Battle For Germany 45 GB Starts Now - 08 May 06

Sean, Smokinguns,  Thanks for the comments.

Regards,  Rick

Rick ---   Nice paper, a pleasing shade of blue... not too garish, but at the same time far enough from a navy blue to be a bit 'cheerful'..

Oh... and the cokpit looks good too!    Fantastic work as always!!

I agree tom nice paper it appears to possibly be strathmore 80lb cold press matting paper either hazey blue or a light duck egg bloe Verry nice indeed OH BTW I also agree on the pit better than most of mine for sure

better to be a wise A** than a dumb S**T

Rick nice pit mate.

Gotta be happy with the wing roots being moulded as part of the fuse assembly

No wing root to mess around with.

As for my 190, well, suffice to say there are some words I can't type here

This thing just doesn't want to go together in any way that resembles a decently moulded kit.

Soft plastic thats warped out of wack, and probably wouldn't have lined up even if it was straight.

Fuselage halves that are moulded out of alignement both on the horizontal and vertical.

Panel lines that don't match, and a mirriad of other items that make the Sabre from the Aussie GB seem like a Lego build!!!!

After the Spit mishap I really don't have the patience for a mongrel build atm.

Might change to a Bf 109G-6 from JG300, at least the Hase kit will be a snap together jobby.

Ok enough whinging.

At least the Eduard seatbelts I ordered are a nice piece of kit.

And being the coloured PE is different for me, cant beleive I spent so much time painting the normal PE kits when these were available all the time

Here are some pics of the 190.

Underneath the putty there is a 2mm gap right in the middle of the fuse.

c/p pic, still gotta put in a couple of seatbelts.

The locating lugs for the tub were not in the right place, so styrene had to be ised, same goes for the bit at the front where the cowl mounts. More putty was needed for the fuse behind the c/p, another 2mm gap.

Cowling had to be placed in hot water, bent and stuck in the freezer quickly so it wouldn't return to it's original shape. Even after this it didn't match up right.

And next I'm going to try and shoehorn the wings into place

(ok, maybe just a touch of sarcasm there)

ouch Sean!!  that looks like a bear of a kit!!1  who put it out?  The IP does look fantastic as always with your builds... and if anyone can shape anything out of that plastic, it would be you!!!  Good luck to ya, but I think the Hase kit is the best bet.

Chris - I see you are a man who knows his paper well, ...  the paper at my house is either white or colored, shiny or dull... 

Rick that's a great looking front office.  How much is after market and how much is kit?

Sean sorry to hear about your tale of woe there, but tell me what kit is that 190 because I really want to avoid it.

Chris, it's taken me a while but I have finally tracked down the quote in your sig.  For the life of me I couldn't figure out which series it was from and then all of a sudden bam I found it.  It was Series 2 Episode 1 Kryton and it happened when Rimmer is begging Lister to build him up with the women they think they are going to meet.  Aaaah, I can sleep now.

Boyd good to hear you are making progress, now when can we see some photos

Progress Update,
Well I am just about finished the decals after a little snag with the Reich Defense bands.  I know I should've painted them on but sheer laziness made me use the kit decals, big mistake.   After 237 coats of Micro Set to settle the Tamiya Reich Defense band decal down it still had horrible looking folds in the yellow portion of the band which stuck out like, well you know what.  I was on the point of carving the decal off and going for it with the a/b when I thought I would try and scrape the folds away with a sharp blade and then have a go at patching the areas with some insignia yellow.
Long story short it worked, sort of I won't say that it looks brilliant but it certainly looks a heck of a lot better than before.

Cheers
Darren

That sux Sean reminds me of a twin mustang i built a couple years ago came out so bad the only way to get any happiness out of it was to give it to my roommate's nephew to play with

and as for the paper bit amazing the things you learn in a trade school huh

The 190 kit is the Dragon FW190G-3 offering.

I'm back dating it cause I couldn't find an A-6 kit in 1/48, and the G series airframes were taken from the A series upto the A-6, then they changed when they made the A-7.

I just can't believe how rough as guts this thing is.

I did a 1/72 Hokum from Dragon, and yeah the plastic was soft, but the fit was really good, so I thought it was an across the board thing. Guess I was wrong.

Ah well, I'll try and stick with this mongrel pig of a kit, and hopefully I'll have time left over to bang together the 109G-6 anyways.

Anyone know much about JG300 by any chance?

Been doing a bit of light reading on this lot and so far I've come up with them being a bunch of hardcore psycho's.

Tom, Panzerwulf, Sean, Darren,  Thanks for the comments guys.

Tom, really glad you liked the paper .

Sean,  The Dragon Fw-190 kits are a challenge to say the least.  I'm hoping the new kits from Hasegawa, which are partially based on the Dragon tooling BTW, fit better.

Regards,  Rick

Karl, Thanks for the comments.  Yes, I used the Eduard PE detail set.  The fit of the tail/fin to the main fuselage is terrible.  No amount of dry fitting could get an accebtable join, so I just glued it on with Testors liquid glue & filled the gaps with  Zap-A-Gap CA.  Lots of filing, sanding & cursing, but I think the join will look acceptable.  Won't know for sure until I primer.  The fit of the rest of the kit isn't bad.

Regards,  Rick

Once again no progress on the Tiger II... I think I will opt for metal indies next time as this gluing the plastic links together, waiting till tacky then trying to form them to the drive wheel is totally mind numbing.  I sat it aside, as I know at the rate my mind was turning to fluffy pudding I would screw it up one way or another.

