Border 1/35 Fw 190A-6 Nowotny Double Chevron

[Thunnus]

Thanks for checking in guys!  I don't have any horse in the 1/32 vs 1/35 argument.  They are close enough in scale in terms of how I like to work that I would make a purchase decision on subject matter and execution.

 

5 hours ago, BlackCanopy said:

I foresee "The Most Beautifully, Accurately Painted BMW 801 Scale Model, Ever", (Thunnus style), in this theatre, very soon, just to be completely hidden from sight under closed cowlings forever.

 

You still prefer your models with clean, unbroken lines, don't you, John? You wouldn't stray from that principle, wouldn't you, just for once? Ooohh, It's going to be a tragedy... ;-)

 

Cheers, Joerg

LOL... you know me very Joerg! I definitely will not pose this model with panels open.  But... if the fit is good enough for the panels to be removable, I'd consider it.  And because of your question, I did a preliminary test fit as you'll see...

 

Ok, I cleaned up the exhaust pipes and stuck them on the engine.  Be careful when you are cleaning these up as they are connected together with very small tabs near the hollow ends. Luckily, the soft Border plastic helps us here by bending and not breaking.

 

 

Because of Joerg's query, I was curious about fit of the engine cowling components and I decided to try and dry-fit them together.  Not including the fuselage halves and wing bottom, there ten parts that comprise the engine cowling.  Even without the engine in place, I was able to tape together the cowling, which means that the fit between the parts is pretty darn good.  Can't do this if the parts don't butt against each other with precision. It's difficult to make a call now without any glue involved but so far I'm very impressed with how these panels fit.  Which opens the possibility of having some panels removable so that we can peek at the engine.

 

[BlackCanopy]

Quote

 

... Just noticed: The hexagon engine mount seems to be upside down, with the exhaust fairings pointing downward instead of upward.

So the kit engineering obviously allows for this mistake to happen ...

[BlackCanopy]

30 minutes ago, Thunnus said:

Which opens the possibility of having some panels removable so that we can peek at the engine.

 

;-)

[Thunnus]

3 hours ago, BlackCanopy said:

 

... Just noticed: The hexagon engine mount seems to be upside down, with the exhaust fairings pointing downward instead of upward.

So the kit engineering obviously allows for this mistake to happen ...

I think it is correct but will double/triple check before I set anything to glue.  Exhaust pipes should sweep downward and not not upward.  An early test build showed the exhausts sweeping upward incorrectly...

[Troy Molitor]

Wow.  Love the update.   

[Citadelgrad]

John, I've said it before but it bears repeating. There are two types of build threads. One reports on milestones and sometimes setbacks but basically sketches out the build.  

 

The other, and yours is the loadstar, is an informative "here's what I am trying to do, here's what worked and what doesn't work and why" so that people following can get into your method, learn techniques and approaches, and take valuable insight and techniques. 

 

I love and follow along and even use (or try to) the specific, well described methods to make me a better modeler.  

 

My T bolt, and hopefully my Corsair, are head and shoulders better than I ever could have done toiling in my garage.  The internet is many things, but it has really helped me be a better modeler. 

 

Thanks for your threads.  You aren't the only one who does this, but thank you. 

[Woody V]

On 8/20/2023 at 2:27 AM, Thunnus said:

Thanks guys! For those that are curious, here is a comparison between the 1/32 Hasegawa 190 wing and the 1/35 Border wing...

 

Well, that settles it. As much love as I have for the 190 I won't be doing this one. I'll just have to settle for my bad memories building the Revell and Hasegawa offerings. Without a doubt a kit to gush over in every way except one. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Woody V

[Thunnus]

16 hours ago, Citadelgrad said:

John, I've said it before but it bears repeating. There are two types of build threads. One reports on milestones and sometimes setbacks but basically sketches out the build.  

 

The other, and yours is the loadstar, is an informative "here's what I am trying to do, here's what worked and what doesn't work and why" so that people following can get into your method, learn techniques and approaches, and take valuable insight and techniques. 

