Zaggs Fw 190D-9 211164 - Black <4 and his continuing scratchbuilding adventures...

[Zaggy]

Yeah I have three of them too! Well how about an Italeri one? I only have one of those, but I'd happily swap it for a Trimaster kit! I'm kinda digging the Hasegawa kit actually; not really sure why though. I think it's just that back in the day, all the fast jet stuff I built was Hasegawa and seeing that Hasegawa logo back on the top of a pile feels good - hahahaa. The Dragon H-0 kit which showed up yesterday is pretty cool too, except for the decals. Seriously, what manner of crack was Dragon smoking when they decided that Stab Green (RLM25) is LIME GREEN?!?!? Not only that, but the green is terrifyingly translucent looking! Part of me wonders if that is intentional, in order to make the colour look slightly transparent on the model (thus darkening the colour) or its just a majorly bad choice of green - I think the latter!

C-1 is in final assembly (working on painting/weathering the gear - final assembly on canopy - radiator face) - D-9 is glossy and to be decal'ed shortly... Oh and the C-1 with a few coats of Klear Matte, looks friggen awesome For the first thing I have (almost finished) in 15 years, I'm well chuffed!

The Dragon Ta 152C-1 kit keeps stareing at me too - I had almost decided to do the Orange Ta 152H-0 and one of these Eduard D-9's next, but find myself gravitating towards another 'open engine' project, in the form of the Erfurt Ta 152E's!


PRETTY PLEASE WAYNE...

 

[Zaggy]

OK, well something is amiss with the D-9, in the form of the decals. The AeroMaster decals are just so obviously wrong when applied to the model! The Chevron is way too big, the '4' is the wrong shape and despite a LOT of MicroSet and MicroSol, these things do NOT want to lay down flat! Currently trying to decide if I should remove the '<4' part and try to find a different sheet or just live with it?

I guess this is why I have heard ppl refer to AeroMaster as ErrorMaster... Hmmm, should I fork out another $13-$14 for some EagleCals or press on?

 

[Wayne Little]

You will just have to be satisfied with your current spread of Ta152's my man.....

show us those decals...let's see how they look.

 

[Zaggy]

Well, I'm in the market for more, if you ever feel the need to part with any!

As for the D-9, I think I have just decided to bit the bullet and run with the AeroMaster (ErrorMaster) decals... With all the effort Ive put into getting the rest of the decals to a state something half as flat as the C-1, I dont think there's much chance of removal without going all the way back and having to repaint... So this is what we have:

Overall, where we're upto - Once I settle these decals down a little, run some wash down the panels again, and apply a dash of pigment to help blend the decals, we should be good for matte klear kote...

The horrifically disproportional and noticably incorrect '<4' - if this was more than a 'return to the hobby' model, I would have probably removed the '<4' before things even dried and ordered the EagleCals decals. I'm still confident what I'll end up with will be a nice model that would be modestly competative at a club level anyway!

Now as for the C-1, which is more about learning/redicovering techniques, I must admit I am far happier - despite the short comings:

Overall where we are upto... Working on Landing Gear and Canopy internals now.

Despite concerns before application, the HobbyBoss kit decals are AWESOME - they just lay down flat with MicroSet and virtually vanish with an application or two of MicroSol. Under Matte Alclad, they just look amazing!

The weird shaped fuselage extension threw out all my Rumpfband measurements and thus the result is probably a bit wide overall, while the yellow band in particular looks too thick; I can live with that on a 'fictional a/c'. The 'thing' on the Stab Bar on the Rumpfband is some sort of dust! Again, Macro-photography is BRUTAL on a model! The 'Green 1' came from the C-0 kit decals, while the Fuselage Balkenkreuz came from a Dragon D-9 (that is slated to become a D-14/D-15) and the Hakenkreuz from a SuperScale sheet... The SuperScale decals are FAR superior to the AeroMaster/ErrorMaster stuff - I'm quite happy now that of all the 1/48th scale Fw190/Ta152 sheets Ive collected, only one is an AeroMaster sheet and thus I will probably avoid using that!

