Hello all,

Last weekend I found a local store had a few Eduard kits in stock, so I picked one up, knowing about the added detail parts in the "Profi-Packs" -- and it was a good price, as well, at $40 Canadian.

This is my first Eduard kit and my first real attempt with photo-etching. Despite some stuck fingers, the photo-etched parts went... tolerably okay.

When I assembled the fuselage, the wings and tail section fit perfectly, better than I've seen on other kits, but there are very few tabs and slots for guidance. The firewall and gun compartment bulkheads got in the way forward, and so the fuselage did not come together at the nose.

What I did was to cut a section of the fuselage underside and place it so that it fits. That will require some filling. I've also moved the lower instrument panel to the gun compartment bulkhead, rather than attaching at the cockpit, because I had to to fit everything together.

Basically, the nose, engine covers and gun covers will only go in place with some modifications.

I'd like to know if I did something wrong, or if this is something that just occasionally happens with these kits.

And also, I found the plastic much softer than usual and I found that it melted far too much with Tamiya cement. I used Extra-Thin and CA glue instead. Is this also normal for Eduard kits?

My guess is that you either got the wing spar placement off or (more likely) did not precisely line up the cockpit tub to the alignment tabs located on the inside of the fuse halves. This is a kit that goes together very smoothly but leaves no room for error. constant dry fitting and re-dry fitting will reward you with a smoother build. Currently I'm working on the same kit and am proceeding at a cautious pace to avoid the pitfalls you endured.

Cheers,
Fred

The Eduard Wurger is well known to be a fiddly build that is engineered to work correctly only if you leave all the openable panels open. You've just discovered the problems with closing everything up, and the notorious fit of the forward bulkheads. Everyone who's ever built that kit learns to trim the parts in that area

Yes, the plastic is a little soft, which makes for strong glued joints, but needs a careful hand with the glue : )

If you want a kit that almost falls together, I recommend one of the Tamiya kits. In the meantime, congratulations on conquering a difficult build!

I agree Jessie, Tamiya kits are a joy to build. Might I suggest one of their fine F4U kits? :--). Take care and hopefully you can post some photos of your build. I love the 190! Thanks for sharing eh.

Jim

Ah, well, the 190 has undergone conversion to MG 131s after I broke the MG 17s -- that makes it most of an A-7 rather than a Fw 190A-6, so I used the A-7 engine cowling. And I've redone the camo in RLM 70/71 because I thought my RLM 74 mix was too blue, and because it came off when I was doing a wash with alcohol/Future/black paint (!)

An F4U (or any Navy fighter, really) would be a really nice choice. It's pretty, but it's not a Mustang or a Thunderbolt, so no natural metal finish. It has ground attack ordnance.

I was going to offer the excuse that my paint collection is overwhelmingly German colors, but it appears all I need for Navy planes is a blue and some zinc chromate interior green.

And it is a really pretty plane.

(pictures of Fw 190 forthcoming.)