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

Careful with that back! Hope it gets better soon!

Many of us have to be very careful with our backs (not the same as the three musketeers that 30 years later) - is a saying used in people like me - at 56 years old ... hahaha
I really liked the cabin, congratulations for the work done so far.

Very attentive to what follows in your bird John.

Saludos

Looking terrific John

Hope your back improves, seems to be a spate of them going around at the moment.

Thanks for the comments! The back feels a little better but I didn't spend any great quantity of time on the work bench this Sunday. When I did a get a chance to spend some time on the Dora, I focused on the tail wheel to see if I could get to a point where I would be comfortable using the Eagle Editions resin tail wheel replacement. Eagle sells two versions of the 190 tailwheel. One with the treaded tire that was used on 190A's and early Doras and the other with the smooth tire that was used on later Doras. Since Black 1 is an early Dora, I went with the former.

This tail wheel is comprised of multiple parts. Which is nice because it gives the modeler some posing options. However, I am concerned with the strength of the tail wheel assembly once it goes together.



I am going to use brass tubing to increase rigidity and to provide a more solid connection between the components.



Similar to the fitment of the resin cockpit into the fuselage sides, the insides of the tail wheel need to be modified to accommodate the new pieces. The mounting tabs for the kit tail wheel need to be removed.


Here is a look at the tail wheel opening showing the tabs that need to be removed. The sides of the opening could be thinned as well.


A quick check of the kit tail wheel in position. It's good to compare the resin parts with the kit parts. Sometimes I like to make use of the good fit of the kit parts and may graft resin components onto the kit parts to take advantage of that.


Once the tabs have been removed and the open sides trimmed down, I take a look at how the resin parts fit. The tail wheel base fits nicely within the tail wheel halves so I'm going to use this set to fully replace the kit tail wheel.



I am going to revise the position of the tail wheel so that it sits up a little further into the opening.


Once that adjustment has been made, I add another brass pin to strengthen the connection. I will glue the strut and the brace to the base prior to any paint so that I can get maximum glue adhesion. There is some minor putty work on the strut so I'll put this aside for now.


The question was asked about the ejector chute openings. Right now they are represented as deep depressions in the bottom of the wing. I have decided to open these up and replace the solid plastic chutes with appropriately hollow ones made from brass sheeting.


First, I cut out the ejector chute openings in the bottom of the wing.


I've made a form for the brass chutes using a thick piece of sheet styrene. It is slightly smaller than the openings I've cut out. I am planning on folding the brass sheet over this form and hopefully, they'll fit right into the openings. The form can also be used to gauge how long the brass chutes need to be.


I need to get on the rear engine assembly. I don't have a clear game plan for the additional wiring and hoses I want to add so a bit of procrastination has set in. To avoid the real work, I spent a few minutes cobbling together the pilot figure that comes with the Hasegawa kit. I have no intention of using the figure for this build but I was curious to see what it looked like assembled.

Lovely work so far John!

The pilot's giving it the - agree with him!

Yes, I'll post him somewhere on my table top as a cheerleader!

Great idea on how to handle the chutes John. More accurate than the "wing it" approach I used.

Nice work John.

Thanks for the comments! The back is feeling much better thank you so I was able to spend a few more hours working on Black 1.

As stated in my previous post, I've glued the tail wheel strut and brace into the resin base pre-paint with CA glue to maximize strength.


A quick check to see how the glued-together tail wheel assembly fits into the tail.


I've painted the tail wheel... dark grey for the tire and RLM02 for the hub. The wheel hub has enough of a sharp edge that I painted it by hand rather than using a mask.


The early 190D treaded tires often had a white sidewall and I thought it would give a nice look to Black 1. It would also be a perfect opportunity to test my new circle cutter. Wow... this thing is slick. It is essentially a ball bearing-supported circular ring with a bearing-supported cutting blade. It cuts beautifully. The main issue is that there is no way to "preset" a specific circle size... you just have to scribe one, measure it and adjust using iterations. But I'm stoked to finally have a tool that can cut circular masks in the 1/8 inch to 1 inch range.


I used Post-Its as test paper to dial in the circles needed for the ring around the tail wheel. When I arrived at the right size, I stuck a piece of yellow kabuki tape on the Post-It to cut my masks. I used a light grey for the ring.


Here is tire with the white wall added. A small touch but it will add a bit of visual interest to the model.


I've previously mentioned my intention of applying rivets to the surface of this Dora. Logically, I should probably rivet the main fuselage first but since the separate tail is smaller, I thought it would be a good place to take the plunge and get the riveting started. I use detailed plans as a reference and draw the rivet lines onto the plastic using a straight edge and a soft-leaded pencil.


It's good practice to rivet things in pairs (left and right) to help preserve the symmetry of the rivet lines. I know some people use a straight edge to help guide the rivet tool but I just do it freehand, running the RB Productions Rivet-R Mini along the drawn lines. Be careful and slow down around curves because the tool likes to take off when running "downhill" off a curve.


After all of the rivet lines are traced onto the tail, I give the surface a light rub using fine grit sandpaper to remove the raised plastic around the rivet holes.



Sorry for jumping around so much on this build. Every time I sit down on my work bench, I ask myself, "What do I want to do today?" instead of "What is the next step on the instruction sheet?"

Looks great John.

You're doing a very dedicated job so far John, working on the tail tire structure and riveting.
Your work is very detailed and allows us to learn a lot from.

It is a very interesting tool your new circular cutter, but I can not distinguish how it operates. Will you have more references to get to know it better? It is seen as a very useful tool.

Saludos cordiales

Nice work all round John. That circle cutter looks interesting, and i too would like to know more about how it actually works.
BTW, in case you didn't know, the 'white wall' tail wheel tyre indicated a 'conducting' tyre, used to 'earth' the aircraft to disperse static electricity.

Very nice John

Looks great so far John!

Airframes said:

" ...BTW, in case you didn't know, the 'white wall' tail wheel tyre indicated a 'conducting' tyre, used to 'earth' the aircraft to disperse static electricity. ..."

Click to expand...

Wow !!, what information you share with us Terry. Something definitely new to my knowledge about airplanes.

Saludos y excelente progreso John

Riveting looks great John. I'll also need to look into one of those circle cutters. At the moment I use a die punch set to make circular masks but if the mask you want to make isn't one of the set sizes you're stuffed!