Fw 190 Butcher Bird 2013 (extended to June 2014) Group Build

Good luck Clemens. I have hopes for you, but I have read and seen wip of the Qickboost cowl and gun covers and they don't fit well at all. Hope you have better luck.

Some progress to report. I know Eduard kits have a horrible reputation and deservedly so in most cases. I have built a few including the most notorious of them all - the ME 110 C/D and that kit was a nightmare to end all nightmares but having said that I defy anyone to show me a more accurate, a more detailed or a better presented kit than an Eduard kit. When eventually, and properly completed they just so look the part, more so than any other in my opinion.

All this brings me to my point so far, about this kit. Up to this point I must admit that I have not experienced any problems with fitting. The only smallish problem was with the gun cowling, that required a bit of effort to get in place but in fairness that's mainly due to the fact that because it was always going to be closed anyway, i have not put any of the bits in there and my take on all their opening panels is that the folk at Eduard have decided that because they offer all those lovely little detailed bits, you have to show them and therefore they make it very difficult to close the panels up!

Anyway back to the kit so up to here, I am very chuffed....

I have dry fitted the lower wing section and again the fit is damn near perfect! So tonight i'll strap the upper wing sections to the lower one and dry fit again to see if that perfection is still true. This brings me to one very important lesson I learned early with ED kits: It's not enough to dry fit what you are busy with, go a step or even two further each time because what you make fit now may cause something down the line not to fit. So before you start hacking or adding to parts after a dry fit - just take the time to check the next piece as well.

Luckily the panel is hardly noticeable under the IP visor and once it's wrapped up under the canopy, so only because of that I decided not to rip everything out and put in a proper IP. So please check this in future before you opt to use this decal. Other than that we march on...

CLEMENS - sorry to see the problems you are having with those gun hatches - i am dreading that bit on my kit and it's very close to that time.....be interesting to see how those QB efforts match up.

Good grief JJ! Thats alot of progress to start off with. I hear ya on the color of that IP!! I used the color PE set for my A-9 and it didn't seem that far off. You're definitely off to a good start man!

Hey fellas. Small update here. Got the fuselage and wing assy pre-shaded here:

the rudder control surface installed here and have ALOT of work to do:

and the "lot of work to do" completed for a more suitable fit.

Hey Joe is that just my eyesight or is that one of the worst fitting rudders i've seen in a long time?

Terrible fit but it's due to all the "guts" in the vertical fin and the fact that I had to cut the existing rudder off of the Tamiya fuselage. Believe me, I took as much material off of the inside of the vertical fin and the interior of the AM bay as I could before assembling the halves!! (almost too much at that-I had the verticla fin almost paper thin in a couple of places!)

DAMN, good luck with the fix Joe.

Nice work Mustang!

JJ- Looks good so far. I do wish Eduard could just mold a nice plastic instrument panel, with dials molded on it so a guy could just dry brush and hand paint it. That would look way nicer than that cartoon of a decal. Yeah they give you nice pe but then skimp on a few other details. 

That's some great progres in such a short time, JJ!

I agree on those Eduard IP decals being a bad joke. I painted the IPs on my Hasegawa 190s and used their Decals for the Eduard weekend 190s... They are not perfect, but they fit the eduard IPs well enough...

Joe: That rudder fit looks like a tough repair job, but I'm sure you can get it right! Everything else looks awesome!

Nathan: Thanks for the wrning! I ordered a set of gun covers anyway. I need a replacement and they are relatively cheap. I didn't buy the cowling though...

Very much appreciating all these great update pics and info. So very helpful!

Hey guys, I know it's completely off-topic (please don't yell at me ), but look what I picked up at the post office today:

It's the Aires P-47D engine set (1/32). I've never seen an AM set with such a huge amount of details in person:

All of the Resin bits are packed in 4 plastic bags:

And just a few close-ups:

There are also some PE parts included for those extra tiny details:

I have a question regarding this AM set though: What's the best way to paint this pile of resin goodness? I thought about Alclad for all the metal areas, but I'm not sure if it will stick to the resin (I don't really want to use primer because of the texture)...

Cheers, Clemens

Wow! Thats a model all in itself. If you primed with really thin Mr. Surfacer 1200 or 1500, it will go on baby smooth. Otherwise, just clean it real good, any paint should stick fine. Its not like you're gonna mask anywhere on an engine.

BTW- A little texture might look good on a crankcase or engine cylinder heads?? Or basically anything made out of Magnesium?

Thanks guys. I actually got it about as straightened out as I could given the fact that if I took any more off of the very top I would have made it look totally out of place. The rest of it I got within "specs" so I don't feel terrible about it. My new plan for that is distraction from the tail to the rest of the bird. I feel like I can pull it off fairly decent. We'll see.

