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

Great stuff John. You've got almost as many 'goodies' for this build as I have kits in my stash !

Just been looking at the surface and rivet detail on '190's, and I can understand why the kit has been made devoid of rivets. On the real aircraft, the rivets are the 'flat head' flush type, and are not normally very visible unless very close up, and with the light at the right angle, something I noticed when looking at the RAFM Cosford 190A, and also, in certain lighting conditions, on Spitfires.
In the pic of Dortenmann's aircraft, the light has caught the rivet lines 'just right', allowing the (same colour) slightly different river surface to show against the paint background, and they are also accentuated slightly by the paintwork colours and slight sheen, as well as light dirt accumulation which arises from damp air. On a weathered 'bare metal' finish, this type of rivet would be more noticeable, as a slightly 'greyer' spot on the greyish alloy, again due to dirt and oxidization.
To replicate this will require very subtle application when using a riveting tool.

Wow, what a load of goodies you've got for your "Dora." Most interesting.

As it happens, I started the same kit just last week. I'm not nearly as ambitious as you, however! The only AM parts I'm using are Quickboost exhausts and Eagle decals. That spinner and prop set looks superb, though, so I may have to add it, too.

This is my 1st Has. "Dora," and its engine accessories section is new to me. There was nothing like it on their '190A kit. I will be interested to see how you treat that assembly.

Thanks for posting your build. I will be following it closely.

Thanks Terry... I'm not going to try and recreate the flush rivets. I think using small holes to replicate rivets yields a very good result. The RB Productions Rivet-R Mini creates a very fine and subtle rivet finish in my opinion. Much more fine than, say the new Revell Spitfire IXc kit that you recently reviewed. I'll be interested to see how you replace the rivets on that kit with a more accurate flush type style.

Since I've already riveted a 1/32 190D-9 model and posted the results here at WW2aircraft.net, you should already have a good idea of what the riveting will look like.

AdamR said:

Wow, what a load of goodies you've got for your "Dora." Most interesting.

As it happens, I started the same kit just last week. I'm not nearly as ambitious as you, however! The only AM parts I'm using are Quickboost exhausts and Eagle decals. That spinner and prop set looks superb, though, so I may have to add it, too.

This is my 1st Has. "Dora," and its engine accessories section is new to me. There was nothing like it on their '190A kit. I will be interested to see how you treat that assembly.

Thanks for posting your build. I will be following it closely.

Click to expand...

Hey AdamR! Welcome to the community! Which particular Dora are you going to build? The Hasegawa Dora kit is very nice and I'm sure you'll have a great time building it. The back of the engine components that are viewable from the open wheel wells is unique to the Dora and I'm glad Hasegawa chose to include it. This will be my second attempt at this kit. Please feel free to check out my first build (Yellow 11), which I've included pictures of in my response to Terry.

[URL="https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/done-1-32-fw-190d-9-allied-advance-and-defense-of-the-reich-wwii.44673/"]**** DONE: 1/32 Fw 190D-9 - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.[/URL]
[URL="https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/finished-1-32-fw-190d-9-allied-advance-and-defense-of-the-reich-wwii.45153/"]**** FINISHED: 1/32 Fw 190D-9 - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.[/URL]

JKim said:

Hey AdamR! Welcome to the community! Which particular Dora are you going to build? The Hasegawa Dora kit is very nice and I'm sure you'll have a great time building it. The back of the engine components that are viewable from the open wheel wells is unique to the Dora and I'm glad Hasegawa chose to include it. This will be my second attempt at this kit. Please feel free to check out my first build (Yellow 11), which I've included pictures of in my response to Terry.

**** DONE: 1/32 Fw 190D-9 - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.
**** FINISHED: 1/32 Fw 190D-9 - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.

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Thanks for the welcome and the links.

I'm building "Black <1" of JG4, flown by Obslt. Gerhard Michalski, EagleCals EC#110.

Yahu has a nice instrument panel for 190D-9 coming out next month. I have attached a copy of the one they do for now for a 109 in 1:32. IMHO these are the best control panels available.

Great! I liked very much of your previous build! I look forward for this too. Good luck with your build!

I got a few more hours on the workbench this weekend. As I take a deeper look at the Eagle Editions cockpit, I'm getting familiar with how it is supposed to go together. The instructions that came with the set don't help in this regard since it lacks an overall view of how the parts fit together. The written instructions are detailed though. Jumping off the cockpit for a spell, I thought I'd spend some time playing with the gun cowling.

There are a few issues with the gun cowling that I want to address. First of all, I want to make it accurate based on the Dora references that I have acquired. Dortenmann's Black 1 had an early production 5-piece cowling and the Hasegawa kit has the correct panel lines on the cowling. However, the early production cowling did not have a bump on the bottom edge cowling. This is a feature of the later production 3-piece cowlings from the Mimetall factory. First step will be remove the bump.



Another change I'm going to make is to reduce the curvature between the bulges. Compared to the Eagle Editions resin gun cowling, you can see the exaggerated "cleavage" of the Hasegawa part.


