AIRCRAFT - "Prototypes and Paper Projects" Group Build - Still Open.

QUOTE: Originally posted by matrixone Painting the spinners on the plastic scale models is not so easy since it requires a steady hand and some skill to get it right.

I was afraid of that. Darn. Oh, well. At least I have some consolation that there is some slight room for error. All I can think is- light pencil line beforehand, small brush, and, like you said, a steady hand. But what worries me most is doing that for eight spinners!! In 1:72! Oof. I guess I only have myself to blame!

And honestly, I didn't know about the spirals being safety devices. Then again, the fact that they were used somewhat as gunner distraction devices I only read in passing reference in some book that even now I can't recall. Thanks for the information! (In retrospect, I guess the use as a safety device was obvious. Especially given the situation near the end of the war.)

KJ200- The Ta 183 is coming along real nice. Good to see the fuselage is closed up. This is kit number... three for you? Am I right? Wow. And me, here with nothing. Nice.

Stuff's been crazy for me. The airshow didn't pan out, unfortunatly. (Blasted rain....) So, we took a quick stop at the hobby shop in Toledo (Ohio), just to look at all the stuff I can't afford. Planning on the wiring continues to evolve, change, get scrapped, and evolve again. All while I'm waiting for my kits to arrive. I have a sinking suspition, though, I'm not even close to getting them, yet.

Keep up the good work!

Lucien,

Painting the spinner spirals on the plastic scale models is very different than painting the spinners on the larger RC aircraft.
For the RC aircraft spinners I start out with a white spinner and lightly sand it to give the paint something to grip, then I use special thin masking tape and mask off the area to remain white. Black paint is then lightly sprayed on the spinner until the whole thing is covered, I wait a few minutes and then spray it with normal paint flow from the airbrush. (The reason I start with the light mist coats with the black paint is to avoid paint from bleeding under the masking tape)
After the painting is done remove the masking tape even before the paint is dry, if you wait until the paint is dry and THEN remove the tape sometimes the paint has a ragged edge to it and will wear off quickly. The final step is a good flat coat to protect the paint job.(Flat clear works best because the starter cone gets a better grip on the spinner when starting the engine)
Painting the spinners on the plastic scale models is not so easy since it requires a steady hand and some skill to get it right.
Some spinner spirals on the full size Luftwaffe aircraft were hand painted, a few years ago a Fw 190 D was recovered from a lake in Germany in very good condition with the paint job intact and you can clearly see the spinner was hand painted. In one of my books there is a picture of a Luftwaffe ground crew hand painting a spiral on a Bf 109 spinner.
So I would not worry very much about trying to do a ''perfect'' spiral on your spinners.
The spirals were ordered to be painted on all Luftwaffe fighters in 1944 for safety reasons AND to serve as a distraction to the gunners on the bombers.
When the Luftwaffe was forced to use foilage for camouflage to protect its fighters from possible air attacks a few ground crew were killed by getting hit by propellers because of the noise of several aircraft being parked so close together in their forest hideouts the ground crew needed a way to quickly see which planes were running and which were not. The spinner spiral was very eye catching and gave easy visual warning and probably saved a number of lives of the ground crew.
Later it was discovered the spirals could possibly help the pilots while attacking the bombers by distracting them at critical times during combat.
Years ago I read some combat reports written by B-17 gunners about fighting the Luftwaffe over Germany and I remember some gunners did notice the spinners but no mention was made of any effect it had on throwing off their aim.

Later I will post some pics of one of my RC planes with the painted spinner on it.

Karl,

Your Ta 183 looks like its off to a great start!
Did you have any trouble fitting the Fw 190 cockpit parts into the fuselage?

My Amtech Ta 183 is already broken without really starting on it yet, while attempting to get rid of the warp in the bottom wing half the wing snapped in two. I can fix it but this should not have happened, for the price of that kit you would expect straight unwarped parts.

Matrixone

Lucian, I'd always assumed that the spiral was a safety device, in the same way that the yellow tips on the blades of Allied aircraft, intended to make identifying a spinning prop easier to ground crew.

