Hi all.
Heres my Academy FW190D in 1/72. Painted in the markings of jv-44 "Papagei Staffel" Spring 1945. This units job was to protect ME262 jets taking off and landing at Munich.The undersides were painted red with white stripes as a recognition aid to Flak gunners,who had a tendancy to open up on anything in the air at that time.Although the kit came with "stripes" all the way down the fusalage research suggested that only the tail,wings and cowling were in fact striped,so thats what I went for.
The model was sprayed with Humbrol enamels and weathered with oil washes,silver pencil and pastel dust.The ariel wire is invisible thread.
A number of "firsts" on this one for me.
First cockpit with any detail Ive done.Photo etch seatbelts kindly supplied by John Murcutt.Thanks John,hope Ive done your generosity justice.
I tried preshading for the first time as well.Definately worth the effort and something I'll be doing as a standard process from now on.
I also tried spraying the camouflage freehand,and Im pretty pleased with how it turned out.Comments from Luftwaffe experts more than welcome.
I drilled out all the exhausts and cannon barrels,made "gear down" indicators from wire,and after a sudden rush of blood fabricated the pilots step from wire as well.
One thing I know you'll all spot straight away.
Silvered decals...
I applied 2 coats of Klear before,pressed well down as usual,used Microset/Sol,and applied 4 coats of Klear after application. And STILL they silvered badly.
I had noticed that the decals seemed really thick,so maybe it was something to do with that,or was it something I did wrong??
A real downer on what was looking like being my best yet.
As always,,please feel free to give comments and advice for future builds.Feedback and suggestions are always take on board and used for the next build.
Thanks for looking.
Happy Modelling.
Nige

Nice one Nige. I love the underside colour of that FW190.
As for the decals it doesn't notice that much, but i think the thickness has a lot to do with silvering and not anything you have done.
Good job on your first freehand spraying, a lot better than my first attempt ( the kit ended up in the scrapyard :-) ).
I would not like to try P.E in 1/72nd, its hard enough to see in 1/48th .
Keep them planes coming Nige, so whats your next project. Would it be that biplane i saw you with at Milton, oooohhh the rigging :-) .
Andy

Cheers Andy.
It certainly was a lot of fun building this,especially trying all the new stuff Id never done before.Im still miffed about those decals though!
Ive since noticed a couple of adverse comments about Academy decals in forums.I wonder if its a general thing? If so Im going to go for aftermarket decals for the other Academy kits in my stash.


Funny you should mention that. The Tiger Moth has been moved from the stash to the workbench already. Ive fancied building one,amongst other RAF trainers,since I was building the Spit.Be a nice progression to have a Tiger Moth,Harvard,Stearman etc.Especially as my dad flew all three types.If I remember right he went from first trip to solo on a TM in less than 9 hours!
That,and a compination of all the recent talk about rigging biplanes and seeing the geat job Almonkey had made of his Tiger Moth has inspired me to give it a go.
Plus its only got one colour and about 8 parts,,, :-)
Should have that knocked together in an hour or so :-)
Seriously though,,it'll make a nice addition and I really fancy a go at rigging something.I must have finally flipped #:-)
Nige

PS. I did a walkround photo shoot of the Tiger Moth in Hendon when I was there in preparation for this.If anyone wants pics send me a PM and I'll email some over.

Hi Nigel!

I like your JV 44 bird! This is a paint scheme I will try myself... one day!
About the decals, well, it's sometimes a question of luck! I try to cut away as much carrier film as I can to avoid silvering. The problem with doing that is the decals won't stick to the surface as good on the edges. I guess the only "perfect" solution is to paint the markings using masks...

Jean-Luc

Hey Nigel,
Beautiful job! The only thing I've noticed is that your decals seem to have some silvering to them. Oh, wait.................yeah, you already know that. :-)
That's a great paint job on a really cool camo scheme.
I'm going to finish my Folgore sometime this century and then I think I'll try something with some color to it myself. Brown and green are getting really dull.

Congradulations!
Hermon

Nice looking Dora!

On my models I rarely use the kit supplied decals they are not very dependable as you found out on your Focke-Wulf, Eagle Editions have the best decals I have ever used and have that ''painted on'' look to them.

