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

[Zaggy]

More Pics, because I have batteries in the Camera

RLM76 is on the Wings and Tailplanes - the plan is to do 75/82 on the wings and tailplanes (as they're all nice and masked up), then 75/82 on the fuselage and tail, followed by my 'lightened RLM76' (in the form of Gunze H314) on the Rumpfband and inner Left Wing, then the RLM75 overspray on the Rumpfband - but anyway, this is where we're at:

As you'll note, the Ailerons and Elevators are held in place with masking tape - the left-hand aileron will come off before paint goes on as the pattern doesnt 'match up'; I just thought it would look nice in the pics though.

Also I admit to having agonised a little over the RLM-Eighty-Green choice, but after creating my little 'colour pallet card' the other night, and holding it upto the RLM75, I feel the better 'tonal match' is RLM82... Like everything else D-9 colour-related, the field is split between RLM82 and RLM83 . The only 'stress' now is whether or not I have the required skill with my air-brush yet, to be off painting freehand patterns - still, in case you havent already noticed by many other things with this project, I have this habit of just jumping feet first into everything... Why stop now?

Dan

 

[Wurger]

 

[Zaggy]

Hmmmm, well, later on today I am going to go buy a moisture trap for the compressor... Had almost finished up the freehand camo when "WHOMPHHSSS" - big surge of water... <-- yes that a double sad-face! I probably should have thought of it earlier; when I walked outside to the shed (within which I paint), I was greeted with a fog that reduced visibility to less than 40m. So none can dispute the fact its a humid morning!

Luckily it hasnt destryed the finish or anything, but the introduction of water into things has resulted in a slightly chalky appearance to the paint - either that or this tub of RLM82 is a different batch to the one that I made my palette card with yesterday. So there will need to be some more RLM75 sprayed to tidy things up, then attempt two at RLM82 - the gloss coat should darken things up.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!

 

[Zaggy]

Moisture Trap - Au$13 - fitted and tested; will resume painting after I give everything a good 24hrs to dry/cure... In the meantime, I have cracked on a little with the HobbyBoss Ta 152C-1; beautifully engineered kit, but is shaping up to be bastard to fit. The ENTIRE fuselage half seam required a not-inconsiderable quantity of Squardon Green to sort things out. Wing root joins dont seem to be quite as bad as the much feared DML/Dragon kits, but the dry-fitting I did does suggest they wont be a cake-walk either. Curiously, the kit has separate control surfaces and flaps, so after I wrecked a set of quickboost Fw 190 flaps, I ended up making the innards from plastic strip - compared to the time I estimate I will spend on the wing root joins, I figure why not?

 

[Wayne Little]

Seem you're having lots of fun at the moment Dan

 

[Zaggy]

@Wayne - it was all beer and skittles til I hit the condensation issue! Ive had this compressor for 18+ years, have lent it to friends for art works, etc, and never once had an issue with water... Then out of no where WHAMMO!! and it smears green all over the wing and taints the paint with water, making it spray and dry all 'splotchy'. Nothing another coat cant fix I guess...

I am curious though; I was expecting a greater tonal difference between RLM75 and RLM82 - or is the lack of tonal difference a result of the water contaimination and the finish? (ie, the RLM75 has dried an almost satin finish, where as the RLM82 has dried a chalky-green)...

 

[Zaggy]

I've decided to have a day away from the D-9 - I ended up quite bummed out byt the condensation issue I guess; instead I've spent this evening's time with the Ta 152C-1 after just touching up some of the D-9 control surfaces with a brush. Continuing to resist the urge to 'open things up', I've limited myself to dropping the flaps, which as this a/c was hydraulically run, I think should be done - the only worrk needed is some strip plastic in the wings, and a thin sheet attached to the insides of the flaps (the flaps were planned to have been timber, in much the same way as the Late D-9's, some D-11's and the D-13's had) - I'll need to make some 'timber' decals for the flap insides I think. Though on the subject of opening things up, I did order a DB603A engine yesterday (which will be simple to convert to LA standard) and the postman brought me another Jumo 213A-1 today - so I guess this D-9 wont be the last of my super-detail projects!

 

[stona]

Continuing to resist the urge to 'open things up', I've limited myself to dropping the flaps, which as this a/c was hydraulically run, I think should be done !