I've done some work on the Ta183. I spent this afternoon rescribing the panel lines lost after filling and sanding. The first picture below shows the cockpit tub, and detailed wheel bays and doors before assembly.



The next one shows the top of aircraft with rescribed panels.



The purple on the cutting mat is down to my wife and not me!!!

By the way post on the front of the DFS is the pitot probe. Meant to mention that last time.

And that rounds off my thousandth post.

Karl

Matrixone- I don't have much time (I'm leaving for an airshow in a few minutes. Unfortunatly, it's raining.... Maybe it'll stop), so this is going to be quick. You said you painted spirals on some of your RC aircraft- Did you have any technique of doing that (other that the black, than the white)? What do you do to keep the continutiy (I guess) of the line, so it's uniform across the entire spinner?

If memory serves me correctly, the Germans did this to confuse Allied gunner crews on the bombers. When the Germans made head-on attacks, the theory was that the spirals would throw off the aim of the gunners by disorienting the eye. After hearing what you said about your touch and goes, I guess it still works.

Thank you very much for the comments Filibert!

Most of the Fw 190 is painted now, I have to finish adding the rest of the decals and then do the weathering which will be more fun than usual because part of the real aircraft was very grungy looking.

The Do 335 canopies are from the kit, but they were dunked in Future and they are a little thick but very clear. Not bad for a 1974 kit.

Except for decals I prefer to build most of my models OOB, resin and PE sets are nice for people who build models and enter them in contests but I build for the fun of it and l want to keep it that way.

Matrixone

Wow, someone has been busy! Both the 190 and 335 paintjobs look fabulous already! And those 335 canopies in the background are superb! Is that the kit stuff ore futured vacform aftermarket? If I had to guess I'd go for the latter. Fantastic!

Lucien,

Thanks for the comment about the paint job.
The Do 335 will get its decals put on soon and then I plan on spraying a ''scribble'' of RLM 81brown/green and RLM 82 green, while the undersurfaces will be black.

Some Luftwaffe bombers had the spinner spirals painted on them, He 177s Ju 188s and even a few He 111s had the black and white spinners.
I would look at pictures of late war Ju 88 nightfighters and Ju 188 bombers to get ideas as to how those spirals were painted. I have one picture that was taken after war ended of dozens of spinners that had been removed from aircraft that were laying out in a field, lots of slightly different styles of spirals were used.

When I flew RC planes I painted the German style spinner spirals on many of my planes and it did slightly distract other pilots when I was doing touch and goes, I thought it looked cool though.

When I paint the spinner spirals on my scale models I paint the spinner gloss black FIRST and let it dry for a day and then paint the spiral using flat white. I have used this method for a long time and with good results.

Matrixone

Matrixone- I'm only getting about half your new pictures, but from what I can see- Wow. That's the first time I've seen a Do 335 in that sceme. It looks very nice. I can only see the first picture of the Fw 190, so I have no idea if you improved upon it at all in your later one, but that one looks great, too. I think you got the "mismash" pattern down great. One quick question, though- is that the final sceme for the 335, or will there be a second color underneith? I know you said something about it before, but I forget what you said.

Now, about the Ju 290Z: Going along with paint sceme I chose, as far as I can tell, the props are going to be the same black as the underside. Unfortunatly for me, the Germans never put on yellow warning paint on the tips of the propellers of any of their wartime aircraft like we did, so it might be a little boring when they're spinning. (i.e., motors are on.) But some of them did have spirals, or two offset colors. I might consider painting those on the monster Zwilling, to make the props "on" feature a bit more interesting. I just need to figure out if they would be appropriate for an aircraft of that type and size.

Any ideas?

Karl,

A few days ago my Fw 190 D did not look very good...I spent a little extra time correcting my painting mistakes and was able to save it from the rubbish bin!