 

I love and follow along and even use (or try to) the specific, well described methods to make me a better modeler.  

 

My T bolt, and hopefully my Corsair, are head and shoulders better than I ever could have done toiling in my garage.  The internet is many things, but it has really helped me be a better modeler. 

 

Thanks for your threads.  You aren't the only one who does this, but thank you. 

Thanks Bill!  I also give lots of credit to the internet for my development as a modeler.  Especially, in this message board format.  It hits a sweet spot for me in terms of access and participation.  Much more so than social media or Youtube.  My build posts are personal journals recording a build process that I can go back and refer to and I often do go through my own build threads to track my development and try to improve.  So... in addition to getting information from other posts, the act of posting my builds here makes me a better modeler.  And if that is useful to other modelers... even better!

 

 

1 hour ago, Woody V said:

 

Well, that settles it. As much love as I have for the 190 I won't be doing this one. I'll just have to settle for my bad memories building the Revell and Hasegawa offerings. Without a doubt a kit to gush over in every way except one. 

Is it the size difference?

 

Some paint mule stuff to report on...  The exterior colors of RLM 70 Black Green, RLM 71 Dark Green and RLM 76 Light Blue will be Mr Hobby Aqueous colors (H65, H64 and H417).  Since there are no aftermarket decals available, the major markings will be painted with masks.  Markings with narrow borders are very tricky to do so I wanted to test out the tail swastika and double chevron markings.  

 

There are a couple of ways to do shapes with a narrow border around it... one is to print the complete marking on a single mask.  Using it would involve manipulating the thin border as a mask itself and this gets harder as the border gets narrower.  The other way to do it is to print two masks, outer shape and inner shape and this is how I chose to test out the markings.  The larger mask is placed on the model and the outer border color is sprayed first (in this case, being white).  The mask is then removed and the second inner mask is carefully placed, trying to maintain a consistent border around the shape.  Once the mask is in place, the black is sprayed.

 

 

I've also been trying to create a paint mask for the spinner.  All of the existing scans that I have of 1/32 Dora spinner spirals did not work for me.  Nowotny's 190 had a spiral that was restricted to the front half of the spiral.  Based on the comparative shapes, I guessed that a 1/48 scale spiral for the Bf109 might work and so I found a scan of a likely looking 1/32 Bf109 spiral and scaled it to 1/48 scale.  The mask was applied after a base coat of yellow was applied to the spinner.

 

 

The spiral turned out ok but with a minor but noticeable spot of paint leak.

 

 

I prefer to make these micro corrections using an airbrush, even though it takes extra work.  Brush painting works for some situations but its hard to avoid leaving brush marks.  Doing it with an airbrush results in a seamless repair.  For a curved edge, I cut a curve onto a piece of Tamiya tape and fit that piece along the corrected curve line.

 

 

Yellow is one of the  more trickier colors to repair due to its lack of opacity so I took the extra step of covering the black with a base of white before spraying on the yellow.

 

 

The spinner spiral is one of the visual focal points of any Luftwaffe fighter so it is worthwhile to remove any distracting paint imperfections.

 

[BlackCanopy]

17 hours ago, Thunnus said:

I think it is correct but will double/triple check before I set anything to glue.  Exhaust pipes should sweep downward and not not upward.  An early test build showed the exhausts sweeping upward incorrectly...

 

Dear John

 

I don't wanna flog dead horses here (;-), just mentioning that my previous comment referred to the specific picture quoted there (with the engine mount dryfitted upside down).

 

At the time, I was still ignorant of your further updates, where everything is indeed correctly placed....  I also think, all of this is only worth mentioning for the benefit of other modelers, because the construction of the kit allows the wrong placement of the engine mount in the first place...

 

Cheers, Joerg

[Thunnus]

12 minutes ago, BlackCanopy said:

 

Dear John

 

I don't wanna flog dead horses here (;-), just mentioning that my previous comment referred to the specific picture quoted there (with the engine mount dryfitted upside down).

