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

Nathan, thanks. This is the first time i have used PE flaps, i was surprised at how easy the were to do. Do you mean the two bumps where the guns emerge from the fuselage. There should be two bumps there, but i think these are a bit to big. The guns, which were molded in, did seem rather large. I have removed them to replace with metal barrels. I'm going to check my photo's and sand those blisters down a bit.

And thanks to everyone else. I think most of the detailing is done on this now. Just the other half of the flaps and the undercarrage legs to finish of.

Ok folks. I managed to get the fuselage attached to the lower wing Something was off kilter with the two mating up. Honestly I really feel strongly that the lower wing was much more warped than originally thought but..........I made it work. I glued the front of the fuselage to the lower wing and then tweeked it around to make the lower wing fit properly to the fuselage at the rear of the wing/fuselage area. This resulted in the rear part of the lower wing(that is actually part of the lower fuselage) sticking out on the L/H side resulting in a "lip" on the L/H side which I removed plastic until flush. That done I installed the upper wings. Well as many of you know the work was not finished with tweeking. The R/H wing fit too snug and the L/H wing too loose. It was a simple matter of tweeking on the R/H wing but the L/H wing need filler between the fuseage and the rear part of the upper wing. So I made that work too.

 Now its a matter of cutting up wing cannon access covers (in which I have 2 extras for each side) to mask off the cannon bays so I can prime and paint the exterior. Got the R/H side done and will be moving on the L/H side tomorrow, then masking off the canopy as well as the engine/ cowl gun bay area.

Here is what I have so far fellas:(still playing with the camera lighting so bear with me)

Still have to put the rest of the photo etch and wire harness detail in the cannon bay but will be doing that after the exterior is done. The set up for the masking has a tendancy to break the photo etch detail loose after gluing in my experience (and with my luck!!!!!!!).

Joe, I am marveling at your patience and ingenuity to save your 190. I believe many folks would have long since given up on that but, you are demonstrating that if you simply take your time and give it an honest effort (coupled with a healthy dose of stubbornness) that any ill begotten model can be overcome. You are doing an excellent job on your bird Joe, and it appears you are about through the worst of it.

I glued my fuselage halves together yesterday and the seams required just a little touch of Mr. Surfacer 500. Fitting my wings on, which is very tight, I too have a small step on the port side. I will address that in short order. Gluing in of the cockpit is in store today. Bench time has slowed a bit as we are breaking out of a very unusually cold winter for here finally and with the temps in the 50s I am not resisting getting outside and enjoying some fresh air and sun.

Nice Mustang. Could never tell by the pics that you're having so much trouble with fit, everything looks so clean. Hope the engine and engine mount fit well for you.

Joe Rix, 50s?? I long for 30s...haha. I still have 1.5 months of good bench time due to us still being deep into winter up in Minnesota.

I've got all my main painting done. I did some fading with the airbrush on the top colors, and will shoot a gloss coat within a day or two. I still have wheels and a few small bits to paint up.

Is there place for another entry? If so I would like to enter with Special Hobby's 1/48 A-6. I can only start building in May however.

I am sure there is plenty of room jug!!

Mustang, looks like we are at about the same point. I just finished gluing the upper wings halves down. I too had a bit of a gap and some overhang on the rear fuse section of the lower wing when dry fitting but I solved this with s small spreader bar underneath the rear deck of the cockpit.

There is still some small gap there but nothing at all like what it was before the spreader. Seems like the front of the pit floor does a good job of keeping the fuse open enough up front but in the rear there is nothing. 

Looks like those seams on the lower ammo chutes will be visible after all, should be an easy fix though.

Also, after gluing the fuse havles together, it seems there is a bit of a twist back towards the narrow part of the fuse. You can kind see it here in this pic. Not sure if its my eyes playing tricks on me or what but looks like it bends to the left in the pic a bit.

Looking good there Mustang. Are the cannon bays a part of the AM set your useing.

Eric, some nice progress there to. I see your has open gun bays as well. Will you be leaving those open.

Thanks Bish! I was originally going to open the cowlings up on this one but as you can see I decided against it and hacked off the cowling mg mounts and opened up the bays on the wings to accept the panels closed. Fairing in the closed wing panels is going to be a blast

Jester75

Also, after gluing the fuse havles together, it seems there is a bit of a twist back towards the narrow part of the fuse. You can kind see it here in this pic. Not sure if its my eyes playing tricks on me or what but looks like it bends to the left in the pic a bit.

Whew!!! The tail fin is as straight as an arrow. Thanks for the heads up anyhow on that Jester!!

I reckon I've had the kit for about a year or so but its always been in a climate controlled environment so I am pretty sure it came from the factory this way.

Eric - you're looking good so far. Certainly some nice detail work. Alright, you and Joe have got me about curious enough to break into my Eduard 1/48 FW 190 A-8 and give it the once over for warpage. I've had mine for just about 2 yrs but, I've kept it inside the house neatly stacked. i'll get back to you on that. 

Welcome to the GB  jugjunkie, Another Butcher Bird is certainly welcome. Especially a Special Hobby as I'm rather unfamiliar with their kits and I'm curious to see how the quality of those are.

Jester75

I reckon I've had the kit for about a year or so but its always been in a climate controlled environment so I am pretty sure it came from the factory this way.

