1/32 Hasegawa Fw 190D-9 White 12

[Hoss FL]

Greetings fellow modelers:

 

After building a few 1/48 scale kits, I'm back to take a crack at another 1/32 Dora. I've decided on White 12, Wk Nr. 500408 from 5./JG 301. Here's some nice artwork from IBG's new 1/72 release. 

 

 

I tend to gravitate to the Mimetall camo schemes for some reason. 

 

I'll be using the Hasegawa ST-19 kit with a number of aftermarket items for the build. 

The aftermarket goodies include:

• Aires cockpit upgrade
• HGW riveting set
• Eagle cals #32-61
• HGW seatbelts
• Yahu instrument panel
• One man army stencils
• Synthetic ordnance works landing gear
• Quickboost Exhaust
• Eduard canopy masks
• Quickboost gun barrels
• Master metal gun barrels
• Barracuda wheels
• Eduard exterior detail set

 

I wanted to use a Henri Daehne spinner and prop kit, but unfortunately Henri has shut down his shop in Germany for good due to the economic situation. I'll have to make do with the kit prop and spinner. 

 

Mr. Color lacquers along with Tamiya acrylics will be the main paints used. 

 

Here are some photos of the front office, which is now complete. 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also completed the engine plug with some extra plumbing and wiring. 

 

 

 

Starting on next steps to close up the fuselage. 

 

Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques are always welcome. 

 

 

 

 

[James Rademaker]

Excellent work thus far. I’m looking forward to seeing the project as it progresses. 
Jim

[Scale32]

Awesome! Love the Dora's and your build and paint skills. 

 

Your 48th builds over on Hyperscale are pretty inspiring especially the last Spitfire in Malta markings. You should post them in the non LSP works section.

 

Cheers Bevan 

[MikeMaben]

Looks like quite an involved project Jim.  Have fun  

[Hoss FL]

Thanks all for the comments. I've finally been able to make some more progress on White 12. I've been following Thunnus's multiple Dora build threads as well as Duke's most recent thread for step-by-step tips and ideas. Thunnus does such a great job with the blow-by-blow detail that I'm just showing the highlights and key steps for this build. 

 

Here's the cockpit installed into the fuselage with everything buttoned up at this point. The coaming over the instrument panel has been cleaned up. Also, the location for the gunsight was moved forward and a section of brown coaming has been added using a spare plastic part trimmed to size. 

 

I added some stretched sprue to each side of the cockpit to represent the canopy rails. I highlighted them with some lighter grey and silver to make them pop a bit. 

 

The Yahu instrument panel is a nice detail but unfortunately it won't be able to be seen very well when the model is finished. This shot also shows the contour correction of the gun cowling, the cleaned up seam on the supercharger intake and some detail from the Eduard exterior detail kit behind the engine cowl flaps. 

 

 

The gun cowling was contour-corrected using Milliput and Mr. Surfacer per Thunnus's technique. I still have a little clean up to do, but the fit is good and I'm happy with the overall shape. 

 

 

The seam on the supercharger intake is cleaned up with Milliput and Mr. Surfacer. The trailing edges of the engine cowl flaps and exhaust manifold front fairing were all thinned down to better represent scale thickness. The PE section on top of the front cowl ring is from the Eduard exterior detail kit. 

 

 

And here's the obligatory shot of the landing gear bay. The pin marks were cleaned up with CA glue and Mr Surfacer. The Eduard detail kit really makes a difference to this section, with nice rivet detail on the vertical surfaces. For the cannons, I used the Quickboost bases for the foundation and drilled out a ~2 mm hole and installed the Master barrel blast tubes. So now I can just slide in the Master barrel cannon barrels at the end of the build (remembering to add  spacers as required to get the correct distance from the leading edge of the wing to the tip of the barrels). I also added some black plastic card to block the interior of the cannon shell ejection ports. 

 

That's it for now. Mating the wings to the fuselage is next. 

 

Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques are always welcome. 

 

 

 

[monthebiff]

Very, very nice work. Cockpit and wheel wells look superb.