Painting this model was a little different than most models because some of the markings were applied at different times during painting, there is a black number two on the fuselage that can barely be seen because it was an older marking that had been lightly painted over, so the decal number on my model was applied after the base coat of RLM 76 and after the decal dried a light coat of RLM 76 was sprayed over the decal so the black 2 could barely be seen. After that dried the fuselage cross was put on, when the cross was dry the RLM 75 was spayed on the top of the fuselage to where the very top of the fuselage cross was overpainted with the RLM 75.The rest of the painting was done like most other models are painted.
I am sure this Fw 190 D is an ex-prototype that was taken over by the Luftwaffe in the last weeks of the war, in the two photos of the full size plane it looks like the wings and rear fuselage are older recycled parts that have seen much use while the ''power egg'' and Ta 152 style tail are clean looking with fresh looking paint, the yellow fuselage band on the engine cowling looks very fresh and had almost no exhaust staining. I will try to weather the wings and fuselage on my model to match the photos of the full size machine, this model will get much abuse!

My three PM Ta 183s that I ordered a while ago arrived this week, I might build one of them at the same time I am working on the Amtech Ta 183, my plan is to have at least two Ta 183 models painted and marked to look like they are from the same unit so I can take some pics of them on my photobase. It might make for some interesting pictures.

Here is another pic of my new builds...



I am glad to hear you are working on your Ta 183, after seeing your work on the 1/72 scale Fw 190 the Ta 183 should look really cool. Hope you post some pics of it soon.

Matrixone

Matrixone, I don't know what you were worrying about with the 190, it looks great!!!

So does the 335.

I can't wait to see both models finished.

Lucien, I glued the Hagelkorn to the centreline rack and let it dry fully, before inserting the wing braces which pushed the Hagelkorn's wings down to the correct degree. On the real thing the wings were made of concrete, yes you did read that right CONCRETE!!!! And were designed to spring the weapon away from the aircraft as you have already deduced.

Haven't made much progress on the Ta183, but I should have the fuselage together today, and hopefully the wings on tomorrow. Luckilly it's a long weekend over here in the UK, and I've got Tuesday off as well.

The DFS recieved it's gloss coat this afternoon, so hopefully will be complete by the middle of the week.

Karl

Today more painting and even some decals were done on my two models, and here are some pics to show my progress so far.




I checked out my Amtech Ta 183 kit today and while dry fitting a few parts I found the left wing has a warp in both top and bottom parts, I am working on those parts now trying to de-warp them by dunking them in hot water bending them in the desired shape while they cool off.

The Fw 190 D might be done by next weekend, the landing gear will be the next challenge I will have to face while building this kit, the rest should be easy to do.

Matrixone

I have to agree that 390 is pretty impressive. If that were my work, you'd see seam lines and putty all over the place (ah, is my frustration showing through?). Btw, added the lower air scoop and fin to the Xp-55 today. Let's just say I hope the primer will hide some imperfections! Oh, and she'll be a ground-hugger to show off all of the undercarriage bits. Maybe I'll discard the legs and fabricate something out of tubing: lots of flash.... But: the u/c doors are photoetch so that's nice right? I'll keep you posted.

KJ200- Great job on the Fw 190/Hagelkorn! It's probably a little late, but did you "bend" the wings of the Hagelkorn like the real thing? (I guess the Germans did it to help it "spring" off the fighter better.) It really looks great, especially seeing as how it's 1:72! The DFS is looking better, too. I really hope the worst on that kit is over!

Filibert- Sees to me like the worst for you on the XP-55 might be over (knock on wood). Personally I recommend going wheels down on that one. Your prop reason is one of the main one, along with the fact the wheels down constitute more exposed detail. Get your money's worth! Besides, then you can open the canopy and reveal that wonderful cockpit!

(Oh, and when you win the lottery, wire some of that cash my way, would ya?)

One more thing- would the thing on the front of the DFS be a pitot tube? I have no idea, so this is just my guess. If it was the prototype of the 163 (right designation? Yes?), I'd think they'd need to get info on airspeed and whatnot. They should anyway!

I can't stop looking at that 1:72 Ju 390! Sorry. (Regain control...) One thing I learned from it that I didn't know before was how the engines open up. If you don't know, two panels on the bottom half drop down, exposing the sides of the apparantly decently detailed engines. And you know, with eight engines, at least one of those panels will be opened!