Man... You guys talking about your malfitting parts, and warpage... I gotta show you this... It has nothing what soever to do with this build, But I have to finish this befor I can start another 190. I have a Bf109E-3 (Matchbox) and by the molding stamp it apears to be 37 yrs old. I have been bragging about how well detailed and what little trouble I've had with fit. The only thing I've had to do is use some BIC correction fluid (white out) to fill some very slight gaps.... UNTIL... The canopy. I dont know if the desiginer or the tool maker or both were drunk or high, but talk about a mess! There was a 3/32 gap between the back section (all 3 pieces assy), and from the base (top of fuselage) and the top of canopy. I had to add in a 3/32 spacer to the gun cowling to the face of the front section (wildscreen) and at the area you might think of as the arm rest area of the fuselage. A bit of file work on the rear canopy mount and some at the base of the center section and now it fits like a glove. Every where you see the white is the styrene strips I had to add in. Like I said, it had to  be raised up and shifted back that far to get it to fit. At first I thought maybe the wrong canopy shot had been added, so I bought a vac-u-formed canopy at the LHS, but it fit the same! Oh well, problem solved and the build continues. I'm glad you all are finding solutions to your woes too. Take care...

Doug

mustang1989

Ya like tea???

Ok, I quite literally lol'd at that one!!

Wow,  what a shim! Looks like you kicked it in the rear though.

NIce work there Doug. Sometimes it takes a little imagination and "presto" the problem is solved.

jugjunkie

Is there place for another entry? If so I would like to enter with Special Hobby's 1/48 A-6. I can only start building in May however.

I thought about building the Airfix kit OOB but decided to go with some aftermarket sets which I just placed an order with Sprue Brothers. Been researching detailed photos of the FW on line, will be a coin toss if I want to put in the time and effort to detail the engine but it's tempting. Still need to figure out how to overcome the reported kit issue of the 5mm protusion of the fan from the cowling. Been putting together a few of the sub-assemblies and cleaning up the excessive flash.

Scott

Jester75

mustang1989

Ya like tea???

Ok, I quite literally lol'd at that one!!

Archangel: Lookin forward to seeing this big beast being built. I built a Trumpy 24th scale 109 last year and it turned out decent. Good thing about those big kits is they already have alot of extra detail and usually the AM world capitalizes on that. This fan issue I have to see though. There's definetely a way around that.

Eric,

Looks like you are coming along nicely.  I think that the misallignment is a theme with the eudard kits.  I have ran into almost the exact same problem.  Unfortunately, i falied to snap any pics like you did to show the what and how.

Good job fixing those pesky wing root seams.  How are you planning on trueing up the fuselage?  (I haven't had the guts to look at mine yet).

I reallly am enjoying seeing and learning from all these builds!!!  Pics will follow soon from me, but I can report that the wings are on the Ta-152 they went on without much difficulty.  My Eduard D9 however, has been showing me each and every minor mis-allignment along the way, and it took the better part of three hours of sanding, trimming, sanding, test fitting to get the upper wings placed on.  I chose to ensure allingment along the wing root in favor of the leading edge (there is about a .5 to 1mm overhang from the wing bottom that I will have to blend in.), but there is little to no visible seam at the wing root.  This is good since I am planning on showing the wing gun bays open and didnt want to fight with putty around there.

I have also preshaded the panel lines on both, and applied the RLM 84 to the inderside of the 152.  Will attempt to snap a couple of pictures and post them up.

Matt

Matt, are you building the 1 48 dragon kit? I have those pics of white 11 for the d-9, but you changed your scheme didn't you? Just PM me if you still want them.

Here are some of the WIP pictures that I have snapped.  First you will see the Ta 152 with the wings and stabilizers on. Only minor fit issues on this, mainly around the leading edge root.

Not sure why but I never took any shots of the underside of the bird.

Next is the Fw 190D-9 (with the large tail) that I am building along side the 152, On this one I ran into some fit issues.  Although I had been using the fuselage sides as guides in fitting the mg mounts and engine bay details, I still ended up with a slight mis alligment at the top. 

 I also am going to have the wing root MG bays open, and I believe that those are slightly misalligned as I had to file the front walls almost to the thickness of paper.  Even with this I needed to trim the tabs that slid under the leading edge root

Here is a shot that shows the overhang that I will have to fix next.  I have no idea why this happened, but at least it was uniform on each wing. And I have no gaps at the wing fuselage joint.

Here is an overhead shot of the two birds side by side. The photos of the Ta 152 that we have all seen on the internet dont do any justice to the size.  It truely is Dora's big brother.

thanks for looking.\\

Matt

Excellent work there Matt - i sure am enjoying this GB even though I haven't even started yet.

Good work Matt! Really good. Holy Shmokes on the wing lip! I didn't have that fit issue! I had the exact same situation happening at the rear of the lower wing to fuselage joint where the lower wing is actually part of the fuselage. A few backwards strokes from the back of the ol Xacto blade and some sandpaper and it was gone. Both of yours are coming along nicely.

This morning I'm still working on the engine cover build up. Hopefully I'll have it built by tonight or early tomorrow morning ready to install then its off to the landing gear panels to cover up the landing gear bay. Hopefully I'll be laying primer by the last part of the week!

Nice shots Matt. I like seeing the two long-noses side by side. Makes me want to build another Dragon kit. How bad were the wingtips warped on the Ta 152? It looks from the photos that the bottom wing half on the Dora needed to slide back just a tad? Or wasn't' this possible? You got the important part(the wing roots) sorted out though. Nice job.

Mustang, are you sick of PE yet?

I got the A-8 gloss coated and I found a paint touch up I need to do on the A-4. So with each step forward I take a small one backwards...