**** DONE: 1/48 Ta 152H - Allied Advance and Defense of the Reich WWII.

[JKim]

I thought that would perk up your ears! Yup orange...

And I do think I have a PDF version of the that particular document. I'll have to check at home later... is it a pretty good resource?

 

[fubar57]

Ooooh, I like it, saved into my "Captured" folder.

And I do think I have a PDF version of the that particular document. I'll have to check at home later... is it a pretty good resource?

Not as good as I had hoped but there is a lot of technical references in there. If you don't have it and want it, I still have your email addy. How about these...

Geo

 

[JKim]

Orange???? I'm in. Do you have this book, John

View attachment 335767

Geo

I checked and do NOT have this reference. Of the other two that you listed, I have a hard copy of the Monogram Close-up that I got way back in the day along with a Japanese book that I picked up from a hobby shop years ago.

The nice thing about the book above is that it has some RLM color chips that I use for color mixing. So feel free to send over those two PDF's if ya have them.

 

[JKim]

I've been working on the cockpit for the past couple of days. Funny how much easier it is when you are not dealing with photoetch or resin! The instrument panel could use an upgrade though. The instrument bezels are ridiculously overscale, which shrinks the instrument faces to the point of making it impossible to add any details or decals into the smaller gauges.

I punched out instrument decals from my spares box to fill the bigger instruments but even the big ones were teeny...

I did the best that I could and will call the IP done after a flat coat and putting a drop of Future into each of the instrument faces. The instrument panels on Focke-Wulfs are set well back into the fuselage and will be hard to see anyway.

The cockpit floor and seat bulkhead was painted RLM66 over a black base. Various raised features were painted in a lighter grey for contrast. The paint was sealed with a gloss coat and then a dark wash was run through all of the details. The wash was sealed with a flat coat and then I did some weathering using colored pencils and some earth-colored pastel chalk dust.

I scrounged up some PE seatbelts from the spares box. I also replaced the kit foot pedals with the photoetched ones that came with the Ju88 detail set.

The left console was missing a part of the wall per some archive pictures of Ta152 cockpits. I added a wiring harness from underneath the panel to fill up that empty space.

Both consoles were painted in RLM66 and instrument bases were painted black. Details were picked out with a fine brush using red, yellow and white. The throttle was painted yellow.

Ok... I think the cockpit is finished.

The assembly now jumps into the area in front of the cockpit including the engine. I'm not planning on having the engine viewable so I'm not going to spend oodles of time painting and detailing these next few steps.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Real Nice John....

 

[JKim]

Thanks Wayne!

 

[Airframes]

Very nice work John, it looks the biz !
Not sure about the Ta series, but earlier FW's had a throttle friction knob mounted quite low down, below the throttle, in the form of a 'twist grip' type of fitting. It would be just about where that small circular, or semi-circular moulding is, in the open area on the port wall, beneath the yellow wiring bundle. From what I've seen, it was either dull bare metal, or a light greyish-white in colour, and about the size of a motorbike throttle grip.

 

[JKim]

Thanks Terry! I'll do a bit of research to see if I can find any pictures or diagrams of the cockpit.

 

[Airframes]

Not the best photo, but here it is on a FW190A, arrowed white.

 

[JKim]

Yes Terry. I've tracked that as far as the D-9 but I haven't found any evidence that it was present on the Ta-152H. The closest I could get were these pages from an older JAPO publication...

It's far from conclusive but I'll take that as a sign to move on from that doodad.

 

[javlin]

That came out real Nice John

 

[Catch22]

Fantastic start John!

 

[Airframes]

I can't be 100% certain, but I'd guess that throttle friction knob would be on the Ta series too. A friction knob 'locked' the throttle at any desired position, to prevent the throttle lever slipping back, and i can't see any reason to change the design, especially as the throttle set-up was the same throughout the series.

 

[Crimea_River]

FWIW, the Dragon kit leaves the panel under the throttle open as well so there is no wall there to mount the wheel to. I'd guess this was modeled after the only surviving Ta152 undergoing restoration at the Udvar-Hazy Centre at the Smithsonian pics of which show this are to be open. If I were a betting man, I'd say that the panel would have been there with the wheel. Perhaps someone would like to contact the restorers......

EDIT: I did a bit more digging and found a link to the Ta152 Parts List in our Technical Section. Here's a picture of a gizmo in the throttle area:

Now, take a look at this picture of the Ta152 at the Smithsonian. The circled item, to me, resembles the above part so I am now leaning toward this being the throttle lock and that the wheel is not there. The above assembly contains a "Kuplung" or "Clutch" and, being a part of the throttle grouping in the parts list, could be interpreted to be a lock or clutch fro the throttle. Just a quess but.......

 

[Wurger]

 

[JKim]

Nice bit of research there guys! I'm going to move on from the cockpit in order to keep the build moving. Not saying that little throttle lock isn't worth adding but I've got other soon-to-be-hidden details to spend my time on... the next update will be sure to raise some eyebrows.

 

[JKim]

Ok... time for a construction update. After finishing off the cockpit, I started looking a few steps ahead and how the cockpit might fit into the fuselage sides. But the central fuselage is comprised of not only two halves but a bottom. This triangular construction and a lack of positive locating pins makes dry-fitting as productive as trying to build a house of cards. I'll need to get further along in this build before I start any meaningful fit analysis.

According to my plan of building a buttoned-up aircraft, I cemented the fuselage access hatch shut.

Next in the build order was the engine. I started by cementing the engine body parts together.

Looking at the array of parts that make up the engine, I started admiring the detail (which is VERY good, especially compared to the cockpit). I began to resist my plan of simply gluing the engine parts together and moving on to the next step. It doesn't make any sense to spend any more time on something that's going to get covered up right?

I ignored that logic and started to paint. And paint. And paint some more. Priming the metallic parts with black... applying the base coat with an airbrush... detail painting with a brush... I even went to extra steps of applying a clear coat to give it a pastel wash and then sealing it with a matte coat. I gave it the full paint job but pulled up short of adding extra detail. There's a wiring harness on the engine mount that is begging to be utilized... I even drilled out the ends of the individual wiring connectors.... Just in case!

Once the engine components were painted, I started to assemble the little Jumo 213E.

The detail is really nice for a 1/48 scale kit. Painting it really brings out that detail.

 

[JKim]

Some of the details, like the Mk108 cannon would've been buried even if the engine was exposed. I'll be covering it twice-over! In addition to the great detail, the fit of all of the parts so far has been really good. The engine went together like a little watch.

Now that the engine and cockpit have been completed, the next step will be join the two subassemblies and fit them into the central fuselage. We'll see if the good fit karma continues...

And... despite how nice the little engine looks, I'm still planning on closing it up in the end. I know... what a waste right? I couldn't help myself... sigh.

 

[fubar57]

Looking very nice John. It would be a shame to close it up



Geo