Tamiya 1/48 Focke Wulf FW 190 A-4
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| Randy Colvin |
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Photo: Randy Colvin |
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This is the 7th Tamiya kit, not including the 1,534 armor kits I did years ago, so I should say this was my 7th Tamiya aircraft kit in the last 3 years and so far I love everyone of them.
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The Tamiya 1/48 scale Focke Wulf Fw190 A-3, kit # 37 has about 43 or 44 parts (had to count from the instruction sheet) and as usual it has very fine, clear panel lines, very thick canopy and windscreen and since this is an older kit it has very thick decals. It is molded in medium gray and markings are provided for a 3./JG.2 aircraft (Werk Nr 223) flown by Hans "Assi" Hahn. However I think this is the wrong Werk Nr for this aircraft and I believe it should begin with a 3 instead of a 2. Also there are markings for an 8./JG2 (Werk Nr 2181) flown by an unknown pilot, and finally there are markings for a Stab./JG26 aircraft flown by Wilhelm Gath. As usual with Tamiya the painting instructions refer to RLM 74,75 and 76 only as gray, gray/green and dark green with reference only with mixing the Tamiya paints to get the right colors. The detail is very good, although a little thick. Although I have done other Luftwaffe subjects before from other kit manufactures, this is my first serious attempt at doing a FW 190 and I think this was a good kit to start my 190 collection with. I also had an Eduard detail set to use with this kit and an Aero Master decal sheet as well.
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Construction
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The first step was to pull all the parts out of the box and leave the instructions until I got lost (real men don't look at the instructions ). The Eduard set came with a complete cockpit tub, instrument panel, side consoles, armored head rest, seat belts, complete flaps (inside and out) and an antenna mast for the tail so you can convert it to an A-4 variant, which is just what I did.
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I started with bending the cockpit tub to the correct shape and then I put in the consoles, rudder pedals and a few odds and ends and then started with the seat. You have to use the kit seat which looks okay, but when you put in the seat belts all you see is "seat belts" because they just about cover the entire seat. The only piece you have to put in the fuselage interior is the canopy crank and handle, everything else is in or on the tub. I painted different parts of the interior RLM 02 and 66, later Erik said it should all be RLM 66 even for an early model 190 so I repainted all 02 areas with 66. I also added some foto-etch to the main gear wells and painted them 02 (I got that one right). I cleaned up the main gear covers, struts, wheels, tail wheel and propeller pieces. I painted the struts and inside the main gear covers 02. Next I applied a my usual wash/ dry-brush to the cockpit, main gear covers and struts. I also added brake lines and a few other items to the struts as well. Next I painted the prop blades RLM 70 and the spinner white as I was doing an all white JG 54 aircraft. All this pretty much went smoothly except for a small error on my part which was assembling the tub to the wrong angle and only noticing it when I test fit it into the fuselage and finding it didn't fit. Then I figured out what I did wrong (after a short panic) and corrected the problem.
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After assembling the fuselage and engine I started on cutting the flaps off the wings and adding the flap interior provided by Eduard. Next I cut all guns and antennas from the wings and discarded them, as I planned to scratch-build all of this. After sanding all seems and mating the fuselage to the wings, I noticed about a 2mm gap all along the wing root so I added a spacer to widen the fuselage about 2mm and then filled what was left of the gap with "crystal clear" and wiping away excess with a wet finger (wet-willy trick) after drying. I added the horizontal stabilizers and gun sight along with a thinner piece of clear plastic for the reflective lens. Next came the windscreen, cowling and cowling ring. All very easy to assemble. After masking the engine front and open cockpit I used Testors "para-film" to mask the windscreen. Then I cut the "bulge" from the tip if the tail and added the foto-etch antenna to make it an A-4 variant. Finally I was ready to paint.
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Colors and markings
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My original plan was to use Super-Scale sheet number 48-530, "Fw-190A-4/A-6 Aces" which included markings for Hackl, Schnorrer, Rudorffer and Buhlingen. I planned to do Schnorrers all white "white 5" with yellow theater markings. I went ahead and painted the aircraft this way. All the while I kept looking at plate #29 in the Osprey "Aces of the Eastern Front" which was one of Nowotnys aircraft, and since I always wanted to do one of his aircraft and since this particular plane was one of the neatest ones, I decided to add the RLM 70 and 71 in small patches as the plate showed and piece together the decals. I didn't have to do it, all I needed was a white 10 with a black outline and I found it on Aero Master sheet #48-047 "Luftwaffe Fighter Numbers" (part one). Adding the RLM 70/71 was very easy, even though I already painted it white. The yellow recognition bands were in the same location on both aircraft along with Gruppe and Staffel markings. All I had to add was a yellow portion to the bottom of the rudder. Next came the Future floor polish for the gloss coat and the wash in the panel lines. After all this I sprayed a light coat of Gunze "smoke" on the lines to give it a grayish "dirty" look. Then came another coat of Future to seal everything, then a flat coat to hold the exhaust, fuel, oil and gun soot stains using pastels, then a final flat coat to seal all of that. After drying overnight I added the main gear, tail wheel, prop, canopy, nav lights, antenna wire and anything else it need to complete it.
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While I was adding the main gear, I noticed that the gear covers looked awful low to the ground, and after looking at various fotos I realized that they were to low to the ground. I don't know if the struts were to short or the covers were to long, but I fixed the problem by pulling off the covers and shortening them were they meet the wheel well, and you can't see the cut at all. It was a very easy fix and the kit is now complete and sitting in my case.
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One thing that is unclear on this kit is the three small holes centered on the belly just behind the trailing edge of the wing. I have heard several different comments on as to what they are. Some believe they are formation lights like on a P-51 or P-47 wingtip while others say they are an auxiliary outlet for adding Co2, electric's and something else. At first I thought they were lights, but now the doubt is there and I really don't know. Some of my reference shows cut-aways but nothing about the three holes. If anyone knows please share the info.
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My final comments on the kit are that I really enjoyed building it. With the exception of the wing root gap I thought this was a great "first" 190 kit and I will probably do another in the future. I do wish Tamiya would do something about the thick canopies as Hasegawa seems to have the best I've seen as far as in scale thickness goes.
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| Randy Colvin |
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| Photo of Randy's FW 190 A-4 |
Photo: Randy Colvin |
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