Matrixone

Hi Nige,
Well who's a clever boy then The underside looks particularly well done.
You have definately come a long way, in a short time and aren't afraid to give anything a go, you are an inspiration
Not to deflate you at all, just a couple of comments
You have the antenna wire correct in that it would have been slack when the canopy was open, but it would have hung along the side of the fuselage. I know that this is because of the material you have used and it answers a question for me, thanks
Now this is not a criticism, just a heads up, even with my experience I would find this difficult on 1/72 aircraft (maybe ) I know that the mottle on these Jv 44 aircraft was unique and in some cases markings are painted over. The mottle is to hide the light undersurface colours when the aircraft is on the ground but allow it to show through, to some degree, when in the air. Achieving this on a model is difficult and requires very fine control of the airbrush. I would guess that your paint was not thinned enough, requiring to high a pressure which has caused overspray. Now there are, probably, different approaches to this, but this is what I do (if we ever get video capability I'll be able to show it ) Thin the paint much more than normal (I can't decribe it because statements like "tinted thinner" mean different things to different modellers). It needs to be thin enough that you must use the smallest appature and turn the pressure right down ( I use the lowest pressure my set up is capable of going to, so low that it doesn't register on the dial of my regulator). With this set up yo can get within a few millimetres of the surface and sedately draw on the mottle. Now this is where it can get difficult as the ambiant temperature will affect the paint and you my have to add more paint or thinner and or turn up or down the pressure. So test first and be prepared to alter the set up and if you don't seem to be able to get it right then walk away and try again another day. Warm weather would be best but I have managed this by heating the paint (done by immersing the paint tin/jar in hot water). A point to note is that you will always get overspray, the trick is to not let it get to where you don't want it. To do this aim the nozzle of your airbrush towards the centre of the eliment being sprayed. Another way to elliminate overspray is to get in close, which is the best and easiest way. Spraying mottle should be quite a relaxed affair, not a manic spraying trying to "outrun" the spray, It will also take some time to apply.
Are there any questions?
I refer you to the finished Pics of my Fw 190D-9 in my new pre-shading article. I won't post them here as I don't wish to highjack your thread.
As to the silvering of the decals, you have done nothing wrong and I can't see how they would do this, sack the decal maker is all I can say!!
Mal

Interesting green tone, what paint did you use?

Looks good Nigel. Personally, I have come to hate decals. You put so much into building, painting, making everything look nice, and then it comes down to saying a little prayer and hoping that decals don't silver (eventhough you put gloss coat), or wrinkle and never unwrinkle, or be transparent, or...ARGH! :-)

Anyway, I just learned something the other day; I had some silvering on one of my spitfire decals and found a site on the internet that said before adding the clear coat over, to make some very small punctures in the silvered part with say a sewing needle and then add a little more decal solution - it seemed to work really well and take away the silvering.

Anyway, your build looks good and it is evident that you are growing as a builder .

Leon

Hi all.
Thanks for the comments and advice.
Les,,I will certainly take a look at custom decals from now on after this.The swastikas on the tail came from an Xtradecal set and went on like a dream.
Jean-Luc,,I will try trimming as close as I can next time.
Leon,,I will try your tip next time this issue crops up.At least I know now that the time to address the silver issue is before the top coat of Klear/Future.
Hermon,
You noticed the silvering,,,?,,,looking forward to seeing your Foglore.I will be adding some colour to my display cabinet.My next 2 builds will be pink and yellow!
Johnny,,all paints are Humbrol enamels. Base coat is a 50/50mix of 28+65.The greens are 116 and 117.
Mal.
Your comments are very kind but the inspiration is this site and the people on it,not myself.Carefull mate,,you'll get a tough old roadie all embaressed
It was interesting how the thread behaved on the ariel. I fixed it with canopy closed and tensioned it as normal,then slid the canopy back.Heavier line of somesort would be the way forward for 190's with open canopies I guess.Another way would be to fix the thread in the open position to start with so it hangs naturally maybe?
Right,,onwards and upwards. I have to order a 0.3mm drill before I can start the Tiger Moth,,so I think its time for another Spitfire.
Maybe a nice Daimler Benz version so I can practice mottleing some more

:-)

Why do I get the feeling that some are trying to wind me up, there seems to be alot of reference to capture Spitfires at the moment. Of course we all know that "you just can't have too many Spitfires" and we also know that you can't put a Swastika on a Spitfire and be allowed to live, that sort of goes for posting pics of them too..................I shouldn't wunder
Mal

Hi Nigel, great plane you got there! I wish I could build a plane like that. I gonna stick with the 1/48 scale :-) .
Courtney

Hi Nigel:

Your little Dora is looking great so far. I like it very much. I have in my stash the same kit but in 1/48 from Italeri. Maybe this year I´ll build it.
In my expirience with Academy decals I also found that they have the silvering effect although you aplly a coat of Future.

Very well done

Hi all.



Where?,,,who?,,,surely some mistake? :-)
Who would sink so low?