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1/32 Revell Fw 190 F-8 & A-8: Working on the wheel wells!


VintageEagle

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I'm finished the riveting on the Hasegawa Spit Mk I over Christmas, its my 3rd completely riveted 1/32 build. Before starting the riveting process, I use calipers, various straight edges, and a sharp pencil to draw the lines on the aircraft of where I want the rivets to go (you need a good set of plans for this). Typically I do the fuselage and wing halves separately. After drawing the lines, I use DYMO tape to ensure a straight line for the riveting tool. 

 

Rivet wheel is used for flush rivets, Rosie the Riveter for domed rivets, in the case of the Spitfire Rosie (along with the metal template guide that comes with it) was used on aft (more or less) portion of the fuselage. The template is placed over the line being riveted and taped down at the ends with Tamiya Tape.

 

When using the rivet wheel, recommend you mark one cog/tooth with a Sharpie and always use that tooth as the starting point. It allows you to go over a section if you feel you didn't use enough pressure the first time. 

 

When laying the DYMO tape down, try to work it so the tape is always on the inside/covering an area that has just been riveted, so the tape does not lift off pencil likes from an unriveted area. Even then you'll likely have to re-draw some lines because of wear/handling. 

 

After the riveting is complete, take a normal pencil eraser and erase the remaining pencil lines. Then step back and admire the miracle of your work.

 

As careful as you may be when gluing the halves together, you'll likely need to do some touch up riveting.

 

Oh, and when drawing the lines, join the wing/fuselage halve together to be sure the rivets line up where required.

 

Its a long long process and it may drive you nuts. I do it in bits and pieces, one section at a time, building ... dare I say it... tanks.... in between.

 

Over Xmas my son, who was home from University, walked by me while I was finishing the wings. He thought I was totally nuts.

 

He may have a point. Oh well it seems to make me happy..... I think....

 

Cheers and have fun!

 

Dave/Ironman1945

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Gaz and Dave,

 

Thank you very much for your advice. I'll test the proposed process using tape and a pencil on a spare part. I am not fully sure yet what the distance between the rivets should have been, but I try to estimate it from photos of the real aircraft where I have can count the number of rivets between two panel lines.

 

Yesterday, I tested both the beading tool and the riveter wheel. The beading tool gives very convincing looking rivets, but with the smallest tool size, the rivet size is still too large for the standard German rivet size. I read somewhere it was 7mm, which would mean approx. 0.2mm in 1/32 scale or 5 rivets per mm. As I couldn't fit 5 in 1 mm, they seem to be too large. Hence, I'll go with the riveter wheel and will use the beading tool for larger rivets on the airframe. 

 

OK, I'll be back with some results soon.

 

Mark, thanks for your comment!

 

Cheers,

Roger

Edited by VintageEagle
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  • 5 months later...

It's been a long time since my last update. Here's what happened:

 

RADU's RIVETER...:

I wanted to go with Radu's riveter wheel after I found that the beading tool's rivets were too large in diameter. I studied the rivet pattern of the Fw 190 in detail and found that the ideal distance between two rivets should be around 0.85mm.

 

... BUT ONLY 0.75 and 1.00MM WHEELS, BUT NO 0.85MM...:

However, there are only 0.75 and 1.00mm rivet wheels available from Radu's store. I then found a saw blade that had approx. 0.85mm between the individual teeths, but that meant I would have to go with the beading tool.

 

... THEREFORE TRIED THE MDC BEADING TOOL...:

I ordered the 1/48 scale tool from MDC and used the smaller of the two diameter beading tools that come with the 1/48 scale package. I rivetted the whole port fuselage, but found that the rivets still looked to big.

 

... BUT STILL NOT HAPPY...:

That discouraged me so much that I had to pause for a while. Then summer came and I rather spent my free time outside. With days getting a bit cooler again now, I  resumed work, but tried the riveter again. After a little bit of practise my rivet lines got much more straight than after my first trials. 

 

... AND BACK TO THE RIVETER - BUT IS 0.75 or 1.00MM BETTER?

Since I don't have an 0.85mm wheel, but only a 0.75mm or 1.00mm wheel, which one would you chose? I am not sure which one would give the more realistic look overall. I tend towards the 1mm wheel as the distance will be so small that going smaller will be hardly noticeable.

 

Cheers,

Roger

 

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Impressed with your progress so far.  Don’t worry about the timescale!

 

Radu definitely used to make the late war Luftwaffe green seatbelts though as I have a couple of sets.  Basically identical to the tan ones but the belt material sheet is green.  They are as excellent as his other ones (and much quicker to build than a Sutton - I can do one inside an hour now) and I am mystified that they feature so infrequently in magazines, where everyone seems to favour etched belts for some reason despite them looking less good in larger scales.

 

However, the green belts are not currently listed on the RB website so not sure why that is.  Maybe a supply issue with the green paper?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for your kind feedback and the info on the green seatbelts!

 

After studying many photos of the rivet patterns, I decided to go with the 0.75mm wheel as it seems more accurate than the 1.00mm. I first spent some time to draw the rivet lines onto the fuselage using a pencil. Then I started adding the rivets. It was my first attempt (apart from some "dry runs" on a spare fuselage). I am quite happy with the result so far, but I made one small mistake underneath the main fuselage access hatch. The rivet line is a bit too close to the hatch, but most likely nobody will ever notice and I am not sure if I would do more damage than good if I tried to correct it by filling the holes with glue, sanding them and adding new rivets (what's your experience?). 

