Hoss FL

Spyros - I'm not sure if you have seen it already, but Jerry Crandall's volume 1 has a number of good photos of White 11. Of note are the bare metal gun cover panels for the fuselage mounted MGs as well as the wing root cannons. The flaps' interiors are also unpainted. In addition, Jerry's profile suggests RLM 75 for the front underwing section, including the landing gear doors. Hope this helps.

Looking great! I love the shots of the cockpit from overhead -- really well done. Your white 11 choice is a very cool scheme. Looking forward to paint!

Spinner looks great! The Oramask material is the same as Maketar uses for their masks. I used Maketar masks for the main markings on my Dora -- I agree with your comments -- good stuff. I'll have to try this technique -- next time! lol.

Thanks for the review, John. I have this kit in the stash also and I'm on the lookout for a good scheme and an interesting way to build it. No skins on one half? All hatches and covers and access panels open? I've built the Revell, Hasegawa and Eduard 1/32 109 kits, but I've never built a ZM kit of any type. I'm trying to come up to speed before I commit to a scheme and start building.

Thanks again for the comments. Made some more progress today. The decals (mostly stencils) are all on and the panel line oil wash is complete. After the decals were dry I applied a gloss coat over each of the decals to seal them in before the wash. For the wash, I used Abteilung oils coordinated with the base color for each area. Payne's gray was used for the RLM 76 areas; Dark green for RLM 82, Burnt umber/black mix for the RLM 83 areas; Sand for the RLM 04 yellow areas; and black for control surfaces. I find that aligning the panel line colors with the camo colors helps intensify the base color and creates a panel line that looks natural in the same color family as the main color. Work continues. Thanks for looking. Comments and critique always welcome.

Thanks all for the the comments. Well, that Henri Daehne spinner near my paint station has been staring at me for weeks. I finally tackled it today while the decals dried on the airframe. Attempt #1 - prime and paint spinner white, use thin strips of Tamiya yellow tape to mask the white stripe, apply Maskol in between tape strips, paint black. Result - Fail - paint edges showed kinks in the yellow tape and the white stripe was too narrow. Alcohol bath to strip paint. Attempt #2 - prime and paint spinner white, same approach as # 1 but with thinner strips of tape. Result - Fail - poor masking and crooked edges. Alcohol bath to strip paint. I then decided I would simply try the decal supplied in Eagle Editions #60. So I primed then painted the spinner gloss black and added a gloss clear coat. Attempt #3 - The decal would probably have worked fine on the kit spinner, but the HD spinner shape is slightly different so the decal did not want to conform. I probably could have made it work after a million tweaks with Microsol, but I decided it still would not look quite right. Result - Fail. I decided that Tamiya flexible tape could provide the answer. I've used this many times for spinner spirals by using as single piece of tape for masking the stripe. The new twist was to cut two wedges of the tape, each one to mask the boundary of the stripe, then apply Maskol in between. The little curl at the tip of the spinner can be rendered well with very thin slices of tape. And the tape provides very smooth curves. And I had already gloss coated the spinner -- even better. I was a little concerned painting white over black in that I'd need too many coats, but I used Mr Color GX1, which luckily resulted in excellent opacity with a few thin layers. Attempt #4 - Executed as described above and I'm happy with the result. Here are the photos. I followed the basic pattern from the decal with respect to thickness of the white and black areas. Lots of trial and error when positioning the tape. I was able to nudge the tape into proper position after the Maskol had dried to get the curves exactly right. BAM! There was a little bit of clean up required. I created a little ridge of white paint at a border in an area but it sanded out just fine. It's nice to get that spinner ready for show time. Work continues. Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome.

What a scheme! I'm all in! - Jim

Nice clean wing roots, John. Your clear explanations for each step are over the top. Thank you! Looking forward to next steps on the build. - Jim

The main camo painting and markings are now complete. Good progress. Lots of rain here in Florida today so a good chunk of bench time. She's slowly starting to come to life. I blended the photos of Dortenmann's plane as well as details from 210008, 210015 and 20051 into the paint scheme, as well as considering the fresh RLM 82 from the refit shop. Interestingly, Jerry Crandall's book reflects newer information vs. what was available when the decals for black 1 were published. For example, the underwing crosses, were the earlier type as well as the tail hakenkreuz, which both had the white outlines on Dortenmann's machine. I micromeshed the areas with the "older" RLM 83 paint to reveal the rivets. Looks nice. I've also painted the the closure tabs red on the fuselage and wing access covers. The red fuselage tabs are clear in the reference photos. I also masked and painted the wing walk outlines RLM 77. The decals are susceptible to silvering and fouling panel lines and rivets and I think they look snappy painted on. I've micromeshed the surface where "older" paint is located to reveal the rivets. An oil wash will bring these details out even more. The numeral "1" was freshly painted, so no weathering here. The Hakenkreuz came out ok with the mask approach. I have yet to apply the wave decal over the JG 26 black and white RV band. The upper window on the yellow tail will receive the W. Nr. decal. I painted some RLM 75 mottles in the RLM 76 area on the tail before masking. I've also painted the trim tabs RLM 23. Work continues. Comments and critiques always welcome. Thanks for looking.