Also, really happy with how my mottling worked on this kit - I tried a 'reverse mottle' by painting the 75/83 camo first, then coming back with 84* Green/Grey over the top. I felt it gave me a LOT more control over the edge. I was in fact able to get the airbrush set up to do a line about 1.0-1.2mm wide, so just started this crazy, freehand swirling and twisting pattern about 7-8mm alonge the fuselage side, then came back along the same line a few mm lower; created a look I was really happy with. Tail unit was done the more tradional way; 76 with 83 mottled over the top in a manner inspired by both Ta 152's and late D-9's...

And the bottom... Again, the decals look amazing! MLG Bays have since been washed with Black/Brown and toned down quite a bit! The kit REALLY needs to have a bulkhead and Engine Mounts built. Oh and the wing gun barrels are 20Gauge Hyperdermic Needles. I have a history of snapping those things off at the most crap times - plus, not using the kit barrels means I didnt use the kit guns, so I have a couple of MK103's to use elsewhere...

The show must go on - in fact, its back to my Cryto-mathematics assignment for a while, white the washes dry!


D

 

[Crimea_River]

They look great Dan!

 

[Zaggy]

A lot more fun that what I spent the last 5hrs doing... This is but a mere snippet, from one page; of 17. This in itself is a good enough reason not to go to uni!

I don't like this stuff... I guess I should be thankful that its only four "summations of summation" - the other stuff, using things like log2(94^8), is just horrifying!

 

[Gnomey]

Coming along nicely!

 

[Wayne Little]

Both those 190's look pretty good, you are right on the oversize decals but sometimes you just gotta run with what you got...


with regards to post 186??? WTF??? all I wanted was directions to the bathroom...

 

[Zaggy]

@Gnomey - cheers mate

@Wayne - WTF is pretty much what comes to my mind as well! Like seriously, I have 17 pages of that stuff typed up, with a good 3-4 more to go tonight to be submitted tomorrow... Its enough to send a man insane and push him to something extreme - like last night, I bought a Fw 190A-8!!!! A Radial Engined Fw 190 - seriously, what the hell was going on in my head?!?!?! I'm looking at a pile of 40 kits here, and they're all powered by either the Jumo 213, DB 603 or Jumo 004...

Still regarding the decals, I have learnt a lesson - like when I was doing the C-1, I should be measuring the decals with calipers before hand (tis how I established the right sized things to use on the model) and critical markings need to be 'test-fitted' before being immersed! I am now fully on the 'ErrorMaster' bandwagon, having checked the other markings on this sheet (dodgy) and am questioning the accuracy of the other 1/48th sheet I have...

 

[Airframes]

At first I thought that calculation was trying to work out how a woman's brain works - but obviously not, as that would take at least three pages - and still not be correct!!

 

[Zaggy]

@Airframes - afraid not! Those calculations map to logical, known permutations of probability and certainty... The female mind is neither logical nor predictable in anyway shape or form - there is no maths within the area's I have to work (discrete maths like graph theory, set theory, number theory, combinatorics, etc, nor traditional maths like calculus, analytical geometry, more number theory, etc) that can predict such chaos and unpredictability... Not even chaos theory nor string theory could reasonably be applied!

They are in fact, quite mad!

In a way, life has so much simplier since I very unexpectedly became single about 2 years ago (obviously once the chaos has died down - I guess its to be expected when the other half wakes up 8 years into something and in the space of one counselling session going from "man of my dreams, future plans, etc" to "I never loved you, was never attracted, it was a mistake and no we cant talk about it... BTW, I'm keeping the cats, all our mutual friends and you can move out today"... hahahaha), and also cheaper! I guess I don't have to explain to ppl here just how much it costs to have a woman in your life!!!


