Eduard Fw 190 D11

Enjoying the Tam D 9 so much I decided to start this one too. Markings will be as per box art.

Some progress to report. I know Eduard kits have a horrible reputation and deservedly so in most cases. I have built a few including the most notorious of them all - the ME 110 C/D and that kit was a nightmare to end all nightmares but having said that I defy anyone to show me a more accurate, a more detailed or a better presented kit than an Eduard kit. When eventually, and properly completed they just so look the part, more so than any other in my opinion.

All this brings me to my point so far, about this kit. Up to this point I must admit that I have not experienced any problems with fitting. The only smallish problem was with the gun cowling, that required a bit of effort to get in place but in fairness that's mainly due to the fact that because it was always going to be closed anyway, i have not put any of the bits in there and my take on all their opening panels is that the folk at Eduard have decided that because they offer all those lovely little detailed bits, you have to show them and therefore they make it very difficult to close the panels up!

Anyway back to the kit so up to here, I am very chuffed....





I have dry fitted the lower wing section and again the fit is damn near perfect! So tonight i'll strap the upper wing sections to the lower one and dry fit again to see if that perfection is still true. This brings me to one very important lesson I learned early with ED kits: It's not enough to dry fit what you are busy with, go a step or even two further each time because what you make fit now may cause something down the line not to fit. So before you start hacking or adding to parts after a dry fit - just take the time to check the next piece as well.

Because of my time limitations due of work, family and the build schedule that i am committed to this year, i decided that I am not going to go full out on AM details that i usually do. So at the start I was not going to put in my usual Eduard colour PE cockpit but rather use what the kit offers the only exception is the harness, i always use Eduards colour stuff because the amount of time to try and get anything even close to as good is simply not worth it, and this brings me to my first real gripe with this kit. The idiot at Eduard who is responsible for the IP decal is obviously a hopeless crack head! It would have to be a Space cadet to offer up this colour as the colour of German aircraft IP's...



Luckily the panel is hardly noticeable under the IP visor and once it's wrapped up under the canopy, so only because of that I decided not to rip everything out and put in a proper IP. So please check this in future before you opt to use this decal. Other than that we march on...

Looking good so far!

Got the wings on now and the lower section fit like a dream......



....but the top sections do not....





Not an insurmountable problem but it will take some work, i suspect my headachs will start when I dry fit those gun panels however.

I got the wings sorted out without too much effort and then the gun panels...oh boy! The port side took me 6 hours to eventually get it to where i'm happy and it involved removing almost all the inner panel detail and adding a 1.1mm shim to the forward section of the wing gunbay and a 0.5mm shim to the outer wall. Finally to take care of the final sliver of a gap I used some Testors cement to fill said gap. The starboard side was much better and only required me to remove the inner panel detail and again some Testors cement filler.









Sorry guys but I have no idea why this fucking stupid thing persists in posting those pictures sideways....  

I'll have to get back into my D soon, gee these Ed kits should be the same but they do seem to give diff prob areas in each version - very strange!

looking very respectable Geoff

Cheers Phil, I got some more work done - not much mind, but I got some of the dreaded finicky stuff metal coated and completed the cockpit with the hood....

Its looking good Jugs.
This one seems to be putting up quite a fight...

Steve

Cheers Steve - not too bad a fight TG! More progress - primed it with Tamiya rattle can primer, then coated with Tamiya rattle can gloss black, bit of sanding and polishing and then Alclad Aluminium...

Got the colour on now....

Looking Nice Jugs.
You do seem to have a knack for Luftwaffe camo   

Steve

Well she's standing on her own wheels now, another couple of hours work and she'll be done....

Now you are cooking with gas Geoff! looks real good there.

Well that's it done and that makes two so far for 2014.

just beaten up enough, nice work Geoff.

Also,

primed it with Tamiya rattle can primer, then coated with Tamiya rattle can gloss black, bit of sanding and polishing and then Alclad Aluminium...

and you had no paint lift or probs like the ones Bob always has with alclad, it does make me wonder how he gets those dreaded results, it seems like the Tamiya sprays gives a much better base for the alclad than the actual alclad primer bases.

whose brand of paints did you end up using over the aluminum Geoff, were they acrylics?

Phil wrote:

just beaten up enough, nice work Geoff.

Also,

primed it with Tamiya rattle can primer, then coated with Tamiya rattle can gloss black, bit of sanding and polishing and then Alclad Aluminium...

and you had no paint lift or probs like the ones Bob always has with alclad, it does make me wonder how he gets those dreaded results, it seems like the Tamiya sprays gives a much better base for the alclad than the actual alclad primer bases.

whose brand of paints did you end up using over the aluminum Geoff, were they acrylics?

Thanks Phil, I used Alclad Aluminium. I find the Alclad primer and Black from Alclad used to be crap. but I hear tell they have sorted it out, but i'll not bother with them because i'm happy with the Tam stuff.

Superb build!!

Great weathering, just enough, not too much!  

Sorry Phil but I didn't answer your question properly. I used a hairspray over the Alclad then Warbird acrylics directly over that.