It really is a stunning model. Here's the website for others to check out. It's worth a look-see.

http://hsfeatures.com/features04/ju390mk_1.htm

You can also see the radar that comes with the kit. It's a little chucky, as you can see, but I may put them on until I scrape up the $$$$$$$ to get the PE set. ($20 though. I little pricey for two tiny radar antennaes....)


Long live Pacman!

(Sorry. Had to do it.)

No need for the sheriff to round up a posse yet Karl. I just hadn't made any progress lately and I kinda hate the fact that I can't show you guys (and girl of course ) any pictures. Well as soon as I win a lottery (or something similar) you'll be the first ones to notice, lol.
I do appreciate your good wishes on the 55 Karl, because all has turned out well. Against all expectations the cockpit is painted and mounted, the fuselage has been joined and mated to the wings. I even added and aligned the nose cone and canards. It wasn't as bad as I had thought. Now I have to decide whether to do her wheels up, wheels retracting (like the YF-23), or just static on the ground. Somehow having a prop stand still on a 'flying' plane looks wrong to me. What do you think guys?

Karl: what's that on the nose of your DFS. Looks like a refuelling probe, but that can't be right? You've done a very nice job repairing and prepping that one. Looking forward to the paintjob.

QUOTE: Originally posted by KJ200 Frosty, that sounds like a lot of work!!! Karl

Karl:
yep, it sure does... then again, this build doesn't have a finish date,
so i could conceivably do it. it's just a matter of deciding how far i
want 2 go, the trip's been fun so far !
in fact, the 229 is probably my fave of all the projects i have in the works rite now,
i have 2 force myself not 2 work on it in order 2 keep other projects moving along.
BTW, ur DFS is looking great, & ur 190, wow !
& i like the tarmac, too !

matrixone
glad 2 hear u r feeling better !!!

frosty

Filibert, I was about to send out a search party as it seems ages since we last heard from you.

Glad you like the 190, definitely my best effort to date. Can't wait to see the YF23.

Best of luck with the XP55, sounds like it's a bit of a nightmare.

Karl

Wow Karl, that FW-190 looks amazing! And at 1/72.... abbada....abbada....I'm speechless. I also feel a little silly because I was expecting to see a periscope-type thing on it when you talked about a 'Hagelkorn' (that was a late modification on a Ta-152).... Turns out there's a picture of one under an FW-190 A-8 in a book I have on the 190 .
I've pretty much finished the YF-23. Maybe I'll give it another flat coat to blend things in. After looking at the XP-55 with feelings of despair (conflicting or non-existent info on cockpit colors and really bad fit), I have resumed work on it now. Today I'll try to get the cockpit into the fuselage..... Wish me luck.

Matrixone, thanks for your comments.

I did have an advantage in that mine is Revell's little 1/72 190, a kit which is far easier to build than the Promodeller/Dragon kit. I'm sure your 190 will look great.

Karl

Lucien,

I thought that Ju 390 article would be of interest to you, glad you looked into it.
Somewhere in one of my books there is a color photo of the Ju 290 that had the gray/black camouflage scheme you had wanted to apply to your Ju 290Z, if I can find it this weekend I will let you know which book and page# where I found it.

Karl,

Your DFS is looking very good, moving the control surfaces adds much more interest to an airplane that has a single overall color.
That is a fantastic job you did on your Fw 190! Great job on the weathering too, looks very realistic.
After seeing how well your Fw 190 turned out it makes me want to throw mine in the trash and start over.
Looking forward to pics of your Ta 183.

If things go better for me this weekend I will attempt to post some pics of my projects.

Matrixone

Finally some pictures to post.

First the DFS.......





.....looking rather yellow with the flash!

I was going to post some pictures of the Ta183, but have just discovered I've deleted the pictures in error.

So here's a few pictures of my Fw190 & Hagelkorn instead....







Hope you like them.

