Revell 1/32 Fw190A-8/R11 "White 9" II./JG301

IainM · April 12

Greetings all
I am a leeeeeetle bit behind in posting this build, I actually started around five weeks ago on it, and it's eventually got to a point where I'm most likely not going to bin it due to utter frustration. I had bought this kit just after it was released, plus the AM for it, and it has been sitting in the stash for quite some time.

To be fair, I think the engineering thought process behind the kit is quite clever, having spent many an evening dry-fitting/sanding/etc, I think I can see what the people who designed the kit were thinking as far as sub-assemblies going together, what can/could be displayed open or closed, what they wanted the kit to be. Unfortunately, I think their vision has been totally let down by the actual manufacturing process - typical of most (not all) of the Revell kits I've built, the quality of the plastic is just gross - hard and pebbly, there are steps everywhere where the molds met (mold alignment issues), not a single rod/round shape is actually in round, I needed to scrape/sand every single mating surface just to get it flush, which in turn has created more fit issues. Having come off the back of the Kotare Bf109K build which was an absolute pleasure to build and shows what can be achieved by a manufacturer as far as the quality of at least the plastic and IM process.....it's really not good enough. However, all said - it definitely puts my limited modelling skills to the test and that's not a bad thing!
I'll be looking forward to the end of this year to see what the Eduard A-8 is like - we definitely need a good, modern kit. Hopefully they nail it.

I had a fair bit of AM to throw at it, and I've used some of it, but not all as "DOH"...some was for the Hasegawa kit - I failed to notice when I purchased it back then. So I've got the following AM in it -
Eduard Brassin cockpit
Eduard Bronze landing gear
Eduard brass flaps (more on that later)
Aires tailwheel assembly inspection cover
HGW belts
Eagleparts MLG wheels, upper gun cowling, prop/spinner and wing cannon fairings
AIMS Fw190 hatches and latches etched set - only used some of it though
Master barrels for the Mg151/20 and Mg131

The engine Revell provides is a complete sub-assembly if you want to display open cowls - it has a gearbox, all the cylinders, exhausts etc, but a bit lacking in detail and very soft. I was never planning to have it displayed, so I just did a bit of basic work to it - you don't get to see much of it once it's behind the prop/spinner and fan unit.

What it ended up like...I have used magnet everywhere instead of the kit shaft. More precise for the prop/spinner engine alignment

Speaking of the prop and spinner, I had the Eagleparts spinner and props that I was going to be using on this build - however I discovered that the Eagleparts spinner, whilst having the correct profile, was quite undersized, and the kit spinner was more of the correct dimensions - perhaps a little off in profile, but better size-wise. Compromise time.

The same could not be said for the kit prop blades. They were way off in size and profile - more akin to the metal VDM blades than the wooden ones. So I ended up cutting off the blades from the kit hub and using the Eagleparts blades instead. The hub will still then nicely attach to the spinner backplate.

Way better. Kit spinner/hub and Eagleparts blades.

Eduard Brassin MLG legs/covers and Eagleparts wheels

Upper gun cowl. On the left is the Eagleparts offering, on the right the kit offering. The shape of the Eagleparts one with all the bulges, etc is correct but my part is slightly deformed (needs some hot water magic), has soft details, and is a couple of mm too short at the gun barrel end. The kit part of course fits great, but the shape is just not correct, as confirmed by the reference book I'm using - the Valiant Fw190 book by Richard A Franks.
I'm hoping to still use the EP cowl with some fixing to do on it, but if that doesn't pan out I'll use the kit part which I'll mod a bit to get rid of some of the more prominent bulges, and fix those two bumps on the upper side

Eduard flap set for the 190. Great detail, looks way better than the kit offering. Lots of folding, gluing, soldering, but I love doing things like this. I have already taken out the plastic from the kit where these fit into, and done all the test fitting involved - the upper portion that fits into the upper wing extends into the fuselage sides, so a bit of work was needed there as well. The weakest point on this whole setup are the attachment points where the upper and lower flaps portions meet - you're supposed to join the two halves with a bit of wire at the three hinge points- however the hinges on the upper half only lend themselves to being attached with CA- which is going to be the weak point of assembly. I'm hoping once the wings are together and I've inserted the middle hinge wire that I'll be able to insert a shim between the lower flaps and the aileron/fuselage sides to create more of a friction fit that will withstand bumps and knocks, etc. I could gloop up the hinge points with CA, but that will really detract from the beauty of these PE parts. If all else fails, I have the option of using the kit plastic to do a flaps-up option, which I don't really want to do.