Well as for the paint job we'll get started with a little 75/82 action here:

The dang rudder kicked my tail some (no pun intended) but I'm going to throw everything I've got at the paint and the open access panel detail on this thing to try to counter that mishap. Got too much invested in it now to turn back! And another shot;

Nice camo Joe. Rudder looks right on from here!

Top class fix on the rudder Joe, paint work looking just as good - love seeing the colour starting to go on a model.

Thanks Nathan and JJ! I masked off the demarcation lines with silly putty which is why you see that nasty ring on the gray side of the camo at the border. This will "go away" soon!

Here's a quick update fellas. I painted the tops of the elevators as well. Here's the first pic:

Everything looks as it should EXCEPT for that little foul up in the middle of the RLM 82 color. Don't let this happen to you. I pre-shaded this paint job and in doing so I labeled the demarcation lines and colors with a pencil.  Zoom in a little bit and you'll see a big fat number 82 in pencil in the middle of the RLM 82 color!  I got the paint on thin enough alright! Well its back in the paint shop for another coat and here's the result after that:

 ..............and here's after another light coat.

Much better! Boy am I glad I looked at that a little closer. That would have bugged the crap out of me to find that later.  

Looking great Joe! Getting closer to the finish line with this one!

Well here's a update on my Airfix 1/72 fw 190.   I seem to be only able to get things done between 11pm and 1am.  but anyway here's the mottling I did on it last night/this morning.

and the stencil I used.

can't wait to try this on the larger one.

John

That is cool looking mottle in a very small space !

Damn fine mottling indeed, often thought of doing a stencil, how did you make the holes?

Just piece of card stock paper cut to fit the area I want to cover then I used the pointy end of a compass to poke holes in it and wiggle them around a little to misshapen the holes so they kinda match the side view drawing.

John

Boy, there just continues to be some fantastic progress on here. Great stuff gentlemen.

Joe: Although it is unfortunate regarding your rudder it appears that your solution will work out fine. The technique of distraction definitely has its merits when other options have been exhausted. You've done some really beautiful work on that Tamiya.

John: Super mottling on your 1/72. Your template was a great idea and worked magnificently. Very nicely done.

J.J.: Regardless of the Eduard shortcomings I have to say you doing an excellent job of overcoming them. Kudos.

Clemens: Hey there Buddy! I certainly hope your attempts to remedy the gun bay door issue meets with success. You got it. I know you do. And regarding that 1/32 P-47 engine, HOLY MACKEREL!!!!! That thing is absolutely awesome!

I realize I have not been overly active with my 190 here lately. I been distracted with just simple life things and some other activities but, I'll be getting something up for you all soon.

Joe, man you are really moving along! Thanks for all the tips along the way, looking really good.

John, stenciling for mottling a new concept to me. Cool! Looks great, and thanks for showing and explaining you stencils!

JJ, you should be pumped, the fits all look great. Your test-fitting ahead tip is spot on, and as I progress with my first Eduard, can only hope I am test fitting far enough ahead. Already kinda blew it once, trying to be more careful but you know how it goes, cannot test fit the whole darned kit ahead of time! :)

Clemens, that Aires powerplant looks amazing. Wow, the detail. Sure hope you post some pics whenever you get around to this beautiful bit of kit.

I have a bottle of Mr Resin Primer that I haven't tried yet. I've used Vallejo black primer so far on my first bits of resin, seems to adhere fine far as I can tell and I like how neat and thin it sprays on. But having touched my first resin about 2 months ago, my 2 cents not worth much here.

handi:Thanks for the good comments buddy!

John:That is some awesome camo. Especially for 72nd scale stencil or not!!

Joe Rix:Thank you for the vote of confidence. I feel fairly decent about the tail but I will be redoubling my efforts to work around what I consider to be the "weak" part of this model.

Doug:Thanks for your comments too! Can't wait to see that Staffel completed! LOL

Got the wings on now and the lower section fit like a dream......

Not an insurmountable problem but it will take some work, i suspect my headachs will start when I dry fit those gun panels however.

Thats about how mine looked when I built my A8/ R2 here. I know you have the wings on already so this information here is for the next time you build one of these bad boys. The folks here that I've seen build any of the Eduard 190 line up have been sticking a piece of sprue between the fuselage halves to spread it out so that the gap is minimal. Your's looks surprisingly good in comparison to some I've seen here and abroad though.

 It does look like you are making a helluva dent in the progress department and it's looking good all the way JJ!

Looks real nice JJ. And yes, your headaches will start now...