Focke-Wulf Fw-190 D9 - Workshop - Part 4

XI. WEATHERING

First, I coated the model with another layer of semi-gloss varnish before applying wash. I usually use wash just to accentuate the lines of service panel plates and their screws, but not the other panel lines, as they are visible enough and do not need to be accentuated further if the plane is relatively clean and well-kept. But as the Blue 12 was pretty beat-up and dirty, I used wash to accentuate all panel lines as well as some rivets. I used Mig Panel Liners – black, grey and brown.

I continued with oil paints in all the places where the paint is supposed to have faded. Even as I was painting the model with camouflage colors, I would apply a little more layers here, a little less layers there in order to achieve a shading effect. Oil paints were then applied to enrich and accentuate the faded paint. I used Mig oilbrushes, mostly the white one for RLM-76 and dust for RLM-81.

In some of the photographs of the actual plane, there are a few details that the author of the color profiles left out. First, the stains on the cross on the left side of the fuselage. I believe that the stain on top marked with a red arrow is red paint. The bottom stain marked with brown is probably mud – the Blue 12 was covered in mud.

It also had stains on the undercarriage doors and on the bottom motor cowling, as seen on the previously published references photographs.

I then coated the model with semi-matt varnish and continued the weathering with pigments. Another characteristic of the Blue 12 was that the right side of the fuselage was dirtier than the left (probably due to the spinning direction of the propeller). I used a flat paintbrush and a paper shading and blending stick to apply the pigments. I bought a set that also included rolled paper pencils for detailing (which can also be used to draw while removing the previously applied pigment) and a kneadable eraser that can be shaped, allowing detailed work or the removal of dirty spots.

For the dirt from exhaust fumes on the fuselage, I used a black acrylic pigment that is added to façade paint. It is an extremely fine pigment, very adhesive, a little brownish and softer than the pigments used in model building. In a few spots, I also used a black oil paint. The motor cowling received very little pastel shading (olive green). In the end, I applied the mud stains using an oil paint. I coated the model with semi-matt and the motor cowling with the semi-gloss varnish.

XII. OTHER DETAILS

Initially, I was planning on using Eduard’s plastic machine guns, but I changed my mind and bought metal ones from Master instead.

I made the tail navigation light from a transparent sprue.

The navigation lights on the wings were tear-shaped. I used Tornado lights from a Revell model. They needed some sanding, but they were finished much sooner than if I had made them myself from scratch.

The FuG25 aerial was made from copper wire and flattened out – this aerial was not completely round. The FuG16ZY aerial was made from aluminum sheet metal.

The FuG16ZY aerial was made from thin plastic and copper wire. Eduard did produce a PE part for this aerial, but the aerial mast should be thicker and the aerial itself longer.

I will put some mud on the aerials to make them look dirty. I used white glue to “glaze” the opening for the camera on the left wing.

A few comparisons:

  A few additional photographs:

Focke-Wulf Fw-190 D9 - Workshop - Part 3

X. REPAIRS AND OTHER DETAILS

As already mentioned, determining colors based on old black and white photographs is very unreliable, particularly when it comes to repairs on the bottom part of the wings. One simply has to trust the authors’ judgement since, as they claim, they also studied color film excerpts of the plane.

Before carrying out other repairs, I also recreated the chipped paint on both wings where they meet the fuselage. I used the no. 15 surgical scalpel, sandpaper (1200) and a soft eraser. The no. 15 scalpel is small enough to give you good control when removing the upper layers of paint (a toothpick proved unuseful for removing MRP paints).

Reference photographs for some of the repairs can be seen in previous chapters, so I won't post the same photographs again. Undercarriage doors show signs of repair with blotches of red RLM23 and blue RLM76. The right wing has a paint job partly covering the B1b cross. The authors mention the color RLM76, whereas I as the author of the color profile used RLM75. On the left wing, along the front edge, there is a major paintjob in a lighter color, where I used RLM76.
On both wings, some panel lines are painted with red or green-grey (according to the authors); I used red RLM23.

The panel plates before and around the tail unit were painted with a brush using RLM66 or RLM70. I used RLM70. On the right side, the front panel line from the fuselage extension is painted in a darker color; I used RLM75.

Before I continued with the repairs, I put on all of the remaining decals. An important characteristic of the plane is that, on the left side of the fuselage, the number 12 is further away from the cross – before the radio bay access hatch. On the right side, the number 12 is closer to the cross. The decals for the blue number 12 and the horizontal line are from the Kagero publication Top Drawings. Because the black cross must be placed on the fuselage very accurately, following the vertical panel lines, it turns out that the decal for the horizontal line is about one mm too short. I made a new decal using one in the scale of 1:32 from the same set.

On the left side of the fuselage, the red paint is applied in the middle of the cross. The red is also applied where the fuselage extension and the tail unit meet and around both lift tubes. On this plane, the lift tubes are rather larger than usual, and the red paint on the left side runs up to the horizontal blue line, whereas on the right side, it is slightly higher. I will have to make these tubes a little bigger on the model. There is also a red paintjob on the right side of the windshield.

There is a major paintjob in the color RLM76 on the vertical stabilizer. There is a red cross right under the serial number on both sides. I used a decal from the Revell model SU-27 in the scale of 1:72.

On the left side of the motor cowling, the white coolant mark E9 was painted by hand. For this mark, I cut a mask out of adhesive tape and painted it with an airbrush. The mark is slightly too big.

This is how the model looks so far.

Next comes weathering.