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

Now to let the paint cure out for a couple of days in anticipation for the gloss coat. Looks like I'll be turning my attention the the engine in the interum.

Joe - Marvelous work on the mottling and defense band. See, you can do it.

And just so Joe there doesn't get overly agitated here is a pic of the biggest accomplishment I've made amidst family visiting for the past 2 weeks, working extra hours and prioritizing yard care. Yup, I glued the lens on my gun sight using Testors clear glue. I should be moving along here a bit more though which will be nice indeed.

Oh Yeah, and this what happens when deviled egg peeps go bad,

Hey, you wanted pics Joe. Hope you all had a grand Easter.

Holy Schmokes. On one hand I want say great job on the 190 and the other laugh my a^^ off at the second pic. Good to see some progress there good buddy.

ROTFLMFAO !!!! Now that theres funny!

LOL!! How long after the bite till you turn into a deviled egg peep Joe?

Peep Zombie...LOLOLOLOLO The walking Peeps!   LOLOL

4 hours of bench time lost due to time spent in ER from injuries. No Yoke.

Youre a ham Joe. Gotta say that post was worth a laugh..............................or two!

Glad to provide some eggscitement.

Well hell. I got started on the engiine a little more last night and cannot believe I overlooked all the flash on each engine row....and theres alot of it! The steel color I applied shows it all very obviously. It stands out like a green thumb. So...............I started over since I know have three sets of these things by cutting another set from the sprues and removing flash last night. I've got one pretty well done and will work on the other one tonight.

The puns Joe.....the puns.

OK, OK. Omletteing up on the puns.

Ok this morning I finished removing all of the flash from engines that I cut from the sprue yesterday and got a coat of steel painted on. I also applied my gloss coat on the plane this morning. Will be working on the engine for the next two days while the gloss coat is curing out.

Pics man, pics! What gloss did you use?

Easy easy easy!! lol.  I should be able to post pictures by this weekend. As for the gloss I used MM acrylic gloss coat. It turned out really well. Better than my 109 on that part. I upped the pressure to around 30 psi and thinned it down a bit. Went on like it was meant to be. No visible change that pics will be able to show from the last pic of the fuselage. Should be ready to start decaling by Saturday morning for sure. The engine...well let me get a wash on there and I'll post a pic of that pretty soon.

Joe, Good progress. What did you use to thin the MM acryl gloss coat with?

Alright, It isn't much and it isn't that good but here's a pic of the completed gun sight. I added the second tinted lense which I painted with Tamiya smoke to get the tinted effect. Hey Joe, I posted another pic. hint, hint.

That turned out great Joe! Again hats off to the 72nd scale crowd. You are better men than me. Great job!

As for my pics since I keep getting hammered about pics, I decided to start decaling this morning. Oh by the way I thinned the clear coat with MM Universal Acrylic Thinner. Anyhows , heres the pic:

Rix, nice looking gun sight. Good tip on using the smoke color to tint. And yeah, I have a pain with those in 48 scale.

Mustang, now thats what I'm talking about! Nice mottle work. She looks good with a smooth glosscoat and decals. No mottle on the cowl though on this bird? Replacement maybe?

Thanks Nathan. Yeah the panels you see here are only here for "masking purposes". These will be coming off and the photoetch pieces will replace them. Cowls and panels open baby!!

PE cowling panels too huh? Wow, that will look sweet.

Thats what I'm banking on. Aint made it there yet so we'll see how it turns out. I'm happy so far though.

Looking good Brother Joe! Really starting to come alive now...

Joe, you've got her coming along beautifully.

Thanks guys for the comments. Didn't do anything to it this morning. Just didn't have the pizzazz to get up. Been getting up at 3:30 in the a.m. to get the big work done (gloss coat and decals) so took a break. Tomorrow will see the stenciling completed. It would be nice to be afforded the opportunity to do that tonight so I can gloss again on Monday morning. We'll see how it goes.

That gunsight looks sharp Joe!!

Looking good as well mustang! I'm interested in seeing how those open panels turn out! You said they are PE panels?

Thanks for the adda boy there Eric. Yes siree bob! They are in fact photo etch engine panels.. I couldn't believe it either. It'll be a nice twist.

Firstly, Thank You all for the for the kind feedback on my gun sight.

Now, It is time to liven up this GB with something to ponder and discuss. What I have for you is two different interpretations of the camo pattern colors for the particular aircraft I am building. One is from the decal set that I have. The other is from a website that has a picture of the aircraft (the only one I have found) and their take on the colors and pattern. This particular FW 190 F-8 of III/S.G.3 was flown out the Courland Pocket, Latvia to Sweden with 3 men on board where they crash landed in fairly good shape.

Here is the photo of the crash landed plane

Here is the websites interpretation of colors. It states that the "large blotches" are RLM 75/83 yet does not callout the light gray main color.

And here is the Authentic Decals set's interpretation which, is the one I am going to build regardless just simply because I like it more. It too calls out for the 75/83 blotches but, also calls out RLM 84 for the other fuselage color.

So, to me here's the catch. In my research there seems to be two takes on RLM 84 as there really is no official RLM 84. One is of a light gray and the other is the blue/green similar to the decal sheet. The blue/green shade is supported by Stockholm IPMS and Ken Merrick's Luftwaffe Camouflage book. Now, understanding the difficulty interpreting color from B/W photos, what is your take on the color and the differences? The floor is open.  

Joe,

I'm with you on the blue/green (looks similar to Sky Type S). The light grey (RLM 84?) might be (to my thinking) "lighter" in the photo than what it appears, so that's the reason I go with you.  PC game artists don't always get the paint schemes right.    Too bad we can't see the underside.

My $1's worth of opinion.

Gary

Joe R. In the Model Master Acrylic color guide its listed and looks more along the line on the very pale blue green. But I can't find any referance to its use. The only thing I did see is the use of "primer grey" late in the war, which does have a close appearance to the 84. Interesting, Looking forward to seeing your pattern.

Doug (RR)

Wow Joe, great pic. Here's some real color pics of the grey-green 76 version to help you compare:

Lower fuselage below cockpit:

Here's a pic of a Dora (yellow 15) for black and white comparison believed to be in grey/green76 on the fuselage sides. Note the lighter contrast of the rudder still in original 76:

Looks like it would be almost impossible to tell in black and white unless you had some original 76 to compare the greener/darker shade to.