Karl

Matrixone- I just checked out that article. It's awsome! I thought of doing a Ju 390 conversion myself a while back, after the 290Z was done and over with. It might actually be easier than the one I'm doing now! If they come up with a clear nose conversion set, I may the Ju 390 V2 (The one in the article was the V1), the one rumored to have flown about twelve miles out from New York. Now, give me a moment while I go back and read that article again...

Thanks for the heads up! I appreciate it!

Karl,

I rechecked the Ta 183 drawings and they show a slight nose high angle, I placed a ruler at the bottom of the tires on the drawing and it was easy to see. The angle is not steep enough to where the exhaust from the jet engine would tear up the runway surfaces, probably with a pilot in the cockpit and fully armed the nose would be closer to being level much like the Ta 154 was when it had the crew on board.

Matrixone

Matrixone, I was looking at the blueprints for the Ta183 on the Luft.46 site yesterday to assess the position of the undercarriage and actuators for main gear legs and doors.

Overall I'm not sure about the upward tilt as none of the other Luftwaffe jets had the same nose high inclination, and a jet exhaust directed at the runway was likely to cause damage to the runway, as the even the 262's horizontally angled engines could.

Anyway I spent some more time last night detailing the wheel bays and doors, just need to make some new front bay doors as the kits ones are way too thick, then build the actuators and add the hydraulic lines. Must say I'm really enjoying this build, so much so that I still haven't finished my I-16. I will post some pictures, hopefully tonight.

Keep plugging on with the 190, I'm sure it will be worth it in the end.

Karl

Karl,

The Amtech Ta 183 suffers the same problem with the main gear being slightly too long just like the smaller PM kit. FSM did a review of the Amtech kit and the main gear problem was mentioned in that article.
There are original blueprint drawings of the Ta 183 in ''Jet Planes of the Third Reich The Secret Projects'' Vol 1 on pages 36 and 37, if you are in a modeling club perhaps someone may have that book and let you look at it, or if you like those sort of books it should be available for purchase from Monogram Aviation Publications. Well worth the money if you have an interest in the Luftwaffe that could have been.

Lucien,

Last week there was a Ju 390 made from the Revell Ju 290 kit that appeared in Hyperscale, if you have not seen that article yet you might be interested in looking it over, there might be some useful information to help your Ju 290Z project.

My Fw 190 D has been a struggle to build so far and I hope the rest of the painting of it has no more errors. I want to get past this model and start building the Amtech Ta 183.

Matrixone

QUOTE: Originally posted by matrixone Lucky for me the flu or whatever I had is gone, my son was very frightened and so was I , it has been many years since I have been even close to being that sick. I was very close to calling an ambulance but decided against it and chose to ride it out at home.

Iee! That sounds terrible!
(Okay, now I'm playing with the new icons!) I'm very glad you're felling better! Glad the paint shop disaster worked out all right.

And now for both of you- Nice work on the the Ta 183s. (I guess. ) I'll have to check on that undercarrige thing myself. I'm really not a huge fan of the 183, but like I said, it's a nice airplane.

I know it's a little like putting the horse before the cart, but looking at a pic of one of the Ju 290 kits someone else built, a set of PE radar antennas is looking more and more attractive. But, as you all know my money situation, it is on the bottom of my list. Which is, by the way:
1. Get main body of airplane finished.
2. Motorize it.
3. Get three Reichenberg IVs (piloted V-1s) for the underwing ordinance.
4. Get a PE set of radar antennas.

Obviously steps three and four can be added much later, once one and two are finished. As it stands, one and two are all I'm shooting for for this GB.

Matrixone, glad to hear you're feeling better, and that the 190 is now going the way you want it.

I was working on the 183 last night, adding styrene strip to the wheel bays and covers, so hopefully I'll get around to posting somes pics soon so that you can see where I am with both the DFS and the 183.

Must admit I was wondering about the undercarriage, though mainly from an actuator pespective, but I'll have to take a look on the web and see what info I can find. I know that there are a mass of AMTech 183s on Hyperscale, which should serve as useful references.