That's your perogative and will look good. Photographs of intact,parked,Ta152s with flaps down are very rare. I've just flicked through a couple of books and found just one in Harmann's "Focke-Wulf Ta152". That is an aircraft in British hands,so who knows what they were doing to it.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Zaggy]

I have to agree in a way with you Steve. In the case of the 'electric' D-9, almost invariably a servicable aircraft is parked with flaps up; in the case of the Ta 152H in allied hands, about half the photo's I have recently looked at (both the British H-1 and the American H-0) show the a/c with flaps down - though in some shots the a/c has flat tyres and you must assumed in that case the fluids have also run low. Supported also by the fact production line E-1's H-1's and H-11's with flaps attached, also have them 'down'. In the case of the Ta 152C, all the 'company photos' show them up (which may be a procedural thing, a functional thing or a photographic thing) - the only complete C-series a/c photographed with them down are the one's at the factory that have been blown up by the Germans!

Still, a bit of 'artistic licence' isn't a bad thing and it seems such a waste to put all these flying surfaces in a neutral position!

As for my 1/72 D-9, the flaps are coming down on this - most of the photo's of the a/c at Prague seem to show the flaps at various degree's of open (its a good way to track the sequence of photos of this particular a/c)....


Dan

 

[Zaggy]

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts, but not much has been happening on the D-9; the Ta 152C on the hand, is almost ready for paint, thus I thought I should return to the D-9 before I get carried away - whinges about the Ta 152 later! That's not to say that nothing has been doing - I have made minor progress on the D-9 as well as playing with DIY decals! But to the D-9...

My initial horror at the water contamination was excessive - yes, the paint has dried VERY matte and thus looks very light. However the other day I wiped the wings down with a damp rag to remove dust. Now anyone who has worked will timber in the past will likely know that one way to 'test' what finished grain looks like under lacquer is to just wipe a bit of water over the timber and see what pops out; well the same holds true for whatever else you apply a lacquer or clear finish to. In our case, the colours settled down and looked far better! I had worried about the green running, but again that seems to have not really happened - YES there is some green in panel lines (on the grey) and yes there is the hint of differing edges to different parts of the green, but after consideration I have come to the conclusion that this is a D-9! They werent known for their 'high quality', consistent finishes; nor were they known for being clean and tidy, so a bit of difference in the edge finish will be fine, while the green in the panel lines will be covered with weathering!

So, with this rediscovered faith, I have taken to completing the canopy maskings, removing the fuselage masks and prep'ing for applying the camo to the fuselage. The majority of the fuselague, as I have determined, is predominantly RLM82 Dark Green; there are patches of what I can only conclude to be RLM83 (aircraft in the same batch seem to have 82/83 fuselages) around the cockpit/canopy and what MAYBE a mottling of RLM81 on the fin (not 100% ok with that yet). The power-egg seems to be a different shade of RLM82 (with a much thinner 'blend' between RLM82/RLM76), the supercharger scoop is entirely RLM82 while the gun cover appears to be a lighter shade of RLM 82. While we're talking about the gun cover, this has finally been finished with the addition on two small 'blobs' of suger glue, in place of the bulges on the 5 piece - I may need to add just a little more to give them a better shape.

Once the fuselage camo colours are done, the plan is to apply a diagonal mask (from the rear edge of the fuel cell bay opening, to the leading edge of the stabs) and tone this area with misting of medium grey, then apply the rumpfband overspray around the fuselage, on the fin and the left wing root. The final task is the RLM75 overspraying... Pictures to come... For now, I have a table to fix..


Dan

 

[Zaggy]

OK, made edges too sharp - need to go back with some RLM 76 and just feather things a little more...

 

[Zaggy]

As promised, pics... The whole side and upper fuselage has had to be repainted as I just couldn't get the edges to look like I wanted; tis a whole lot nicer now! So, what you're seeing is where I am upto - there is still a whole lot of masking, but there's not a lot I can do about that (the next 'Exposed Engine' project I do, a Ta 152E-1 (I have collected most of what I need already!), I will paint in sections I think and only add the engine after painting is done). I've laid out the gun cowl and engine cover (both of those were missions themselves - the engine door is 10 thou card, with 20 thou 'structure', while the gun cowl was thinned A LOT and had structure added in the form of more 10 thou card), canopy, rudder door, control surfaces, port side access door, etc, with the happy-snaps...

REALLY happy with how those gun cowl 'pimples' came out - I had been putting those off for a LONG LONG TIME and really had a case of the fear. In the end, two layers of superglue, with a light sanding in between, followed by a heavy coat of slightly thicked paint (to fill and imperfections) followed by a light sanding to blend things, ended up being worth the effort! Hahaha, they are less than 1.5mm across I'd say!

