Hasegawa 1/32 Fw190D-9

[JKim]

The grey "7" on the starboard fuselage was sprayed out and replaced with a light blue.

After the topside touch-ups, the camo was given a clear coat (Alclad Aqua Gloss) to seal the paint. I applied masking around the perimeter of the red/white zone and a base coat of white was sprayed on. This was where I left Red 1 last night.

This evening, I set about cutting long strips of masking tape for the stripes. I'm worried about all of this tape. I had a problem with paint coming up with the masking tape on my last build. In guard against that, I've been very conscious of wiping down the surfaces prior to painting and then wearing gloves to avoid getting any finger oils under the paint job.

Once the stripe masks are put into place, the red is sprayed on. For both the white and red, I've increased my paint mixtures to 2:1 thinner-to-paint. There is no pre-shading to dial in and I'm just looking for solid coverage.

After the red is sprayed on and left to dry for about 30 minutes, the tape is removed. Halfway through, it's looking really good. No big tape lifts of the topside camo!

There are some very small spots where the stripe mask was not all the way down but overall, the stripes came out great.

The perimeter masking was removed VERY carefully and again, I didn't experience any tape lift. It looks like my precautions paid off.

There are some areas of overspray but the areas are very small and look to be easily correctable.

I'm going to give the bottom a quick seal of Aqua Gloss, make some overspray repairs and then it'll be time to start the markings!

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Great everything worked out this time

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks good.

 

[rochie]

looks amazing John

 

[Augsburg Eagle]

Impressive work. I love the JV44 Doras

 

[JKim]

A bit of clean-up work to document. Some of this stuff is minor and hardly noticeable but I was compelled to correct as much of it as I could see. Over-spray and a bit of white paint got lifted by the mask.

The airbrush is the ultimate paint repair tool. Using ultra-thin mixes at low pressure and working under a magnification visor, you can make perfect repairs. First, careful masking with tape and a post-it.

The red came out a bit "hot" and pooled on the edge of the tape. That caused the minor removal of the paint on the red side.

I let this dry thoroughly before masking on the white side and spraying a touch of red. I still need to fix the overspray at bottom root of the horizontal stabilizers, which will be easy since the stabs are still removable at this point.

I was slightly off when masking the brass flaps so I'll have to make a slight adjustment to line the stripes up better.

The overspray in the upper flaps and the landing gear wells has been fixed.

With the landing gear sponge masks removed and the radiator cowling attached, you can start to see a more "mature" Dora.

Most of the small paint repairs have been complete and I can say that the striping is finished. Markings will be the next major task!

 

[JKim]

Thanks for following this build. Just a few more touch-ups before I start doing the markings.

I'm using a set of Montex vinyl masks for the large markings. The only masked markings on the bottom are the black crosses on the wings. It's interesting that Red 1 did not have the higher visibility white-bordered crosses as the other JV44 Doras did.

The tail swastikas and the Werknummer (port side only) were also painted using masks. I really like how the Werknummer came out.

The two-color masks are a little trickier and these never come out as nice as the single color masks.

The top wing masks were previously used on Black 1. So the masks weren't as transparent and I had a hard time lining them up. Port wing is slightly off. The question is... (1) live with a slightly crooked upper wing cross or (2) fix it and lose some of the pre-shading?

I opened Door #2 and laid down a base of Neutral Grey over the cross.

The new white cross. The transition between the original green and repaired green is exaggerated in the photo due to flat/gloss differences and no so much color. But the lack of pre-shading on the repaired green is noticeable. In hindsight, I should've added some mottling to the neutral grey before I put the green back on... oh well. I can address this with a post-shading technique... maybe those new masks I bought???

The squadron emblem is also sprayed using the Montex masks.

Red 1 is documented to have a different style "1" on each side of the fuselage. This is not an uncommon occurrence on Luftwaffe aircraft but something that most decal manufacturers (and mask makers) ignore. Jerry Crandall did not ignore this issue on his Eagle Editions decal set and provides both styles of "1". The Montex masks seems to have only one style.

Again, I am confronted with a couple of choices. I can use the decals. In most cases, this would be a no-brainer but the fact that Eagle uses TWO decals for a single digit and knowing that white decals are usually the thickest and most difficult to conform to panel lines and rivets makes me hesitate.

I have a Silhouette Portrait cutter and can make custom masks for any pattern that I can come up with in CAD. I almost forgot that I had it (it would've saved me some headache on that upper wing cross issue). The process to convert a CAD drawing into a file format the Portrait can use is foggy. I've done it before and I can do it again but it will take me a bit of time to figure it out.

So I'll try and make a custom mask for the two different "1" using the Eagle Cal decals as a template. Stay tuned...

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Beauty John. Am I seeing some black overspray as well under the swastika on both sides?

 

[fubar57]

Very nice

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far John!

