Hasegawa 1/32 Fw 190D-9 Late "Brown 4"

[Thunnus]

Before I glued the resin instrument panel coaming, I decided to remove some of the internal ribbing that is not needed and might get in the way.

 

 

I secured this piece by wicking thin CA glue into the joints while the part was held in place with my fingers.

 

 

All of the new joints will be inspected and cleaned up as necessary.  Here are some views into the cockpit area with the new parts glued into place.

 

 

Checking the fit of the clear parts and a good review of the Dora fuselage with the re-shaped gun and radiator cowlings.

 

 

The pilot armored head rest has been painted.  There is a glue blob that needs to be carefully fixed and re-painted.

 

 

Finally... a disc cut from a piece of stiff paper is used to as a removable mask for the opening of the radiator cowling.

 

[MikeMaben]

Sweeeet 

[LSP_Kevin]

Wonderful stuff, John!

 

Kev

[Sasha As]

Great job!!!

[JayW]

On 5/16/2022 at 1:12 PM, Thunnus said:

I go to the blade I call Blue Steel.

Just started looking at this build John.  I cannot keep up with you!  

 

I am needing a new fine toothed razor saw.  What is this saw you have, and do you like it?

[Thunnus]

On 7/31/2022 at 12:30 AM, MikeMaben said:

Sweeeet 

Thanks Mike!

 

 

On 7/31/2022 at 1:22 AM, LSP_Kevin said:

Wonderful stuff, John!

 

Kev

Thank you Kevin!

 

 

On 7/31/2022 at 5:20 AM, Sasha As said:

Great job!!!

Thanks Sasha!

 

 

4 hours ago, JayW said:

Just started looking at this build John.  I cannot keep up with you!  

 

I am needing a new fine toothed razor saw.  What is this saw you have, and do you like it?

Thanks Jay!  I hope I'm not making everyone dizzy by jumping between these two builds.  I bought the big saw for larger resin pieces and it works really well for that.  Tamiya #74024 Thin blade modeling razor saw.

 

I've gone ahead and given the brass flaps a coat of primer... Mr Primer Surfacer 1000, thinned with Mr Leveling Thinner, and shot through the airbrush.  Based on my experience with the Special Hobby Tempest build, I'm not going to paint the flap bays until after the camo painting.  This will save on some time as it is much easier to mask the rectangular opening for painting rather than trying to mask and protect the painted flap bays in place.

 

 

Another new product to introduce... 1ManArmy's stencil masks!  I saw a review on The Modeling News website and when I learned that they had a set available for the Hasegawa Fw190D-9 kit, I thought I'd given them a try.

 

 

They are essentially paint masks for aircraft data stenciling to replace decals.  I guess this is the next logical step in my progression from using decals to buying Montex masks for the larger insignias and then buying a Silhouette Portrait craft cutter to create my own masks.  Data stencils on 1/32 aircraft are beyond the resolution of the knife-based craft cutter and 1ManArmy employs some sort of laser-cutting process to make these incredibly fine masks.

 

 

A complete set of data stencils is provided as well as a few generic larger markings with a detailed set of placement instructions.

 

 

I am going to test these masks on the landing gear covers, which I've painted in RLM 74 Dark Grey.  But before the data stencils, I'm going to paint the Brown 4 using custom masks from my cutter.  I used a 1:1:1:1 mix of Tamiya White, Orange, Red Brown and Red to match the color on the Eagle Editions decal sheet.

 

 

The laser process seems to have burned away most of the smaller, free-floating pieces of the mask, which is a very good thing.  On a similar mask from the craft cutter, you'd have to manually pick away these bits from the mask, which can be tedious.

 

 

One drawback to these masks is accurate placement.  It can be tricky to do since the yellow masking material is opaque and not see-through.

 

 

Additional masking is another drawback... you have to protect the areas outside of the small masks from overspray.

 

 

But the result is impressive!  It's difficult to make out the black from the dark grey background but the masks work as advertised.

 

 

However, I made the mistake of spraying gloss thinned with Mr Leveling Thinner to seal the paint job on the gear covers.  DON'T use MLT over an area treated with hairspray or else you may get the weird spider-web effect that I got on my gear covers.

