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

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...

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. 

DAMN, good luck with the fix Joe.

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!)

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

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.

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!

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.

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...

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.

Since I'm talking about my R2 already, i have a very minor update regarding that model:

It's actually a step back in construction. Some of you might remember that I had some problems with the gun bays at the wing roots. I wanted to display one of them opened up and the other one closed. After spraying a bit of left-over RLM 66 on those areas, I noticed that the closed gun bay looked horrible (I removed too much of the hatch when I tried to get it to fit and had tu fill a quite big gap - it didn't work out as expected) the other side looks ok, but it's not that great either. I decided to close both of them now and replace the damaged hatch:

I simply ripped the hatch off (there wasn't a huge area it was glued to anyway) and I'll remove the putty residue (light, rough edges) to prepare the area for one of these beauties:

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/QB48107

They are simple drop-fit replacements of the kit parts that don't involve surgery on the wings themselves. I chose to use them because I need a replacement for the damaged hatch and I can't really cut out the opening in the left wing required to use the kit parts now.

I'm also thinking of buying one of Qickboosts cowling while I'm at it. I'm curious on how they fit and they don't cost that much:

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/QB48117

I didn't make any progress (If you can call this "update" progress) otherwise. I wanted to continue with my 190s last week, but I had no time...

Cheers, Clemens

It's great to hear from you, buddy!

I just found out about the floor being to wide myself after Eric gave us all the hint about it looking too wide... I did some dry-fitting after i read it and the  cockpit floor on all my 190s is too large... My first 190 (A-8/R2) has the same problem yours has. Fortunately I'm going to display that one closed up, so it doesn't really matter in my case...

JJ, that is fine work there! Just awesome. Glad you posted that 'just before done' shot to show off the struts, they are very cool.

Glad you're starting another!

Joe, you are really moving along. Looking great, mate.

John, good to see you moving right along, looking good....

Clemens, where was your tip #3 'before' I joined my fuselage halves?? Good to see you back.

falconmod

I have a question for any Eduard FW190 experts out there.  I again opened up my eduard 190 last night and as usual it scared me to death.  Question, are all the eduard 190's pretty much the same molds?  or are some of them different?  ie:(less parts)

John

Same plastic and PE, with a few parts either added or omitted per model number. If you're asking does one kit build better than another, the answer is no, they all build the same. 

Hey There John, Good to see you making some stout progress. Things are coming along quite nicely it appears. Great work indeed.

  Thanks for the info Clemens

John

The Doras have a few less parts, because there is no Engine included in the kit, but all of them have a very high parts count...

I have a question for any Eduard FW190 experts out there.  I again opened up my eduard 190 last night and as usual it scared me to death.  Question, are all the eduard 190's pretty much the same molds?  or are some of them different?  ie:(less parts)

John

Made some progress since I've been confined to the basement because of the -25 below zero outside.

got most of the painting done on the Airfix 1/72 fw190 just the mottling left and of course weathering.  the Dragon 190 I got the cowling attached, I forgot what a pain the Dragon cowling was to put on,  no real alignment pins or tabs or anything.  now the filling and sanding can begin.  Here's another shot of the Airfix model.

Hey JJ. I've got your Eduard entered in on the build roster.

Thanks handi! Can't wait to see your upcoming build. The high bar will just keep going!

Great looking work everyone!  The bar here is set very high,,, and just keeps getting higher!

Ok you all. Time for another photo shot session. Here we are all together:

Then masked off......

and then finally primed and ready to go.

Thank you all for kind comments - it is appreciated and thank you guys for the heads up on the Ed kit, all duly noted and filed as I get her underway. CHEERS

JJ... beautifully done! Fantastic paint wort you can do allthe resin and PE you want, but if the paint isnt right it was all done in vane. Again, well done sir!

Doug

J.J. : That is magnificent! You have really done a sweet build there. The camo looks fantastic and the weathering and detailing are an excellent compliment. Really glad to hear that you are to hang in there with us. I'm sure that the D-11 will be well served by your fine skills.

Just a short summary of the areas that need special attention on those Eduard 190s (feel free to correct me if I get something wrong):

The MG bulkhead pieces have to be aligned at a 93° angle. otherwise the bulkhead won't fit properly (this should be noted in the Dora instructions already though)

There might be a small gap at the rear of the wing roots. Don't fill anything here, just insert a spacer bar right behind the cockpit tub.

The cockpit floor is 1-2mm too wide at the very front. Just remove a bit of the platic on both sides to make the cockpit and the bulkhead fit at the same time.

That should be all of the important stuff...

JJ: That's one ace looking 190 there! Great work!

Joe: Looking really good so far! Keep 'em updates coming, mate!

I'm just about out the door for work but will get this bad boy posted in the intro post! Refer back to page 286 and print the precautions off (there are two separate ones ) that will surely help you with this build. There is also some commentary about the cockpit flooring on the last few pages to help you out as well. I'm looking forward to this one JJ. Glad your back in!!

Thank you for very kind words indeed Joe - much appreciated, yup you can expect another from me - this one....