I am going to use Milliput White, a 2-part epoxy that has a nice attribute of being water-soluble prior to curing.


Once an appropriate amount Milliput is prepared, I apply it roughly using a toothpick.


With a dampened finger or wet piece of paper towel, I can smooth out the Milliput. This will greatly reduce the amount of sanding required afterwards.


I do this for the three areas I want to fill and then set the piece aside to dry. Correcting this area will take a few iterations of sanding and puttying and then I'll replace the panel lines and the hole on top of cowling.

Good work so far John!

Good stuff John.

Thank you guys!

I REALLY need to get on some personal chores outside of modeling but I feel this Dora build starting to suck me in. I spent a good chunk of time on the workbench, which felt good as I have been off of it for the last two months. I've been separating the cockpit resin parts from their casting blocks and playing around with the fit of the parts. There is a lot of detail present but much of it will go unseen due to the way the cockpit sides slope inward to the top. Also lots of detail BEHIND the seat, which will be invisible on my build but could be utilized by those who wish to open up some access covers.



I was able to dry fit the major components of the resin cockpit using tape and bits of Blu Tack. The whole assembly is meant to be inserted into the fuselage from the bottom. The minor details have been left off at this point: the control stick, rudder pedals, etc. but this is giving me a good idea of how to proceed. I've mounted the clear windscreen on the instrument panel coaming to check the fit. At some point, I'm going to have to commit to this resin cockpit and start surgery on the kit fuselage parts. I'm not quite there yet but seeing the cockpit together like this has given me some positive mojo.




I've flipped the instrument panel coaming to show the detail UNDERNEATH. Amazing.


The first round of puttying and sanding of the gun cowling is complete and I don't see any issues. The early 5-piece gun cowling has a pair of bumps on the rear so I've added those using bits of sprue.


I've also added a small "ring" of sheet styrene that I made using my punch set. I will put some Mr Surfacer 1000 around the bumps and the ring to help smooth them into the cowling. After that I'll rescribe some panel lines and then give the whole thing a shot of primer to check for imperfections.


While the putty on the gun cowling is drying, I can jump to something else. Let's go to the wheel wells so that I can show you what changes I'm going to make here. Here is the wheel well with the wing cannon parts in place. As far as I know, the wrinkly fabric boots at the base of the cannons have not been verified by any sources that I've looked at.


I want to replace these fabric boots with the metal tubes that have been documented to have been used in earlier marks of the Fw190. The Quickboost resin guns have the boot I want to use but alas, they also have a nasty warp in them.


The Quickboost guns were designed for the Hasegawa 190A kit so I have to make a slight modification to make them fit into the Dora wheel well.




Resin barrels look better than plastic but brass tubing beats them both so that's what I'm going to use.


I am going to use smaller diameter tubing to serve as mounting sleeves for the brass cannon barrels. This will help align the barrels and also let me add the barrels later in construction.


I can slide the gun barrels in place to check out how they will look. Afterwards, I'll remove the guns and keep them in a small plastic baggy to await painting. At this stage in construction, I have not glued anything into place yet, besides those two bumps onto the gun cowling.



There are some prominent ejector pin circles that need to be fixed so I have put drops of Mr Surfacer 1000 into each of them.

Nice work so far John, and some great accessories lining up for use.

I liked the subtle riveting on your previous Dora, very effective without being 'overdone'.
As for the two Revell Spitfire kits, I'm not sure yet which way I'll go regarding the rivets. They are somewhat 'heavy', but I'll need to decide, when I eventually get to the builds, whether to fill them and re-rivet, and the Mr. Surfacer would save me having to make and apply a 'porridge' mix of talc and clear varnish, or whether to do a couple of heavy primer coats, and let that, and the paint and clear coats, subdue the rivets.
I seem to have been spending a lot of time adding to, altering or modifying or correcting kits over the last few years, and at this rate, I'll have been pushing up the daisies for a few years, long before my 'stash' gets anywhere near depleted, so I'm trying to keep some builds relatively close to 'OOB', part from some extra detailing - filling and then re-riveting involves a lot of time and work, so I'll have to decide if I just want a good, completed model, or if I want an accurate 'when viewed close up' replica.
As the Mk.II kit will be built (maybe as a Mk.1) and painted in the darker colours of Dark Green and Dark Earth, I might use this one to 'test' the primer and paint route, and take things from there.

Looking forward to seeing the Dora progress - with all those 'goodies' and the extra scratch-building, it should turn out to be a real beaut.

This is a great looking kit, and of course all the goodies make me drool a bit! Very much looking forward to this build!

Nice looking stuff.

AdamR said:

Thanks for the welcome and the links.

I'm building "Black <1" of JG4, flown by Obslt. Gerhard Michalski, EagleCals EC#110.

Click to expand...

Oooh... that's a super cool Dora... the mottling on the cowling is so interesting! Can I persuade you to share your build here on this forum?

Looks good so far John!