On a side note, still no sight of the 1/72 190 windscreen... odd, huh?  Might pick up another kit come Monday... (so I can find the original windscreen)

AND....  may I have a drum roll please???  I think I found a new build for this GB... I went to the Hobby Lobby today with my 16 or so 40% off coupons.. you're only allowed one per family, per day... but I buy a kit,  go out and bring my bag to the truck, change shirts, and go back in and use the next one etc..

 I picked up a sweet (so far) little Tamiya kit... the cockpit is simple but looks busy enough for me.. the seat is actually as well done as most resin offerings... all I am missing is the harnesses which I will go Monday to the NotSoLHS and purchase.. I think there is enough subassembly to keep me busy in the meantime... The main thing is this thing is about as fringe as I have built yet... a very odd looking bird, which in keeping in the tradition of Jules, will remain a secret till I can't hold it in anymore or Jules reappears...

The bad thing is I found out the seat is NOT semi gloss black but RLM66 like I originally painted it until I doubted myself and started looking for a reference.  I found a restoration done by the manufacturer and some of the workers were the ones who originally put this plane together... so I trust the colors...

Tom the anticipation is killing me.  How about a hint?

Sean - While I am not happy to hear the hard time you are having I am glad you shared that so I never get one of those.

My decal problems are over… almost.  The Alps printed did in fact make a perfect opaque base for the ones I printed but in my excitement I must have rushed a little… ok a lot… and the 6 and the 1 are a bit crooked so I gotta get em off somehow (how do you do that anyway?) and get it right.  The stenciling is dry transfer, numbers, fuselage crosses, Werke # on the tail and the swastika (not on yet) are all home made. Canopy and prop are just dry fit for the update pics.  Tail wheel snapped of but in 1/24 it is as big as a Mini Copper tire so it was easy to find.

This is so not gonna work out the way I planned!

Wing root glued so it's sweet and needs minimal sanding........Check

Panel lines line up between upper wing root and fuselage.......Check

Upper wing root lined up and true with airframe.............Check

Oodles of overhang that will require more patience than a Saint to fix..........Double Check!!

Ok, so I admit I'm mildly paranoid at the best of times, but does anyone else think this one is out to get me.....................a bit..................maybe..................just a little....huh...............

tweety1 wrote:

Ok, so I admit I'm mildly paranoid at the best of times, but does anyone else think this one is out to get me.....................a bit..................maybe..................just a little....huh...............

Be afraid... be very afraid.

Those 190's look pretty sweet to me Wingy!

In the pic the 6 & 1 look just a tad off, not to bad if you ask me. Does it look worse in real life???

Yeah unfortunately there are off enough that it will bug the crap out of me if I don’t fix it.  Next time (AM I NUTS) I’ll do it the way the came on the 1/48 sheet…. do the 6 +1 all together nice and straight and apply it as you decal.

Snowing like a SOB here now so should have lots of time tomorrow

Yeah but the next time you try it the spacing won't be right, miss printed decal sheet.

Bet my bottom dollar on it!!!!!!!!!!

Well, not mine, but I'm sure Tom will let me bet his dollar on it cause the currency convertion 'll just kill me.

KJ200 wrote:

Sean, have you glued the lower wing half in? I'm assuming you probably have, but if you haven't, I'm sure I recall having to insert a sprue strut into the fuselage to push the wing roots out enough for them to match the rest of the wings.

Yeah, the lower section has been glued into place. You kinda have to glue it where it lines up the best due to the curvature of the wheel bay etc.

This kit must have been moulded on a Monday or a Friday I reckon.

You could always just chuck it out the window! Karl

You might be onto something there

Wow ... I blab too much and give it away I guess... yeah it's an anteater but it's the two seater trainer version, and let me tell you it's UGLY!!!  So ugly I had to buy it!

Here's a painting of it:

http://www.hsgalleries.com/gallery04/do335m11ss_1.htm

Right now I am trying to determine what the actual "high visibility" scheme of the Luftwaffe was at the time period because in the picture above it is painted in fighter camo, not trainer scheme...

-=edit=-

I'm going to do it in a fighter scheme after remembering at the time the plane was produced, the Third Reich was crumbling and it would have been pressed into action versus used as a trainer I am sure...

Karl I was planning on ditching the 190 and doing the 109, but there is some confusion with the date line.

I have done more research on JG 300, and the 109 I was planning on modelling seems to be ok as far as operating in 1945, but the pilot , Hptm Gerhard Stamp was apparently shot down in June '44.

So I could do it, but it wouldn't have alot of accuracy.

I'm not sure how much creep we can have in these group builds cause each one I've done has fitted the bill exactly.

There is also 'Yellow 17' which appears to be suitable, it hasn't shown up on any loss lists that I have seen but pilots are a problem seeing as towards the end of the war they swapped planes so often it's almost impossible to get an accurate match.

Tom your 335, which scale is it??

I have a 1/72 335, and would you beleive it's a Dragon kit

Tweets - mine's the 1/48 Tamiya Do335 A-12, I was surprised how big this thing is... larger than any other 1/48 I have done so far... In fact the fuselage is only about 1 to 1.5 inches shy of the 1/32 FW-190 in length!!

I'll have to watch out for those Dragon kits... I was looking at one the other day, a Ju88 I believe, I decided to wait and order the one I had built and was happy with, I think I made the right decision based on the horrors I am hearing of here!