[JKim]

Thanks for checking in! Excellent comments as always from this group! Robert... great tips about de-tacking the tape. Kirby... lack of primer on the lifted spots... probably related! About Montex canopy masks... I don't like them as much as I do the Eduard masks. I haven't had any fit issues with them though.

My main issue is the mask material. They are vinyl and a little bit on the stiff side. They don't grip that well on curved surfaces and I've had corners lift on me before and during painting.

So here is a post dedicated to clean up of markings. With any type of masks, some error is bound to occur. The errors I found were very minor and caused by user operator as opposed to anything faulty with the masks themselves. However, once I noticed them in the digital pictures, I couldn't ignore and set out to correcting them this afternoon.

The main issue is the trace of black along the bottom edges of the fuselage crosses where they should be white. But upon closer inspection, I found a couple of other imperfections that I thought were worth fixing. The right arm of the cross has slight curvature downward caused by the inadvertent bending of the mask. The other is the top border of white on the number "1", it is a little thinner than the rest of the border. I am going to fix all of these.

First, I mask the entire white portion of the cross that I want to correct. Careful attention is put upon placing that bottom edge of masking to expose the black line I want to eradicate. In order to avoid any "bright" spots of paint, I do the entire white portion and not just a piece of it. Thankfully the area is small and easily masked. The tape is de-tacked by purposefully handling the adhesive side with my fingers.

I want the repair to match the other areas of the cross so I can't just spray white or it will come out too bright. So I spray some neutral gray as a pre-shade filter. This also serves to eradicate the hard contrast between the black and the white, which would be hard to cover otherwise with white.

The white is applied, making sure that I spray into that bottom edge. Highly-thinned paints sprayed at low pressure is the key to these small repairs. You can see from the test sprays on the tape how small the spray pattern is. I was using a 5:1thinner to paint ration here.

Here is the cross after repairs. As you can see, I've also straightened out the curve on the right cross arm.

The top of the "1" is next. This is a VERY small area so placement of the masking is 99% of the work. I use a pair of magnifying loupes for this type of work, even when spraying.

The port side is all finished and no lifted paint, thankfully! Please note, the latches of the large fuselage hatch have been painted red per the description in Crandall's Dora book about Black 1.

Similar type of repair is called for on the starboard side. There is also a slight paint leak on upper portion of the cross that can be corrected.

I use the same pieces of tape for this side.

Black being an absolute color, the masking of the repair to the black area is much simpler. I just have to define a corrected edge with the tape and I can simply spray the black onto the repair area.

Here are the results of the starboard side repair. The circular port in the cross was painted red instead of using a decal.

This type of repair is only possible with the use of an airbrush. And it is MUCH easier to do these types of repairs with a gravity-feed brush. So if anyone is in the market for an airbrush, please consider a double-action airbrush with a small gravity-fed cup like this Iwata HP CS Plus. I can't imagine the amount of cleaning I'd have to do between each color change if the brush was siphon fed.

 

[Crimea_River]

 

[rochie]

Wow, just wow

 

[turbo]

Excellent work John, your attention to detail is what separates the top modellers.

If I may be so bold as to suggest one further simple repair while you are at it, the masking of the black waistband has not quite overlapped on the starboard side - once I noticed it I couldn't stop looking at it! Should be a simple fix.

Also, out of interest are you scaling your black and white for the markings? For 1/32 I cut my white around 1:20 with buff or black and cut my black maybe 1:10 with white. I find if I don't do this they look too contrasty (I think I just invented a word there) and unrealistic.

You have also highlighted an issue with the vinyl insignia masks that I also found on my Corsair build and I think is worthy of note by those considering using them. As they are quite stretchy and have a tendency to contract out of shape while sitting on the backing sheet I found a lot of messing and measuring was required to make sure everything was aligned, straight, and square. This was a bit of a PIA with the US stars and bars! Maketar have released a range of Kabuki masks to try and overcome these shortcomings, although I imagine they might be difficult to position due to their opacity. They have an interesting article here for those interested:

Vinyl vs Kabuki

I don't wish to put anybody off as I reckon painted markings are the dog's proverbials but just something to be aware of and pay attention to. Sorry for the sideline John, back to you...

 

[Wayne Little]

Fantastic work John.