 

Regards. Andy 

[MikeMaben]

Yep  

[Rampenfest]

This is turning out fantastic! Excellent work.

[mywifehatesmodels]

Fantastic work, overall! I'm really eyeballing that cowl cover, as I may end up doing something similar on my own build. For now, I'm just tring to clean up the Quickboost replacement part and get it to fit right. We'll see. Putty is drying as I type.

 

Rock on!

John

[Hoss FL]

Thanks all for the comments. Progress continues. The main build is now complete and model is masked and ready for priming. 

 

 

 

And what would a late war Luftwaffe build thread be without a discussion of key paint scheme decisions...

 

I've found a few profiles online and they all differ in various aspects. 

 

Here's Jerry Crandall's (Eagle Editions) version:

 

 

Cutting Edge:

 

Eduard #1

 

Eduard #2

 

and the most recent, IBG: 

 

And here are a few photos I found online. There are several more in Jerry's book. 

 

 

 

 

 

My assessment of the photos is that the closest profiles are Jerry Crandall's and IBG's. My understanding is that IBG used Jerry Crandall's profile and JaPo as references. 

 

There's not much debate on the upper fuselage - 81 and 82 in a typical Mimetall pattern. Some sources say the rudder is white -- I'm going with RLM 76. The fuselage sides are the Bluegreen version of RLM76. It's clear that the upper wing camo is a relatively low contrast scheme so I'm going with 81 (brown version) and 82.

 

The real question for me is the forward underwing color (75 or 81) and the demarcation line between the painted section and the metal finish. The Eagle Editions profile indicates RLM 75 and a demarcation along the main wing spar. The IBG profile indicates RLM 81 and a demarcation about halfway back on the wing. It's really tough to tell from the photos. I'm thinking of going with 81 and halfway back per the IBG profile. 81 because the darkness of the landing gear covers match the darkness of the 81 on the fuselage to my eye. And halfway back because I like the way it looks.  

 

I enjoy the detective work of trying to figure out the actual scheme from the photos, profiles, and other's interpretations. I'm interested to hear others' ideas as well. I know there are quite a few Experten on this forum. 

 

Thanks for looking!  Comments and critiques are more than welcome. 

 

 

 

[Rampenfest]

Fantastic work!

[Hoss FL]

Since the last update, priming and preshading have been completed. 

 

The metal underwing surfaces were primed in black and then given and coat of gloss black. The RV band areas were primed in white since they will be yellow and red and I want them to pop a bit (this will also mean fewer layers of paint). The rest of the plane was primed in gray. All priming was with Mr. Surfacer. 

 

 

I preshaded the grey areas with black and used a spatter template to create variations across the different surfaces and give the final paint job more depth. I applied RLM 76 to the panel lines in the white area for the RV band to provide a modest amount of contrast. And I applied Neutral grey preshading / texturing to the black areas for variation in the metal areas. 

 

I've also applied the HGW decals for the fabric control surfaces. 

 

I've been considering when to apply the rivets. The HGW instructions say to apply the rivet decals onto the primer. On my last D-9 build, I applied them to the primer and found that the painted layers on top buried the rivets, although some light sanding through the layers allowed the rivets to show through in places without impacting the paint job. 

 

For this build, I thought I would apply the rivets on top of the preshading, which brings them a little closer to the surface. Other options are to apply them after the main camo is painted on or even after the camo and markings are applied. The next step would be to paint over all the rivets so they are not so stark, then buff or lightly sand the surface to selectively expose them. 

 

I think I'm going to go with plan A and apply the rivets now, then deal with exposing them through buffing and light sanding. The effect will be subtle but visible and should be a little more noticeable than on my last Dora build. 

 

Thanks for looking. Comments and critiques always welcome. 

 

 

[Furie]

Wow, what a huge job!
Well, I just have to watch carefully what you do because I think the final result will be fantastic!

[MikeMaben]

Lookin' nice so far Jim 

[Rampenfest]

Looking great, and excellent paintwork! Excited to see the rivets at the end.