JamesHatch

I spray at about 15psi and about 2 inches from model. I also don't crack the airbrush 'paint' flow fully open. I spray about 1/3 open on my Iwata

Hi all, I've spent literally days, accumulatively to get to this stage. The cockpit is now almost totally complete and I've added some extra plumbing to the rear fuselage internals...namely for the control linkages I'd missed (but so did Aires!) and for the reserve fuel tank piping. Both loose ends of these pipes for the tank will terminate at the fuel filler cap, now fitted to the fuselage (from the excellent Black Dog resin detail set). Interior of the cockpit is painted in Gunze RLM66, and detail colours are picked out with a combination of Vallejo, White Ensign and Humbrol paints. Pigments are added to the cockpit interior, but not too much. I just had to add the set of seatbelts I bought from Radu, and they are great! Many thanks to his work in designing these. They took 3 hours as I have fingers like fag ends (Brit saying!), but I don't think I could use anything else now. I hope to get everything fit into this fuselage section within the next week or so. Everything dry fits beautifully since I modded loads of parts. I still say this Aires resin set was done for a different tooling of this kit. Sorry for the bad pic of the panel. It looks great to the eye, but awful on a blown up digital pic. The rest I'm happy with Jim

I've just bought the Revell boxing of this kit for my next project (after Dora), so I'll be interested in seeing this. Monty Python (Chris) has a 'fix' list for this kit to make it more accurate. Jim

Beautiful finish. What paint did you use for the job? Gotta love a clipped wing Spit Jim

Cheers Jerry, Looks like I'm off to the model shop in 20 mins then! I just need to tell the missus (as I can't drive )

Hi Steve, If you are willing to bung some blades to the UK, let me know what the cost is, and if you take Paypal. @Jerry: Your Dora books are on my wants list. I just wish I had them before this project! Jim

Hi Jerry, Do you have any Tamiya/Vallejo etc references for this? Jim

Hi Jerry, The kit gun cowl is now redundant and being replaced with the Aires resin version. I am modelling 'Red 1' from JV44, so I suppose this is ok? I am using the EagleCal decals for this. Let me know if there is anything glaring you can see. Im really worried about that prop too. It doesn't look right for this machine. Any suggestions will be taken on board. I've thrown so much AM at this model that I'm not bothered about needing extra. Thaks for the heads up too. Jim

Still working on this, and tomorrow I'll be working on the cockpit painting, so more pics will come this next few days. I've had the EagleCal decals delovered as well as the exquisite Black Dog resin tail wheel/assembly and the control surfaces kits. I need to know the following though: What colour of 'blue' is the socket next to the pilot seat, from this picture of the D9, built by Georch? Also, @ Steve Gallacci, can you give me some info on the 190D-9 resin props you sell..........PLEASE!!!! I want some proper profiled props for this machine. They are the only thing I am lacking at the moment Cheers, Jim

I use Xtracolor flat varnish XDFF, thinned 50% and you can see the finish go totally matt as you spray it on. Amazing stuff. It's Hannants own brand though others do stock it.

What a great build. Never seen one of these 2 seaters built before. Love that new nose adaption too

Hi Johan, One thing I have noticed with this Aires set is that the rear fuselage deck behind the pilot is about 3mm too short. It's as simple as that. If I compare it against the kit part, the difference is obvious, but if the resin part was to be used, the rear fuselage interior extends forward in front of the deck! As the kit part is no worse than the Aires one, I've removed the rear deck from the cockpit plastic part and finished the front edge so it butts nicely to the Aires cockpit. Also, the benefit of using the kit part is that I can drill out the already recessed pilots stowage door to display the resin beneath I've started to clean up the casting blocks from the cockpit parts and I'll get these primed tomorrow. With any luck, I'll get some paint on them too. I need to fabricate the canopy rails yet for the cockpit as these are still obviously missing.

Hi Patrick, Peter Kormos has indeed posted here on LSP too, and I have his set of German service panels here now. They are superb and definately recommended. http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.ph...c=23973&hl= Jim

The Villaba book is great. Some may not like his method of internal finishing, but I think it looks superb. His rendering of exterior work is flawless and I absolutely love the book. Expensive but worth every penny. Highly recommended Thanks for the comments on this project so far.

