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

[MDriskill]

And whilst I'm obsessing over details (and apologies for defiling one of your excellent photos ), here's a minor goof that's easy to fix. Though Border faithfully copied them from Arthur Bentley's famous drawings - experts much smarter than me have pointed out these two little hatches do not actually exist on any Fw 190 variant!

 

I'll let myself out...

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by MDriskill

[scvrobeson]

7 hours ago, MDriskill said:

Though Border faithfully copied them from Arthur Bentley's famous drawings

 

Gotta love intentional goofs on maps and drawings to prevent people stealing them

 

 

 

Matt 

[Thunnus]

On 9/1/2023 at 1:26 PM, MDriskill said:

Your painting is FABULOUS, and really pops things to life! I'd love to know more about the finish on guns, exhausts, and other engine bits - wow.

 

Very interesting shot of the kit's tail just above. The Fw 190's fin leading edge actually is surprisingly beefy at the base, but quickly tapers toward the top (Eduard's 1/72, and older 1st-gen 1/48, kits infamously missed the taper). Here are mediocre shots of a late Fw 190A fin (shot through display case glass) at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Note the aerial attachment post is actually wood.

 

 

Thank you for the photos! Here's the tail with the antenna mast thinned out.  I think it makes the tail section look less fat.

 

 

20 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

I was a little skeptical of your decision on 1/48 seat belts, but it really has paid off. They fit the seat extremely well.  What color did you use for the guns? It's a really great color match for them

 

 

 

Matt 

Thanks Matt!  Not much alternative so I'm glad it worked out.  The paint I used for the guns was Mr Metal Color Iron.  An interesting, buffable paint.  It sprays like flat charcoal but it can be buffed out to a lighter steel color.

 

 

9 hours ago, MDriskill said:

And whilst I'm obsessing over details (and apologies for defiling one of your excellent photos ), here's a minor goof that's easy to fix. Though Border faithfully copied them from Arthur Bentley's famous drawings - experts much smarter than me have pointed out these two little hatches do not actually exist on any Fw 190 variant!

 

I'll let myself out...

 

 

 

Thanks again for the correction... it should be an easy fix!

 

I also thinned the trailing edges of the rudder and the tab.

 

 

The instrument panel coaming has been cleaned up and painted.  I also added small half hoops of bent wire as attachment points for the shoulder harnesses.

 

 

I started painting the main gear legs.  The shiny oleo part was given a gloss black base and then Alclad Chrome. The high shine Alclad finishes do not like clear coats of any kind so I'll let this dry 24 hours before I mask it off.

 

 

This cockpit side of this bulkhead/firewall just ahead of the foot rests is left unpainted.  It will not be visible at all from the outside.

 

 

Here's what the inner wing gun components look like.  This too will be left upainted with the exception of the bottom, which you'll get a glimpse of through the ejection ports on the wing bottom.

 

 

The wheel well components have been painted.  These have a base of Alclad Steel and hairspray was used to chip the outer RLM 02 Green Grey.  Weathering was topped off with a pastel wash.

 

 

After painting of the components, the wheel well area can start to be assembled.  First is the rear wall, which also serves as a wing spar.

 

 

The cover hiding the engine (which is absent on the many Doras I've built) and a few other components are glued in.

 

 

Fit has been really, really good so far... impressed.  Here's what wheel well looks like with the upper wings taped into place.

 

[scvrobeson]

Yes, those Mr. Metal Color paints are pretty cool in what they do. They do look great on the guns.

 

This looks like a very nice kit, and your paint/construction are doing a wonderful job showing that off. Another one to be proud of. I'd been hoping that you'd do an early -190 for awhile now.

 

 

Matt 

[MikeMaben]

 

         

[MDriskill]

More lovely stuff! The marriage of kit parts with brass tubing for the MG 151's looks especially brilliant.

[BlackCanopy]

On 9/1/2023 at 7:55 PM, Thunnus said:

 

Just a quick question to this otherwise brilliantly painted section (if that's all right with you, John): I was under the impression, that the gun mounts plus the ammo feeds (adjacent to the guns) were actually painted black? Anybody in the know about this?

 

https://acesflyinghigh.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/under-the-cowl-of-the-flying-heritage-collection-fw-190a-5/

 

(My guess was, that the people who painstakingly restored the A-5 in the link were not doing this randomly, but who knows with this Luftwaffe stuff)

 

Cheers, Joerg

 

 

[Thunnus]

Thanks for the comments guys!

 

The two ficticious ports have been filled with black CA and Mr Primer Surfacer 1000.  A little more complicated than the typical panel fill because the ports were slightly raised.