Not the best angle to capture what was done, but you can see the Squadron Green, from where things got a little TOO thin. The EVIL of Macro Photography has also revealed that I need to AGAIN fix the corner of the 'gun trough' panel (lower right - with black pre-shading and a dusting of green, making it look a bit nasty!) - perhaps cut the chip square this time (it was previously fixed with Squadron Green) and glue in some plastic?

The final step in painting will be to remask the engine and finish up the gun trough and power-egg - camo on the power-egg as most Fw 190D fans will know, rarely if ever matches the fuselage, so I figue the easiest way is to just paint the rest of the a/c, mask it all up and paint the power-egg. The current 'line' running down the egg is WAY to high and more represents me just giving the radiator cowling an under coat

So, there we are!


D

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Whichever way you go I've a feeling you're going to nail it.

 

[Wayne Little]

Doin' great Dan...

 

[Crimea_River]

Yup, I agree.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Zaggy]

Thank ye all for the faith! Admittedly, by tradition (well 15 years ago) this is the time in the build that I get bored and move on to new projects (such as the Ta 152E-1 - for which I have all the bits I need now! )... I am still resisting though (despite the pile of now 12 Fw 190D's and 8 Ta 152's that keep trying to drag me away - I've decided to model ALL Five known JV44 Dora's at ONCE with Eduard kits; I figure I'll really cut down on time and resources if I 'production line' them).

But I am liking the look of the D-9, despite the fact my repaint obliterated the hint of RLM83 I had used (which I will re-add, not that the Lifecolor paints I am using - and liking - have much of a tonal difference between RLM82 and RLM83 : I feel 82 should be a few shades darker) - the diagonal grey-blue then mottling in RLM81 on the tail comes Next. I'm thinking the best way to achieve the mottles will be to cut out freehanding masks; I still havent come to grips with the whole double-action thing (a Badger 155 clone), paint consistency seems far more critical than it did with a single action! The diagonal should be pretty easy. Then we start to mess things up with the obliterated Rumpfband, 'repair grey' on the tail, fuselage and wing root... Finally the power egg! Suggestions (paint, colour, methodology, weathering, etc) welcome BTW...

Im actually REALLY looking forwards to gloss/decal/matte, so I can finally pull all the masking off and glue everything together! Then just those final weathering touches... Then I'll 'recharge' with an easy project - Ta 152H-0 'Orange' - tho this St./JG 301 Ta 152C-1 is nearing paint too...

On the subject if the hobbyBoss Ta 152C-0/C-1, I'm a bit dissappointed. While the kit is beautifully engineered, the list of gripes keeps getting longer:
i) Most annoying of all (because it forces your rumpfbands to look skew) is the fuselage plug! Those things were basically a box - top and bottom edges were at right angles to the join, but not on this a/c (point to DML)
ii) The surface of the plastic is a light orange peel texture, which is fine, until you finish that join with 1200 grit wet/dry! But with all the raised hinges, it makes it a challenge to wet sand the entire model. (point to Dragon)
iii) Joints - while most things so far line up ok, filler is a necessity - AND the joins in some places arent well thought out so you end up rescribing thru putty! That said, the gun colw/trough peice fitted SOOO WELL) (sounds like a Dragon!)
iv) Top of the radiator cowl join is a nightmare - two days work and Im still not 100% happy.
v) Tail Wheel - most if it needs to be fitted before fuselage mating, so it constantly be busted and re-glued (Dragon +1)
vi) Wheel wells are just a nightmare! This was an OOTB build, but I had to fix the engine blank, wing joins, etc
vii) HOLLOW! They obvioulsy put some effort into DB603 and wing spar, but that's all you get - no firewall, not engine moints, nothing! (Dragon +1) So you end up with a really nice DB603 rear, then NOTHING - you see the inside of the Gun Cowl and front egde of the cockpit. Also, the DB603 needs work as the supercharger 'pipe' is widly wrong, as are the suppercharger feeders and there are some noticable rear of engine accessories missing...
viii) The Revi is just solid, grey plastic! (Dragon +1)

And thats what I have discovered so far... I just want to finish and paint it ATM. Of course it does have a MAJOR advantage of the DML/Dragon kit - no major nose surgury!


OK Bed time...

 

[Crimea_River]

I've not researched my stashed Dragon C-0 yet but why the need for nose surgery?

 

[Airframes]

Some nice work there.