I also spent a chunk of last night putting together an Eduard PE cockpit for my 109 G10. Some of those bits are just impossible to actually pick up, let alone glue in position. Still that's 1/72 for you. The detail is stunning though.

Karl

Karl and Lucien,

Lucky for me the flu or whatever I had is gone, my son was very frightened and so was I , it has been many years since I have been even close to being that sick. I was very close to calling an ambulance but decided against it and chose to ride it out at home.

Just a few minutes ago I corrected my painting error on the 190 and it turned out very good and feel even better now than before I became ill.

The PM Ta 183 kit went together very well except for the wing to fuselage area, I had to fill and sand that but everything else fit good, dry fitting is recomended for most parts but I can't really remember any real troubles with building mine.
A few of the drawings I have seen of the Ta 183 show the plane with a nose high ''sit'', my next PM Ta 183 kit I build I will shorten the main gear slightly to get the nose raised to try and match the blueprint drawings.

Matrixone

Matrixone- Really sorry to hear about your health. Hope you feel better. Now, about the camo- the Ju 290 went through three major camo scemes in its career. Early on the RLM 72/73/65 sceme was used, as it was the standard day bomber camoflage for most Luftwaffe bombers. However, once the Ju 290 was converted from a transport to an anti-shipping aircraft, the paint was altered so the RLM 65 was raised up higher, to a point about to the windows (as opposed to just the underside.). This is the sceme on the box, if you want to look it up. This was the most commonly used sceme until the Germans lost control of the waters (About 1944). This is when the paint was changed to the mottled RLM 74/75 on upper surfaces, and RLM 22 undernieth. This was a night bomber camoflage, and what is shown on the pic. It is also what I plan to use. The switch to night bombing and anti-shipping was a result of the Luftwaffe losing control at the end of the War, and having to turn to night bombing to save materiel and personelle. (sp?)

Structural integrity was a main concern of mine from the get go. I hope to get at least a one-spar system in there, possibly a two-spar construction. I would like to get some sort of wood dowel running the entire length of the wing, from each end starting where the wing begins to taper. I have a general idea of what I want ot do, but I'll leave off how I plan to do it until I see the kits.

KJ200- Good to hear of the progress. I'm just waiting for the UPS man now. Hopefully my three airplanes are en route.

QUOTE: Originally posted by matrixone Now that you have that PM Ta 183 kit, what do you think of it? For the low cost of the kit its not bad at all.

Matrixone, you really can't complain for that price!

First impressions are of a fairly basic kit, that with a little bit of work should produce a fairly passable model.

I've painted the ex-Fw 190 cockpit, it just needs a black wash applied, then I'll be ready to put the fusalage halves together. I'm looking to detail the wheel bays, and I'll replace the wheels with a set of Fw190 ones which look a lot better than the kit ones. Currently toying with the idea of cutting out the flaps and ailerons, hmmmm we'll see.

Hope you feel better soon by the way.

Lucien, have you thought about adding a styrene or spruce wing spar to the wing joint? Also most RC shops sell a filler primer which will seal the grain on the balsa, and allow you a solid base for a top coat.

Hopefully I'll post some pictures tonight, not just the DFS, but also my Fw190 & Hagelkorn.

Karl

Lucien,

That Ju 290Z is a very large airplane! I have no doubt you will be successful in scratch building the new wing section joining the two airframes, but you might have some problems with possibly breaking the new wing center section when the model is handled during the painting process. It looks like the middle of the wing will be a weak point prone to cracking or worse.
Also what paint and markings do you have in mind for your Ju 290Z? I have seen the photo of the captured Ju 290 you posted, the camouflage on that airplane is not standard for Ju 290s, most photos I have of the Ju 290 appear to have the standard factory camouflage of RLM 72 Green, 73 Green, and 65 Light Blue. Model Master makes enamel paints of those RLM colors if you are interested.
I also like that camouflage on the Ju 290 that has the gray and black paint job and was thinking of building one and using that camouflage scheme on it.

I have been very sick the last 12 hours and will wait until next weekend to try and fix my painting boo-boos, my hands are very shaky right now and am just too weak to try and do any modeling now.

Matrixone