 

A few small details like the rivets around the jacking hole, some more rivets in the corners around the fuselage hatch, etc. are yet to be added. I'll continue first with the forward fuselage and stabilizer. Then the starboard side is next. After that I can work on closing the fuselage including the cockpit. 

 

Do you recommend to sand the surface after riveting? Or is it better to leave it as is and to polish the fuselage after painting for some realistic wear effect? 

 

Sorry for the bad pictures. I just had my smart phone at hand and wanted to give a quite view of where I am.

 

Cheers,

Roger

44351402321_290f5c1cf9_k.jpg

 

43635228344_b3b7cdafd4_k.jpg

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I lightly sanded my FW after riveting, although I cheated and went with Radu's tools.

If you want a wide range of beading tools, just buy a full jewellers set:

71JXLGngh6L._SL1419_.jpg

About ever size you will ever need. You can get them from Amazon.

You are doing some nice work there!

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Thank you both. 
 
I actually have an almost identical set as the one in your photo. Still, the smallest diameter looked too big for a 7mm 1/1 scale rivet (=0.22mm in 1/32). I did one fuselage half with this beading tool, but was not happy with the overall look. 
 
I then tried the riveter wheel and the overall look is much more realistic to my eyes. It is also much faster (but still a very tedious job) than the beading tool.
 
Yesterday, to my dismay, I realized that I added too many horizontal rivet lines to the left fuselage half (5 instead of 4). Oh well, it was a good excercise. I tried to order a replacement fuselage half from Revell, but if it works it will probably take several weeks to arrive. 
 
I then continued with the right fuselage half and this time all went perfectly and I am very pleased with the result. I am getting better at this method of adding rivets :-)
 
So, I'll continue and will post good photos once both fuselage halves are done. Stay tuned :-)
 
Roger
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  • 2 months later...

OK, I know. Ages since my last update. I have been practicing the riveting process using Radu's excellent riveter wheels. I made a few mistakes first and ordered new fuselages from Revell, for which I had to wait a couple of weeks. But finally, I managed to complete the first two fuselage halves (starboard sides; remember I am working on two Fw 190 kits in parallel). I'd say that at least 40-50% of the time was needed to study wartime and actual photos of restored original Fw 190s to understand where the rivets have to go. I soon noticed that basically all rivet patterns in drawings in the various books I own are quite simplified and sometimes also wrong. OK, nobody will ever notice the difference, but it is more for my peace of mind. Once you have spent the time, you know it and if I ever build another 190, it will be much faster. The port sides of the fuselage will now also be much faster as they are almost identical. Here's what I had to change:

 

STARBOARD SIDE:

- Access hatch under horizontal stabilizer was not present in the real aircraft. I assume Revell took the former Mistel Fw 190 in the UK as the 1:1 template, which features this access hatch (presumably to get access to the connection point inside the fuselage to the Mistel strut). 

- Push button to open the cockpit from the outside was missing

- Fresh air opening in front of the canopy was only present on the port side, not on the starboard side

- I used the MDC tool to add a circle below the horizontal stabilizer where in the original some kind of nut was

- The diameter and position of the circle on the aft fuselage just before the tail unit (for jacking the airplane up) had to be changed. It was too small to too far up.

 

PORT SIDE (not complete yet, but what I noticed so far):

- Access hatch above the fuselage access door needs to be repositioned (slightly down) in order that it is between the two rivet lines (it would not be exactly in the middle).

 

And here are the photos:

 

31093607177_7abf9672f2_k_d.jpg

 

31093607907_cd5b730547_k_d.jpg

 

31093607757_5904738357_k_d.jpg

 

31093607527_0d90911a30_k_d.jpg

 

31093607337_9864edc6ad_k_d.jpg

 

Next step is to sand the fuselages to get a smooth surface and then go over the rivets again to open them up. If I had known how much work that is I may have decided not to add the rivets...

 

Cheers,

Roger

Edited by VintageEagle
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Wow, what fantastic work.   Hey, by the way,  - how are things going with Captured Eagles, Vol 2?   Vol 1 is one of my favorite books on late war Luftwaffe subjects, really looking forward to your next one.

 

 

Edited by John1
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Thank you John! I have been working on Vol 2 ever since I have published Vol 1. Research and text for about 66% is done, photos for 100% of the book selected, but the pace is slow due to other commitments. Maybe I should focus on writing on Vol 2 rather than working on the Fw 190s. There will be some very rare birds and also some with a very interesting story in Vol. 2. It will come, it's just a matter of time :-) 

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33 minutes ago, VintageEagle said:

Thank you John! I have been working on Vol 2 ever since I have published Vol 1. Research and text for about 66% is done, photos for 100% of the book selected, but the pace is slow due to other commitments. Maybe I should focus on writing on Vol 2 rather than working on the Fw 190s. There will be some very rare birds and also some with a very interesting story in Vol. 2. It will come, it's just a matter of time :-) 

Loved Volume 1 Roger and still have "White 48" to complete and not to far off now. I'm sure Volume 2 will be just as good! Will you be including a decal sheet again with Volume 2?

 

Regards.Andy 

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