 

At the time, I was still ignorant of your further updates, where everything is indeed correctly placed....  I also think, all of this is only worth mentioning for the benefit of other modelers, because the construction of the kit allows the wrong placement of the engine mount in the first place...

 

Cheers, Joerg

 

Ahhh... now I understand what you meant.  You are absolutely correct sir!

 

In this earlier photo prior to the placement of the exhaust pipes, the hexagonal engine mount is indeed incorrectly placed.  It is upside down.

 

In this photo, after the exhaust pipes were put into place, we can see the hexagonal engine mount in the correct position.

[Woody V]

16 hours ago, Thunnus said:

one is to print the complete marking on a single mask.  Using it would involve manipulating the thin border as a mask itself and this gets harder as the border gets narrower.

 

If I may, use this method. Put the black down first, then the white outline. This way you don't have to reposition the flimsy outline mask. It's also a good idea to "key" the location of the black mask so you put it back in the exact same orientation. As perfect as it may appear even the slightest dimensional error will become an issue when you try to fit it back in place. At least that's my experience.

[H14B]

As was mentioned before. The detail on that BMW 801 engine is absolutely amazing and crisp.

[MikeMaben]

 

    Hello H 

[Thunnus]

Thank you for comments guys!

 

Back to work on the Border Anton...  the rest of the black has been painted on Nowotny's spinner.

 

 

After a light flat coat...

 

 

Some minor body work was performed by filling in the erroneous rivets on the panel around the horizontal stabilizers.

 

 

The engine components have been given a base coat of black.

 

 

I printed out the instructions for the Eduard Brassin 1/32 Fw 190A-8 engine as a painting guide since the Border instructions offer NO color callouts of any kind.  Looking at the Eduard resin parts gave me a feeling of deja vu (especially parts R61, R62, R63, R64 and the exhaust tips).  I have sneaking suspicion that Border got a lot of "inspiration" from the Eduard resin.

 

 

Jumping over to the cockpit for a while, I took a look at the 2-part instrument panel.  The rear lower panel is designed to fit onto the cockpit tub while the upper panel is supposed to be glued into the fuselage, under the hood.  I thought it would be much simpler if the 2 instrument parts be kept together so I fashioned a spacer out of sheet styrene so that the IP would become one unit.  I also thinned the backrest of the pilot seat at this stage.

 

 

Checking to make sure that the upper instrument panel is in the correct position.  I purposely sized the spacer so that it pushes the upper instrument panel further out to make it more visible from the outside.

 

 

The instrument panels are given a coat of RLM 66 Dark Grey (Mr Hobby Aqueous).  Instrument bezels and panels were picked out in black.

 

 

The kit-supplied decals for the instrument panel lack the resolution of Airscale and are noticeably out of register. But the scale difference between 1/35 and 1/32 rendered most of the Airscale instruments unusable for the Border panel.

 

 

I got the Airscale artificial horizon to fit but otherwise had to use the kit decals for the upper panel.  Punching the instruments out individually helped correct the registration errors.

 

[MDriskill]

This is a great thread - this old 190 nut is very much looking forward to more! A very interesting kit indeed.

 

Possibly utterly irrelevant given the stated goals for the build, but FWIW here is Arthur Bentley's classic drawing of the outer gun access panel variations:

 

 

+ The kit looks like a perfect A-6 panel 

+ The A-5 panel was narrower, slightly longer, and with a pronounced rounded bulge for the MG FF's ammo drum

+ The A-8 panel had one corner slightly extended from the A-6 version (circled), so that two different guns could be fitted

 

When the A-5's outer gun was omitted, the "flattened" version of the panel still had a minor bulge, as on the A-5 in Seattle (looking at the Nowotny photo, I think I see this). All these panels had minor variations over time and between suppiers...you will notice this photo differs from the drawing in a couple of details.

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by MDriskill