Thanks Matt! I actually painted the yellow tail first and then masked it off before painting the rest. I thought that getting the yellow and white areas out of the way and masked would help minimize the layers of paint. I'm trying to keep them down because of the HGW rivets -- I want to be able to sand down to selectively reveal them after the main painting is complete. _ Jim

Thanks Spyros! Black 1 certainly has an interesting history.

Thanks all for the comments. I've been searching for and reviewing photos of early Dora's produced at the Sorau plant to try to get a better sense of the original camo scheme and other details of Dortenmann's 210003. Although the aircraft was repainted, at least in part with the RLM 82, in Feb 1945, I figured photos of other planes produced at the same time could provide some clues, since there are no photos showing Dortenmann's entire plane. In Jerry Crandall's book and online, I found some good photos of 210008, 210015 and 210051, which were produced in September/October 1944. Here's a photo of 210051 taken in October 1944 I found online. I'm thinking 210003 was delivered looking something like this plane except with the early national markings (with white outlines). Key differences from some of the profiles available are: Black painted exhaust panels, with the paint extended back behind the supercharger intake. Scalloped leading edges of the wings with a high demarcation line of RLM 76. No white stripe on the tailwheel tire. Photos of 210008 and 210015 taken after delivery to JG 54 are consistent with 210051 in these aspects from what I can gather. This may not be a news flash for the Experten on this forum, but I thought it was pretty interesting. I'm interested if anyone has any more Information or thoughts on this. Here's a photo of the main painting complete for the wings. I'm thinking that the refit shop painted RLM 82 over the RLM 75 in essentially the original pattern without deviating too much. Work continues. Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Got a good chunk of painting done this weekend. RLM 76 was first. Here are the flaps, wheel covers and drop tank with post-fading and shading applied. A blending layer softened the effect after this photo was taken. I highlighted various panels and shaded panel lines and random areas. RLM 04 has already been applied to the chin area and the white fuselage band has been painted and masked. Applied some additional contrast to the base RLM 76 to the fuselage sides and engine area. Also added some random dark and light areas. Darker for areas with fuel stains. Here's the fuselage with the contrast reduced after the blending layer. I've also masked the areas on the tail where markings will be applied in preparation for the RLM 04 paint on the tail. Underside post-blending. I'll paint the flap bays RLM02 toward the end of the painting process. Next, the tail was painted RLM 04 with a modest amount of fading and shading. The HGW fabric decals really look great - just the perfect amount of color contrast. RLM 82 on the wings was next. The base layer was applied unevenly, followed by a lighter version for highlights and then a darker version for shaded areas. Since the RLM 82 was a fresh coat of paint over the RLM 75, I moderated the fading and shading to make it just noticeable and more subtle rather than overpowering. The photo below doesn't bring out the full depth of the tone variation, but it's there. Progress will continue shortly with RLM 83 on the wings. Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques are always welcome.

The riveting using the HGW rivet set is now complete. The label says you can rivet the entire plane in just THREE HOURS. Triple it for me. At least. Well, there's a learning curve, just like anything. Actually, I'm happy with how they came out. As you can see, I kept things simple and decided not to pre-shade before adding the rivets. I was concerned about being able to see and align them properly with the panel lines and other features. I'll focus on post-fading and shading for this one. The rivets went down with no real issues once I got the hang of it. I started on the bottom of course. The method is like any of the other HGW transfers. I used Mr. Mark Softer to make the rivet strips and panels conform to the various surfaces. The fabric panel sections are applied the same way. I thought HGW did a decent job with these. Toward the end of the riveting exercise, it struck me how devoid of surface detail the Hasegawa kit is, especially compared to more recent kits from Eduard and Tamiya. Painting is next. The key area of attention will be to keep the paint thickness over the rivets to a minimum, so I'm planning out the layers and mask steps with that in mind. Progress continues. Thanks for looking.

Thanks for the comments, John! I used Milliput and Mr Surfacer 1000 for the wing roots. I'm always looking for an easier and faster way. I've experimented with Tamiya putty, super glue, Perfect Plastic Putty, etc., but each has its tradeoffs for me. I'm gravitating to Milliput and Surfacer more frequently these days.

It looks like your solution may be simpler than my approach of re-contouring the gun cover. Good progress.