 

 

Border has provided separate brake lines for the landing gear legs.  Very delicate and yes, I broke them both trying to clean the mold line from them.  But three positive attachment points made the repair fairly easy.

 

 

The landing gear legs were painted RLM 02 Green Gray and then given a pastel wash.

 

 

The one-piece propeller was also painted but yet to be weathered.

 

[MikeMaben]

 

 

hth

[Thunnus]

Thanks for the comments guys!  Great pics, Mike!  Probably enough variation to keep my gun colors as is.

 

I've deviated from the kit instructions and have glued on the wing tops.  The instructions would have you install the wing bottoms onto the fuselage and then the wing tops but I wanted to deal with the gun covers at the wing roots prior to attaching to the fuselage.

 

 

Fit, again, is very good and I was able to clean up the seams with very little filler.  And... the panel lines line up at the joint!

 

 

The gun covers have been glued into place.

 

 

A check to see if the clear parts fit ok. They do!

 

 

The clear parts are given a soak in Future.  I like to put them in a covered container to keep the dust off as the Future dries.  The paper towel on the bottom helps wick away any excess Future.

 

 

The cowling trailing edges at the exhausts are thick and need to be thinned down.

 

 

I modified the prop attachment using sections of telescoping brass tubing.  Instead of having to trap the prop axle at the front of the engine, the prop is now removable.  The brass tubing gives the prop some lateral rigidity so that it doesn't sag in place.

 

[MDriskill]

OK...one last annoying detail rant, LOL.

 

This kit seems impressively accurate - Border's team REALLY did their homework. But one small exception is the geometry around the nose guns (which, in their defense, is an eternal problem on other Fw 190 kits and published drawings). Take a look at this shot from the Aeroscale forum:

 

These pics (thanks Mr. Maben!) show the MG 17's fit on the early "short nose" variants, through the A-4. The muzzles protrude 9 inches or so (a guess on my part) beyond the access hatch, which had just a subtle hint of a swelling to clear each one:

 

 

On the A-5 and A-6, the nose was of course lengthened by moving engine forward about 6 inches. The engine also moved down slightly - following the general slope of the upper nose - but the MG 17's stayed in precisely the same place. As a result, much less of each muzzle protrudes, and a small blister at the front of the access hatch was required to clear them. It's a subtle thing, hard to see in many photos, but Arthur Bentley's drawings picked it up accurately:

 

 

 

This rather bizarre shot shows it best of all (plus we can see that some of these hatches were apparently cobbled together from earlier ones!):

 

Bottom line - referring back to the first pic, Border seems to have conflated gun details between variants. Either the MG 17's are mounted too far forward, or they are too long; we should see less muzzle, and those blisters, on the model. (Note, the real life MG 17 was 1175mm long = 33.6mm in 1/35 scale).

Edited September 5, 2023 by MDriskill

[SwissFighters]

5 hours ago, MDriskill said:

OK...one last annoying detail rant, LOL. I'm very impressed by the accuracy of this kit - outside of the doofus who put "Messerschmitt Fw 190" all over the instruction sheet (!), the Border team REALLY did some homework. But one small exception is the geometry around the nose guns...which seems an eternal problem on Fw 190 kits. Take a look at this shot from the Aeroscale forum:

 

These pics (thanks Mr. Maben) show the MG 17's fit on the early "short nose" variants, through the A-4. The muzzles protrude maybe 9 inches or so (a guess on my part) beyond the access hatch, which had just a subtle hint of a swelling to clear each one:

 

 

On the A-5 and A-6, the nose was of course lengthened by moving engine forward about 6 inches. The engine also moved down slightly - following the general slope of the upper nose - but the MG 17's stayed in precisely the same place. As a result, only about 3 inches of each muzzle protrudes, and a small blister at the front of the access hatch was required above each one. This is hard to see in many photos, but is there; and Arthur Bentley's drawings picked it up accurately:

 

 

 

This rather bizarre shot shows it best of all (and we see that some of these hatches were apparently cobbled together from earlier ones!):

 

Bottom line - referring back to the first pic, Border seems to have conflated gun details between variants. Either the MG 17's are mounted too far forward, or they are too long; we should see less muzzle, and those blisters, on the model. (Note - as a check, the real life MG 17 was 1175mm long, or 33.6mm in 1/35 scale).

Just out of interest, at what fuselage station where the 6 inches added? 

[Antonio Argudo]

 

Flying Heritage Collection FW-190A-5 before its restoration

[Antonio Argudo]

10 hours ago, SwissFighters said:

Just out of interest, at what fuselage station where the 6 inches added? 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Antonio Argudo

[Antonio Argudo]

A6 drawing plan, shows nozzle position