 

 

I'm not sure I liked how the hairspray chipping worked out anyway so I'll probably be wiping these clean and doing it all over again.  And I'm going to test the idea of re-using the 1ManArmy masks as I've carefully saved the ones I've used.

 

 

 

[Alain Gadbois]

Nice project here!

The masks give very impressive results!

 

Alain

[duke_]

great work John! 

now that you have tried the 1manarmy stencils i think there is no way back to decals..

Don't worry about re-using the masks , they will work perfectly 

 

best Regards

Spyros

 

 

 

[JayW]

7 hours ago, Thunnus said:

I used a 1:1:1:1 mix of Tamiya White, Orange, Red Brown and Red to match the color on the Eagle Editions decal sheet.

 

How do you know what ingredients to use, and how much?  Astounding!

[Thunnus]

11 hours ago, Alain Gadbois said:

Nice project here!

The masks give very impressive results!

 

Alain

Thanks Alain!  I'll try and show the 1ManArmy mask results better later on.  

 

 

5 hours ago, duke_ said:

great work John! 

now that you have tried the 1manarmy stencils i think there is no way back to decals..

Don't worry about re-using the masks , they will work perfectly 

 

best Regards

Spyros

 

 

 

Thank you Spyros! I agree about regular decals but let's not forget the wet transfer decal stencils from HGW.  I think they yield comparable results to the paint masks but are easier to position and arguably require less work.

 

 

4 hours ago, JayW said:

 

How do you know what ingredients to use, and how much?  Astounding!

Just a guess... I wanted an easy to remember formula so I started off with one drop of each paint and it seemed to yield acceptable results.

[duke_]

1 hour ago, Thunnus said:

Thank you Spyros! I agree about regular decals but let's not forget the wet transfer decal stencils from HGW.  I think they yield comparable results to the paint masks but are easier to position and arguably require less work.

 

of course! you are. absolutely right! about HGW! i was talking about that total painted look you can achieve with masks

 

HGW dry transfers are excellent choice too! i have. them almost all! . 

one more advantage is that they stand out better on dark background!

Edited August 2, 2022 by duke_

[Thunnus]

Part Two of painting the exterior of the landing gear covers.  A base coat of Tamiya AS-12 decanted into the airbrush was treated with hairspray and covered with RLM 74 Dark Grey (Mr Hobby Aqueous).  A stiff paint brush dipped in water was used to disrupt the RLM 74 and cause chipping, mostly around the edges of the covers.

 

 

I changed up the order and painted the data stencils next.  Compared to a US nickel and penny, you can get a sense of how incredibly fine the text is.

 

 

The stencil masks have a lost a bit of their adhesiveness but retained enough to still work well.

 

 

The custom recipe for the brown was mixed and used to paint the "4" via custom cut masks.

 

 

The landing gear cover attachment bolts were often in need of repair and many Doras have visible primer applications around these bolts.  I replicated this by brush painting rough circles around a few random bolts using RLM 76 Light Blue (Mr Hobby Aqueous).  The covers were then sprayed with Alclad Aqua Gloss thinned with 91% iso alcohol instead of Mr Leveling Thinner. A black pastel wash was used to highlight the rivets and panel lines and the gear covers were given a flat coat (Model Master Clear Flat Acryl) to seal the painting.

 

[Rockie Yarwood]

Awesome work, John!

[Dpgsbody55]

 

Wonderful. 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!

 

Here's a look at few more fabric-covered control surfaces per Archer's decals covered with primer.

 

 

Now that the control surfaces are done, I can move forward toward completing the wings.  The Quickboost resin cannon barrels are glued into the wheel well.

 

 

The attachment for the landing gear is molded into the wing bottom so don't forget to paint that to match the rest of the wheel wells.

 

 

The wheel well insert is then glued into the wing bottoms using Tamiya Extra Thin cement.

 

 

While the glue dries, I've jumped over to the landing gear legs to finish those off.  The brake lines, made of copper wire and painted black, are glued into place.

 

 

The interior of the landing gear covers were painted in RLM 02 Grey (Mr Hobby Aqueous).  The SOW composite legs are glued using CA glue.

 

 

The wheels will not be mounted until after the plane can sit on her own legs so that I can properly orient the flat spots.  But here is what the completed landing gear legs look like with the wheels on.