The main build is now complete and I'm getting her ready for painting. The wing roots, bottom engine panel and the join where the wing meets the fuselage aft of the wings all required a little filling and cleaning up. I used Milliput and Mr Surfacer for the clean up. Here's the beast primed with Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500. A little clean up on scribe lines and some goober removal here and there was needed. I'm happy with how the wing root join came out. There's still a little bit of clean up required. I've removed all of the kit detail on the fabric control surfaces in preparation for the HGW decals, which are coming up soon. Based on input from Duke and some testing, I'm going to preshade panel lines and surfaces then apply the HGW control surface and rivet decals. There's a first time for everything. I'm interested to see how the rivets and fabric surfaces come out. My usual painting technique for Luftwaffe subjects is prime, main camo, post-fade, post-shade, thin base color blend layer, then gloss coat, with micro mesh sanding (8,000) in between each step. I usually don't preshade but this subject has an interesting paint history and I think some additional panel shading variation will add some depth to the paintwork. The plane was delivered new in September 1944 with RLM 76, 75, and 83(81). Then in February 1945, it was refitted with a new canopy and repainted to a 76, 82 and 83(81) scheme. It's not clear whether : (1) all three camo colors were reapplied, (2) just the RLM 75 was painted over with RLM 82, or (3) if only the upper surface RLM 82 and 83(81) combination was applied during the February refit. Given the resource and logistics issues at the time, one would think a complete repaint would be unlikely, but why in the heck would they repaint just one color and leave all the others original? If they decided to repaint over one color, why not freshen up the whole aircraft and repaint the entire camo scheme, including the yellow tail? Who knows? My intent is to represent the aircraft the day after the refit was complete. I'm thinking that the 76 was original and that the 82 and 83(81) were freshly painted, along with some touch ups to the yellow tail. So the RLM 76 areas would be 5 months old through a cold winter, and the upper surfaces would be showroom new. Over five months, Dortenmann probably logged less than 50 hrs of flight time (he recorded 98 hours total through May 1945), especially from November through February, so I'm going to assume the wear and weathering was pretty light. Besides, I have a bunch of Dora models that look like they've been pulled off the scrap heap, so a reasonably clean one would be nice for a change. I'll weather it appropriately, but it won't look like it was in a tank battle. At least that's the plan for now.

Thanks Spyros! Very helpful and much appreciated. I'll do some experimenting and see what works for me. I'm thinking I'll play it more on the safe side since I have zero experience with these HGW rivets. Thanks again.

Looking great so far. I have the HGW control surfaces kit that came with the riveting set. This is my first time trying these. I didn't see directions related specifically for the control surfaces. Did you prime first, then apply the decal, then prime again? Or did you apply the HGW pieces directly to the plastic? Also, how do you plan to apply them for the rivets? Prime, apply rivets, then paint? Thanks in advance, Jim

Awesome weathering on the cockpit. I also like your fading and shading work. It really pops.

Thanks again for the comments. Progress continues. The main construction of the fuselage and wings is mostly complete. Here's the radiator painted black with an Aluminum dry brush. The flap actuators from the Eduard detail kit are installed and the trailing edges of the flaps have been thinned down. The Henri Daehne prop hub is also glued to the back of the radiator assembly. The cowling pieces were attached with superglue for the most part. The MGs are from Master and the PE strip on the front cowling is from the Eduard detail kit. The "Thunnus method" was used for reshaping the gun cover (thanks John). I had purchased both the Eagle and Quickboost covers thinking I may get lucky and get one that fits. No dice. So I used Milliput and Mr. Surfacer as Thunnus explains step by step to achieve a reasonable approximation of the correct shape. The bumps were added to the rear side panels and bulges were sanded off the front side panels. I kept my fingers crossed during rescribing the panel lines and only needed a little touch up. The coaming was also corrected buy lengthening the gunsight port and adding some stretched sprue. It's always nice to get this section cleaned up. The Eduard flap bays are installed in the wings. No major drama. And the landing gear bays are complete. The Eduard detail upgrade adds some zip to the sidewalls. For the cannons, I used the quickboost base, but cut off the gun barrel, drilled a hole in the base and installed the Master brass blast tubes. I like the look of the Master gun barrels and will simply install them (noting the appropriate distance from the wing leading edge to barrel tip) after the main painting is complete. Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome.

Wow! What a fantastic build! Where do I start? Your cockpit details are breathtaking and super job on the pilot. I love the look of the dark green and the subtle shading. Your photos with the blurred background are inspirational. Great job and congratulations. What a stunner.

Fabulous work. I love the mottling pattern. Well done.

Well done! Congrats on this beast Würger!

Thanks again for your wonderful photos and step-by-step commentary. It's really helping me as I try to tackle this kit. And of course your work is spectacular!