The kit wheel bay is another sorely under-detailed part. There's not a lot there that is really bears a lot of resemblance to the Fw190, except they managed to give us dimples on the top of the bay, and the gear locks are present.
The lower portion of the gear bay is the wing spar and firewall. That at least ensures correct dihedral.
Revell only provides the Mg151/20 barrels (not round either...) which extend from the bays aft of the spar through the forward leading edge. In reality, it was shrouded in a blast tube which extended through the wheel bays. I've recreated these as well as the mounting flanges on the wing spar.
I've put "stops" in both these tubes (and the outer wing mounted cannons have a "stop" in them as well), so that when I insert the Master barrels, they protrude the correct didtance from the wing leading edge.

I also built the ejection chutes to extend to the lower wing ejection ports. The kit ones was a mere stub which didn't extend all the way down to the lower wing.

Below is the almost finished project. Still a bit of wiring, painting and weathering to go. I also corrected the shape of the cannon ejection ports, and added some details from the spares box to depict the breech block that was readily visible on the real thing.

Doing some major surgery on the tail in preparation for the inspection bay. Nevdr been more happy to have a DSPIAE push broach with a 1mm tip in my toolbox!! I had to mod the mounting point for the tailwheel quite significantly, as the Aires resin interferes with everything in the tail area!

The below images show the AIMS PE from @Pastor John "Hatches and latches" set. I chose to be very sparing on what I wanted to do, and it's basically just an open fuel filler and the oxygen filler caps. I replaced the kit fuselage step (which is moulded incorrectly shape-wise) and the fuselage electrical socket. Just enough to make it interesting IMO

Below is the completed fuselage. I've rescribed the lifting socket covers which are too small on the kit, and redone the fuel port for the 50l starting fuel tank which is just above the fuselage step.

All the moving surfaces assembled, all the raised detail will be sanded off, as I have the Fw190 set from Archer on the way. Full resin rivet set awaits!!

The real big let-down were the Fug218 antenna arrays. The detail on the kit parts was soft, out of round, and a lot of it bent when I cut it off the runners.
The glue joint between the arrays and wing supports was a mere butt-joint, which would never have stood up to any abuse at all. So it was out with the Albion slide-fit tubing.
Cut off the offending plastic parts, drilled holes through the kit parts and inserted the Albion tubing which I had measured to hopefully the correct lengths.
In the pic below you can see I've drilled/inserted rod into the crescent-shaped wing supports -that has since changed - I pulled those out and redid those brass supports in the actual wing.

Using my center drill guide as an assembly jig

Getting everything lined up square before committing to CA. I drilled and pinned the array/support arm joint with .3mm wire - as said before, a simple butt glue joint would not have sufficed!

All the antenna marked out for their specific locations and ready to go.

Here are the brass rods I inserted into the wings for the antenna to fit onto. All set at the correct angles, and I've made the strengthening plates from plasticard sheet.

HGW belts. Always a great improvement.

Sorry, bit out of focus. The Brassin seat with the leather pads.

Brassin tub

I added a few wires and the blue knob (ANYZ), but otherwise its all just the Brassin set. Really nice.

I must really not be in a rush and focus better - it's blurry again....
Here is the tub with the seat and belts attached. The left belt (right in image) is going to be draped over the cockpit sill/fuselage side, so it's only attached at the mounting point behind the seat. I did add the mounts from wire, which goes through the HGW hardware.

Upper instrument panel with radar scope. Not much of that will ever be visible again.
The Brassin gunsight is a little work of art in itself. really impressive

Edited April 12 by IainM

Greif8 · April 12

Excellent work Iain! Interesting that the fit is so poor; when I built the A8 last year I thought the fit was good in the majority of the areas. Maybe you got a "Monday morning" kit. At any rate you are doing a brilliant job dealing with the issues as they crop up - the prop fusion is really top shelf work.

Ernest

Sasha As · April 12

Great job!!!

scvrobeson · April 12

Awesome start to the project!

Matt

Jim Barry · April 13

You’ve got this !

John Stambaugh · April 13

A+ for perseverance on a sub-par kit. Apparently the manufacturing quality is all over the place. I built the F-8 and had near perfect alignment of molds and only the faintest of mold seams. Still, plenty of soft and inaccurate areas as you have mentioned.

Look forward to seeing more of your excellent and determined work Lain.

John

Gazzas · April 13

As always, Iain, your detail work is lovely. Sorry to hear than both your AM and the kit is hit or miss. I keep hearing ppl say the FW-190A8's are nice kits... they must be stoned.

Greif8 · April 13

Your modification on the radar antenne is superb Iain.

Ernest

Beaconroot · April 13

Lovely work on this build! Who's center drill guide is that you are using? It looks very handy!

Jim Root

Troy Molitor · April 13

A real pleasure to follow this one Iain. Thanks for sharing this with us.

