My rendition of Fw 190D-9 Black 4 from II./JG 301 is now complete.
The research project was as involved as the build itself. I used a number of references including Jerry Crandall's Dora books, Smith & Creek's Focke Wulf books and various articles and references on the web to try to make sense of the plane details, history, color schemes, markings, etc.
Black 4 (W.Nr. 500576) was found at Wunsdorf airfield when the British 6th Airborne Division captured the Luftwaffe airbase on 8 April 1945. The pilot is unknown. The aircraft was manufactured at the Mimetall factory near Erfurt and apparently sports camoflage typical of aircraft from this factory. I found a number of different interpretations of the exact colors and patterns but from what I was able to piece together, the basic scheme is as follows:
- Underside: RLM 81 on the forward part of the wings, natural metal aft of the landing gear bays, RLM 76 ailerons.
- Fuselage: RLM 76 blue green, RLM 81 on the spine from the nose to tail with areas of RLM 82 applied. Mottles on the tail.
- Upper wings: RLM 81 and 76 camo pattern.
I used the profile from Jerry Crandall's book, the Eagle Cals #124 profile and other references to create my hybrid camo pattern. I mostly followed the profile in Jerry Crandall's book. There are a few photos of Black 4 in pieces, without a complete view of the assembled aircraft. Detailed analyses of the well-documented Blue 12 from JG 6, which has a Wk. Nr. only 6 units before my subject, was also helpful.
As for the build, I added the following goodies:
- Brass tubing for the 20mm cannons and pitot tube.
- Hollowed out ends of the exhaust tips and MGs
- Spare PE and parts for the lower antennas, landing gear indicators, hinges for cannon bay doors, exhaust deflector, wing support plates
- Stretched sprue for the main antenna cable.
- Eduard seat belts.
- Eagle Cals #124 - worked very well.
- Landing gear struts from the spares box - the kit parts were molded horribly.
- Scratch built the ETC rack braces and added some panel line detail
- Wheels from the spares box - the kit wheels looked a little narrow.
This is the third 1/48 Eduard Dora I've built and it was not any easier than the first two. This is a kit that fights you at every step. It's designed to be completed with open covers for the MGs and cannons -- closing the covers is not straightforward. Every part seems to be a project in itself, unlike the Tamiya kits that fall together. That being said, I think the end result with the added goodies is a reasonable representation.
For main camo, I used Mr. Color paints exclusively. RLM 76 and RLM 82 were from the bottle. My ultimate version of RLM 81 Brown-violet was 5 parts Mr. Color RLM 81 and 2 parts Red Brown. The fuselage RLM 76 blue green was Mr. Color Duck Egg Green mixed 1:1 with Flat white. Of course extensive fading and shading was done for all colors. I primed with Mr. Surfacer 1500.
The spinner was painted on -- I tried several decals from different sheets but was unsuccessful.
Decals were great - no issues with the Eagle Cals (except for the spinner, which was most likely operator error).
Mr. Color GX100 was used for the gloss coat -- great stuff.
Flory washes of various colors were used for the panel lines and rivets -- Dark Dirt for RLM 82, Black/Dark Dirt for RLM 81 and gray for RLM 76.
For the camo masking, I used paper cut out pattern with small tape rolls for the wings and white-tack rolls for the fuselage. Mottling was all free hand.
Chips and scratches were applied with a combination of paint and colored pencil. A thin, black-brown mix was applied to most of the panel lines, especially near the engine and control surfaces. The exhaust pattern was slowly built up with brown and black, carefully following reference photos.
The cannons and MGs were painted with Mr. Color Dark Iron and buffed.
The final flat coat was Model Master Flat Clear Lacquer.
All-in-all, the centerpiece of this project is the unique and interesting camo and marking scheme. Plowing through Edward's kit to get to the painting phase was a little tedious but I'm happy with the final result. Thanks for following along!
