PCM Focke Wulf FW 190 A-1/A-2/A-3

[Kaireckstadt]

11 hours ago, GazzaS said:

I haven;t done a lot.  Mainly cuz I've been working on that warship and doing other banal things like mowing the lawn every few days since we're getting a fair amount of rain.

 

Anyway...  here are my sloppily rendered inner bits.

There's absolutely no reason to do any more to the engine.  The plastic isn;t conducive to showing inner detail. 

 

I trimmed the hell out of the IP to make it fit.  Last time, I spent hours trying to shave the cockpit walls thin enough without going through, thank goodness.

That’s a lot of work but the result is really very nice. I like it!

And I have learned, that the color of the control stick is RLM02! Didn’t know that up to now! 

[GazzaS]

10 hours ago, Kaireckstadt said:

That’s a lot of work but the result is really very nice. I like it!

And I have learned, that the color of the control stick is RLM02! Didn’t know that up to now! 

Thank you.  I'm sure you'll find more pics of them in RLM 66 than you will in 02.  The colour call out was for 02 so I went with it.

[GazzaS]

Please pardon the not-so-crisp photos.  I was lazy and took them with my phone instead of breaking out the tripod and wife's Canon Olympus.

Anyway...  I'm closing her up.

Say 'bye-bye' to the cockpit...

 

And Hasta la vista to the rear landing gear details....

Also...  I've attached the new S.O.W landing gear struts to the mounting points on the kit gear.  The kit gear are in the photo for comparison:

 

Somehow, someway, I got things a bit tweaked.

You can se the small discrepancy at the rear edge of the wing.

It was quite difficult to glue the halves together.   I decided to start from the tail  and work my way forward, using the rudder seam as a guideline.  I used CA to quicken the process.  Torquing, squeezing, and applying sloppy lines of CA along the seam as I advanced forward trying to align tail LG and cockpit tub in the process.

The first time I installed the engine, perfectly with the guide lines inside it was painfully obvious that either my tweaking of the fuselage, caused it to be pointed somewhat down and forward.  So, I had to break the engine joins and do it it a different way.

 

I ended up cementing the large forward cowl first so that I could align everything with fan, propeller, and copper shaft dry-fitted.   So, despite all of the bad angles that I have created, the prop spins easily without too visible a wobble.  The white tabs are to keep the upper cowl parts from falling through once I try to fit them.

 

My disaster of the day:  I spilled Tamiya Ultra thin on top of the MG 17 breech cover part...    I immediately set the part aside and allowed it to dry.  Fortunately, not too much detail was lost to my clumsiness.  I really had to fight the temptation to try to wipe away the spilled cement.

 

 

[harv]

Yes, the pit in mine was a bastard.....harv

[GazzaS]

7 minutes ago, harv said:

Yes, the pit in mine was a bastard.....harv

I really was merciless in trimming the pit to fit instead of thinning the fuselage walls.  I probably went 1/2 mm too far...  but you can't really tell.

[BlrwestSiR]

36 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

My disaster of the day:  I spilled Tamiya Ultra thin on top of the MG 17 breech cover part... 

I've that before. If you catch it quick enough and pour off any excess you can usually get away with a minimum of damage. 

And fighting the urge to wipe it off isn't easy I know. It's almost second nature. 

[BlrwestSiR]

23 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

I really was merciless in trimming the pit to fit instead of thinning the fuselage walls.  I probably went 1/2 mm too far...  but you can't really tell.

One thing I've noticed with PCM and Fly kits.  You can often put the cockpit in after the fuselage is assembled through the lower wing opening. I find this can help determining how much needs to be shaved/added.  

[GazzaS]

3 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

One thing I've noticed with PCM and Fly kits.  You can often put the cockpit in after the fuselage is assembled through the lower wing opening. I find this can help determining how much needs to be shaved/added.  

With this kit, you can look in from the front or below until you install the engine.  So, I did all of that before I even considered gluing.  The IP's are all measured from real IP's, so are very accurate...  However, no WWII fighter plane had fuselage walls as thick as a plastic model.  So you're left with the choice of where you want to lose from.  On my first PCM kit, I elected to remove from the Fuse-walls.  It was scarily thin and I spent the rest of the build afraid to do anything in that area.  So, this time, I attacked the IP instead.  Easy peasy.

[Kaireckstadt]

7 hours ago, GazzaS said:

With this kit, you can look in from the front or below until you install the engine.  So, I did all of that before I even considered gluing.  The IP's are all measured from real IP's, so are very accurate...  However, no WWII fighter plane had fuselage walls as thick as a plastic model.  So you're left with the choice of where you want to lose from.  On my first PCM kit, I elected to remove from the Fuse-walls.  It was scarily thin and I spent the rest of the build afraid to do anything in that area.  So, this time, I attacked the IP instead.  Easy peasy.

Much progress on your build. It seems to be no shake and bake but it will turn out very nice!

I would also thin the cockpit-parts. Made the same experience like you on a 48 scale He-219 and an Aires cockpit.