IainM · April 14

On 4/12/2026 at 8:36 PM, Greif8 said:

Excellent work Iain! Interesting that the fit is so poor; when I built the A8 last year I thought the fit was good in the majority of the areas. Maybe you got a "Monday morning" kit. At any rate you are doing a brilliant job dealing with the issues as they crop up - the prop fusion is really top shelf work.

Ernest

On 4/12/2026 at 10:51 PM, Sasha As said:

Great job!!!

On 4/13/2026 at 5:05 AM, scvrobeson said:

Awesome start to the project!

Matt

On 4/13/2026 at 12:28 PM, Jim Barry said:

You’ve got this !

23 hours ago, John Stambaugh said:

A+ for perseverance on a sub-par kit. Apparently the manufacturing quality is all over the place. I built the F-8 and had near perfect alignment of molds and only the faintest of mold seams. Still, plenty of soft and inaccurate areas as you have mentioned.

Look forward to seeing more of your excellent and determined work Lain.

John

23 hours ago, Gazzas said:

As always, Iain, your detail work is lovely. Sorry to hear than both your AM and the kit is hit or miss. I keep hearing ppl say the FW-190A8's are nice kits... they must be stoned.

20 hours ago, Greif8 said:

Your modification on the radar antenne is superb Iain.

Ernest

13 hours ago, Beaconroot said:

Lovely work on this build! Who's center drill guide is that you are using? It looks very handy!

Jim Root

2 hours ago, Troy Molitor said:

A real pleasure to follow this one Iain. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Thank you all for your comments! Always appreciated! Yes, this is definitely not the best Revell kit I've worked on, it probably is a Monday morning kit! I've had way better luck with the 109 kits in the past
@Beaconroot I picked it up from Temu ages ago, it's a MAZHA brand centre drilling guide. Pretty handy - in fact so handy I have found myself wondering why I didn't pick one up way beforehand

Beaconroot · April 14

Thank you for your reply Iain. Just ordered one.

Jim

IainM · April 27

Getting on slowly with the A-8. I've had to really take a step back and think of the best way to put the engine/cowls/forward fuselage section together as any mistake here with alignment will show down the road.
I reckoned that the cornerstone of good alignment would be getting near-as-perfect joins at the wing root, as the engine "egg" would fit onto these, and it would give me a good starting point for the rest of the assembly

You can see just forward of the radiator flaps on the mating surface some of the moulding "steps" that are extremely prevalent on this kit....

Luckily, I decided to build up the cowls in sections to be added to the engine, as if I had followed the kit instructions it would have been disastrous for alignment....
I used the bearer between the two cylinder banks as my curvature guide. Quite a bit of sanding. fettling to make sure all the parts mated sort of coherently.....

I had to forgo using the kit engine bearers, as I ended up with a seriously mis-aligned engine with regards to the thrust line. I ended up putting in a piece of styrene rod which fits between the ammo cans for support. You'll never see it!!

This was the key piece of cowl to get right. It had to align properly with the engine and bottom of the fuselage. I remember a LOT of sanding and test-fitting, but it ended up well!

Then the remainder of the cowl was built up around that. I left the rear of the cowling pieces unglued for a while whilst I test-fitted, and when I was happy, glued them up

Nice little power egg. Behind the fan is a semi-detailed engine, but you'll never know!

Wings attached and sanded in. Little bit of filler at the wing/fuselage join, but really pleased that the test-fitting and fettling paid off.
The windshield is going to need a bit of work, it's super thick and there is visible distortion through it, but that's just sanding and polishing. I've got it on as I need it there to check for height when I do the gun cowl.

Engine is attached, and I'm very happy with the result

Speaking of the gun cowl. It's known that the Revell one is not great, the shape is off, bulges in the wrong place,,,,but at least it fits! The image below shows it after I've done some very serious sanding already, just to get it less "bulky" than the original.
However Eagle Productions make a corrected cowl, and I've had one in the stash since I bought this kit way back when.

But...there was a problem. The shape of the cowl is spot-on, however the part was slightly "mis-shapen" (and that's being kind) ( it had a longitudinal twist to it that no amount of hot water would fix and the length was off)
Luckily I managed to source another one, which arrived a few days ago. That was going to be my last effort on a replacement cowl, otherwise I'd just go with the kit one and unhappily live with it...

This is the new cowl below. It's taken a bit of blood sweat and tears and plastic strips and Mr Surfacer to get right, but it is way better than the first one...

Here it is attached, Looks a bit rough without any primer, but thats been sanded off already. The latches will be filled and rescribed, they're too soft and not the correct shape.

And this is how she stands of this afternoon. Progress is being made!!