Here's the work so far. The first thing that had to come off was the nose, so I chain drilled this and cleaned it up with a surgical kinfe. Edges were then sanded flat. For the most serious part of the kit destruction, it seemed to go pretty well. For posterity, I took some pics first. The fuselage needed quite a lot of remedial work to make the resin and etch parts sit, but firstly, the kit is totally devoid of rivets, so this needed to be remedied. I fixed this with the help of Radus Rivet-R tool and some drawings depicting the rivet patterns. Seemed to work pretty well, and I rolled the riveter against the edge of Tamiya tape. It took a little getting used to...it's not perfect, but I'm happy with it at this stage. I removed the service ports and hatches/doors where I wanted to depict them open and also thinned down the fuselage skin at this point to make it a little more realistic. As far as the main service hatch goes, this work looks quite brutal from inside, but with the installation of the etch metal fuselage formers and stringer, the remainder of the gouges are filled in with superglue gel. The rear fuselage resin section is superbly cast, but misses as least 2 obvious items which I scratch built with the help of plasticard and rod, plus thin tine foil. These are the elevated bulkhead onto which is clipped the engine starter crank, and also the elevator control rods. With these added and the other resin parts cleaned up, I primed and airbrushed this section in Alclad2 Airframe Aluminium. From there, a quick thin coat of Klear was added and then the MDC duralumin decals were added. A coat of MicroSet was added to the whole lot before another coat of Klear. With this dry, a highly thinned mist of Tamiya Earth acrylic was sprayed along the stringer and ribbing as well as the riveted panels. Tamiya Flat Aluminium was then added to highlight the fuselage formers. All other interior stuff was sprayed with Gunze acrylics, with minor detail being painted with Vallejo acrylics. In the meantime, the forward fuselage area was thinned to accept the bulkheads for the weapon bay. The instrument visor was also removed to eventually be replaced with a more accurate resin part with higher detail. That's all for now folks.....I'll get more work done and post an update when there's something to show Jim

Hi all, When I've tried airbrushing concave parts, such as the internal parts on the rear of the Fw190D fuselage, I notice that the primer is quite rough. Unlike spraying external areas, a load of paint dust can be kicked up, depsite lowering pressure and paint flow, and this seems to make the job a little rough in those areas. Sometimes it's not always easy to access to rub down either. I had the same issue when airbrusing the wide chord wing roots of my 1/48 Spitfires too. Any ideas how to get a smooth finish when I do these internal areas? Cheers.

Aye up all! I thought it about time I contributed here with a build. I've spent so much time leeching ideas off you lot, now I have a chance to show how inept I can be. The model of choice is the new mould Hasegawa Fw 190D-9. To go with this, I'm going to add the following: Aires Fw190D full detail resin set #2031 Black Dog Focke Wulf Fw 190 D-9 resin Tail wheel with mechanism access door #A32002 Black Dog Focke-Wulf FW 190 A,D resin detail set (flaps, rudder and fuel fillers etc) #A32001 Eduard Fw190D Landing flaps #32101 MDC Fw 190D9 Wheel Set #CV32028 MDC MG-151 set with brass barrels Master Model MG-131 brass barrels Radu Brinzan Late Luftwaffe seatbelts #RB-P32006 PK Tinyland German service panel set MDC German Duralumin Manufacturers Stamps #D32009 Mike Grant Decals Instruments & Placards set HobbyDecal Fw-190 Stencils ver 1 #st32003v1 Montex Super Mask Set Fw-190D9 (Galland Circus) #K 32048 EagleCals Fw190 decal set G-Factor brass Fw190A/D undercarriage I'm using a mish mash of technique I've picked up and some techniques from the new FAQ book by JM Villaba....basically whatever fits the task. Also using Gunze paint for the first time too. I warn you that I've never attempted anything like this before, but I'm confident with using resin and etch etc. which I've used in smaller projects. The finished model will be posed with all access ports open (well, most of them anyway), and engine cowls posed open. All weapon bays will be displayed open, as will the canopy. Here's a few pics of some of the stuff I will be using: I'm in for a long haul, right? Jim

Hi Peter, Did you receive my Paypal payment and emails? Jim

Stunning. I think I'll do one of these after my Dora.

Lovely work. She sure looks beautiful The nose looks great with the rivet decal etc. Nice clean job! Jim

Hi Peter, I still need to order those Luftwaffe service panels yet for my Dora Bear with me Jim

I've popped him an email as I can't see them on his site, so hopefully he'll get back very soon. Cheers guys Jim

Many thanks for that Alan. I'll give it a look. Didn't you build a Dora? Do you have any links to yours, or some good reference? Cheers, Jim

Shame, but Hannants have sold out and I wasn't even sure I was going to use any EagleCals decals, so it looks like I'm still searching for these Jim

Cheers Dave, Why the bloody hell didn't I think of that! I was thinking MDC but couldn't see any on their site. I must remove those blinkers. Jim