 

[JKim]

Andy... that's not black overspray on the crosses but white "underspray". Just a lighter application of white. I can either brighten the white now and then fade all of the markings with weathering. Or leave them and bring down the other markings to that level. Probably do the latter.

The Spinner Saga...

The detail that Henri Daehne supplies with his prop assemblies is beautiful but most of it ends up getting hidden by the spinner. Due to the sparse attachment area between the backplate and the bottom edge of the spinner, I've had to glue the spinner on and locking all of that detail away. As more people commented on it, the more I thought about trying to make the spinner removable. The foam clay mold idea was a failure but then came another idea with a tantalizing solution... magnets.

I bought 3mm x 1mm discs magnets from EBay.

The plan was to remove the prop hub, drill a 3mm hole from the bottom and stick a magnet in the hole. I could then glue another magnet at the tip from the inside and hopefully that would keep the spinner attached. But as I've said, I've taken great pride in increasing the strength of all of the glue joins INCLUDING the prop hub. Long story short... I could not get it off. I went as far as giving it a whack with a hammer while the hub was held by a vise. I thought I'd better stop before I ruin the hub or bend the shaft.

Then another idea... why not just drill the 3mm hole from the TOP of the hub? I could re-make the hub details with punched plastic easily enough.

So I sliced off the detail from the top of the hub.

Drilled a shallow hole into the hub using a 3mm drill bit.

The little magnet fits almost perfectly!

Hub detail replaced using punched plastic discs.

Hub looks good as new after some paint!

Another magnet was superglued into the tip of the spinner. There was a slight gap between the magnet and the top of the hub but I added a magnet to reduce the gap. So... does it work? Yup! Like a charm! The magnets pulls the spinner into place with a satisfying click even against gravity.

The spinner comes off at any time to reveal the hub details... success!

 

[Wurger]

 

[JKim]

Beauty John. Am I seeing some black overspray as well under the swastika on both sides?

Disregard my reply above... I was looking at the wrong crosses. Yes, some overspray on the tail from the swastikas... will fix those right away!

 

[Airframes]

Nice work John, an great solution with the magnets.

 

[rochie]

Amazing as always John

 

[Crimea_River]

Great solution.

 

[JKim]

Danke! I felt really energized when that prop spinner POPPED into place. I ran in the house and showed my wife my handiwork.

It took a while but I drafted a set of custom masks on AutoCAD and exported them to a DXF file for the Silhouette Portrait to cut from vinyl masking material. The first cut job made the numerals WAY TOO BIG and I had to throw that batch in the can. I properly scaled the second cut job and I had my masks ready!

I print my masks on Oramask 810, which seems to be identical to the material that Montex uses. I really shouldn't be buying any more simple masks from Montex or re-using old ones when I can make my own.

The red number with the white border can be done in different ways. I chose to do the red first and then the white border. BUT... white actually comes first, as a base for the red.

The red goes on and is left to dry.

The smaller numeral is placed within the masked area, trying to maintain an equal border all the way around. After the smaller mask is positioned, the white border can be sprayed on.

Remove all of the masks and you should have a nice two-color number "1".

The port side number "1", which is a slightly different style, is painted at the same time. I don't think I would've ever noticed the diff unless I compared back to back photos of the two sides.

Take a break and look at where we stand... most of the major markings are on except the characteristic slogan that each of the JV44 pilots inscribed on their personal mounts.

The Montex mask set provides a mask for the slogan but it is too complex and tiny for me to work with. I'm going to use the Eagle Cal decal, which are usually of excellent quality. This slogan says, "Sell my clothes, I'm going to heaven!" At this point, I was using the Micro Set/Micro Sol system to settle the decals down. White is a tough color and the white parts were not completely conforming to the rivets and panel lines like I wanted.

So I used a couple applications of Walther's Solvaset, which is a bit stronger than Micro Sol in softening the decal. I followed that up by cutting the decal along the panel lines with a fresh x-acto blade AND poking every rivet through the decal. I don't always go to this extreme but this is one decal that has to match the painted markings or it will be a distraction. A final application of Solvaset completed the work on the slogan decal. The visible edge around the decal will be taken care of by the subsequent clear coats. Do you see how the rivets and panel lines show, unimpeded, through the decal?

Using aggressive modeling tactics often bite us back. There was a drop of Solvaset at the bottom of the decal that had not completely dried and I accidentally touched it. Solvaset is strong stuff and CAN sometimes dissolve a decal or affect the paint underneath... so use at your own risk. I'll let that paint fudge and the decal dry completely before I do the repair work. Kinda nervous about having to place a mask on the decal that you've worked so hard to place.

From this vantage point we can see the major markings in place. The paint mistake can hardly be seen but we all know it is there right? Red 1 looks like a factory fresh bird but that will change soon.

A final shot of some clean-up paint work that I did. The edges of the wheel bays have been painted RLM02 to remove the remnants and overspray from the red and white striping. Just another detail that I've often thought about but have never bothered to do.

 

[fubar57]

Good stuff John