D

 

[Zaggy]

Again, slightly unrelated; my A-8 showed up today. Im still a bit scratching my head about WHY, but noticed I also have some A-8/R11 decals and a verlinden A-8 super detail kit on the way too... Ok, sometimes when I have to take some extra pain mgmt meds, I can get a little 'off my head'. And at times, this can result in my buying weird stuff online - such as one instance where I bought 25m of Velcro, some Zippers, Magnets, goggles and etc - not sure what my plan was THAT night! hahaha... So I guess my interest in Nightfighters reered its head and I am planning to build an Fw 190A-8/R11, with a bunch of covers off; I guess I'll need to figure out how to scratch build the Radar Dipoles...

I know I was planning an A-6/R11 at one stage, but yeah; not really sure wha's going on! hahaha

Ta 152C-1 is SOOOO close now! Main gear is on (except doors), most of the canopy internals are in and tail gear is getting there as well... The disappointment re: the D-9 decals have resulted in me putting it to one side for a few days again... Plus I need to find one last stencil decal for it (amazingly, the most prominent stencil on the a/c was MISSED by AeroMaster, despite the fact they provide every other possible stencil; of which very few were on this a/c!!!). But yeah, the C-1

 

[Zaggy]

Added to my Ta 152 collection today with another Italeri Kit and the RV Resin Fw 190C-0 conversion kit - I dont actually have a plan to use the RV Resin kit (Prototypes are really my thing), but it is nice to have that option!

C-1 - is so close now! I seem to have lost the second half of the tail wheel 'U' shapped part, which is frustrating (as I guess I'll have to make one or get lucky and find a 5mm long, 0.7mm wide piece of plastic), but again, as this is more of a technique project, I'm happy to put that small fix off for a bit.. Gear Doors and Canopy is all thats left to do! Then some pics. Then I'll Matte Kote the D-9 and crack open one of these Eduard Kits and Dragon Kits

D

 

[Zaggy]

The C-1 is all but done, just needs the fuselage gun barrels added (and a replacement tail wheel section made at some point) - but for now, I need to sleep. However, just to keep the ppl happy:

Edit: Kust looking at the bits here, I also still need to add the pitot (which I made in metal this evening) and the flaps! The Flaps require the printing and application of a 'timber finish' set of decals - I have some white laser decal film here somewhere!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work!

 

[Crimea_River]

I'm liking that Dan. What's the inspiration for the spinner?

 

[Zaggy]

Yeah, I went a bit overboard with staining the spinner, hahahaa. But the logic is that Focke-Wulf always had trouble with firing cannon's through the spinner; in the case of the 190D series (such as the D-13), they were literally dripping oil through the seam that ran around the spinner most of the time - and firing the engine gun supposedly made things worse! If you look at pics of 'Yellow 10', you should be able to notice a SOLID oil stain acros the rear half of the spinner. In my case, I basically wanted the spinner from 'Yellow 10' - stab green, spiral'd, engine gun...

The whole thing started in RLM25, then got a hand painted spiral (which ended up looking surprisingly good for freehand! ) before some black/oily washes and streaks. However, my washes and streaks have gone a bit heavy; you can still see the white spiral under the washes and streaks, just the effect didnt end up quite how I wanted. I think in part because the Stab Green is deceptively dark. Either way, was never supposed to be a show winner, so I can live with the excessively heavy staining - I've learnt/relearnt a shitload with this model (as with the D-9) and considering its the first kit I've (almost) completed in 15-16 years (once the flaps and barrels go on), I'm quite happy with how it looks.

The Orange Ta 152H-0 and one of the Eduard D-9's I tackle next, will be a bit more 'precise'... But, will be trying to knock over the Super-detailed D-9 (and original subject of this thread) this weekend... For now though, Uni and Study - two exams tomorrow and one more next week, so I need to do some work on that!!!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for the info. I see now. Definitely a nice finish.

 

[rochie]

looks great