[GazzaS]

1 hour ago, Kaireckstadt said:

Much progress on your build. It seems to be no shake and bake but it will turn out very nice!

I would also thin the cockpit-parts. Made the same experience like you on a 48 scale He-219 and an Aires cockpit.

Thank you.  It really depends on the model.  A 1/48 scale kit has a lot less tolerance for stuff like that.

[DocRob]

Nice progress with the 190, Pity as always, that much of the nice cockpit work will be lost to the eye in that dark RLM66 cave under the canopy. It seems, that you let the worst obstacles of the build behind you. Wish you luck with the repair of the cowling.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

22 hours ago, DocRob said:

Nice progress with the 190, Pity as always, that much of the nice cockpit work will be lost to the eye in that dark RLM66 cave under the canopy. It seems, that you let the worst obstacles of the build behind you. Wish you luck with the repair of the cowling.

Cheers Rob

Thank you, Rob.  I'm closing it all up and finding lots of filling to do.  Worst of all is substantial gaps on both wing roots.

[GazzaS]

I'm at the ugly stage.  Cleaning up the seams.

 

For you readers, the pictures will be relatively useless...  unless you see all of the black areas where seam cleanup is required.

The seams in the wing roots were 1.5 to 2mm wide.

And I haven't even started the wings yet.  Using CA as a filler, and an electric toothbrush with 320-grit speeds up the process....

Here's one where the flaw can actually be seen in the photo.  The faults remaining on the fuselage will have to be filled with very thin CA.

 

Happy modelling!

 

[DocRob]

There seems to be a lot of extra work needed, to get a decent result out of this PCM kit. I hope that's not a mojo killer for you.
BTW, I have an electric toothbrush on my bench now, which just needs to be prepared. Thanks for the idea Gaz.

Cheers Rob

[Kaireckstadt]

1 hour ago, DocRob said:

There seems to be a lot of extra work needed, to get a decent result out of this PCM kit. I hope that's not a mojo killer for you.
BTW, I have an electric toothbrush on my bench now, which just needs to be prepared. Thanks for the idea Gaz.

Cheers Rob

Can only underline, what Rob said! A huge amount of extra work (and CA-Glue) needed!

Great idea with the electric toothbrush! 

 

[Spitfire]

I know exactly how you feel as I am currently wrestling with a PCM Tempest, fit, sand, fit, sand get out the CA and find that it still doesn't fit, loads of fun.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[JohnB]

Looking good!

[GazzaS]

10 hours ago, DocRob said:

There seems to be a lot of extra work needed, to get a decent result out of this PCM kit. I hope that's not a mojo killer for you.
BTW, I have an electric toothbrush on my bench now, which just needs to be prepared. Thanks for the idea Gaz.

Cheers Rob

Like you have noted, sometimes fixing up a not-so-good kit is rewarding.  And since it is the only 1/32 A-1/2/3 out there in 1/32 extra motivation is provided.  And using CA with the electric toothbrush means I don't have to wait overnight for putties to dry.  Waiting overnight to fix a problem - That is the real mojo killer.

[GazzaS]

5 hours ago, JohnB said:

Looking good!

Thank you, John!

[GazzaS]

8 hours ago, Kaireckstadt said:

Can only underline, what Rob said! A huge amount of extra work (and CA-Glue) needed!

Great idea with the electric toothbrush! 

 

Nothing is more valuable than time.

8 hours ago, Spitfire said:

I know exactly how you feel as I am currently wrestling with a PCM Tempest, fit, sand, fit, sand get out the CA and find that it still doesn't fit, loads of fun.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

The only part of this kind of work I detest is rescribing detail.

[GazzaS]

I think we can call it closed-up now. 

 

[DocRob]

13 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Like you have noted, sometimes fixing up a not-so-good kit is rewarding.  And since it is the only 1/32 A-1/2/3 out there in 1/32 extra motivation is provided.  And using CA with the electric toothbrush means I don't have to wait overnight for putties to dry.  Waiting overnight to fix a problem - That is the real mojo killer.

There is a lot of truth in your words, Gaz.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

Taking a break from scribing, filling and rescribing.  Over it at the moment.

So I decided to work on the 1970's looking control surfaces.

From the best period photos I can gather, there should only be fine stitching lines over flat surfaces.  So, I'll do it with decals. 

 

 

[Kaireckstadt]

44 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

Taking a break from scribing, filling and rescribing.  Over it at the moment.

So I decided to work on the 1970's looking control surfaces.

From the best period photos I can gather, there should only be fine stitching lines over flat surfaces.  So, I'll do it with decals. 

 

 

Interesting idea, Gaz!

With what kind of Decals will you do that? 

[GazzaS]

7 hours ago, Kaireckstadt said:

Interesting idea, Gaz!

With what kind of Decals will you do that? 

Well....  the idea is subtlety.  I can either use some Archer raised line decals...  or just plain decal paper.  I've even toyed with the idea of using some WNW rib tape decals, but I think they may be too wide.  They've be covered with paint, but be big enough to show with weathering.  I did it with paint once, but wasn't satisfied with the result.