CTA Entry Skinny_Mike Ta-152C

[Skinny_Mike]

Hey guys, here is my current update.

So first off I got some parts to help out with the kit. The kit seat was pretty poor, and the photo etch belts are not 1/48th scale. They are way too big. I don’t have any reference material to prove it, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the Ta-152C followed in the footsteps of the Ta-152H in that it had a lot of similar parts to the Fw-190s. So I replaced the kit seat with the Ultracast seat for the Fw-190. This seat has the molded on belts. I also ordered a Master Model set of brass gun barrels. Not sure if I’m going to use them or not, but they are fantastic.

You can see how much of an improvement the Ultracast version is over the kit parts.

Next I painted up the cockpit using model master RLM 66. I gave the parts two coats of future followed by a wash of MIG dark wash. I sprayed the parts with acrylic flat and then a dry brush of lighter gray followed by detail painting.

Then I worked on the instrument panel. It was sprayed in RLM 66 and the instruments were picked out in flat black.

The kit comes with decals for the instrument panel. I got out my punch set and punched out the individual dials. I screwed a couple up so I used Mike Grant replacements and used some Airscale placards to augment the instrumentation panel.

Last step was to add a drop of micro crystal clear to simulate the lens. Not perfect but pretty good. And as cramped as the cockpit in on this aircraft, it won’t be super visible.

And here are all the cockpit components painted and ready for assembly.

The next step was to fit the seat. The kit seat had locating tabs in the bottom for placement. Since I used the aftermarket seat I needed to dry fit until I had the right position and then I glued it in place.

After the seat was in place I finished assembling the cockpit.

One thing to watch out for, the control stick has a half circle mounting tab on the bottom, if you install the stick following this, its backwards. So I drilled out the hole in the floor and installed the stick the right way. After I finished assembling the cockpit, I installed the tail wheel assembly, cockpit and the engine half into the fuselage. The kit has mounting holes for everything, which made alignment a snap.

Then I closed up the fuselage halves. I added the rear deck behind the cockpit. As you can see, it doesn’t extend all the way to cover up the whole area. I’m not sure why Hobby Boss doesn’t provide a full piece. The photo etched option is the same length. Weird. Well I was trying to decide if I wanted to leave the canopy open or have it closed. I think this has given me the answer. Closed it is.

Well that’s all for now. I’ll work the seams and get it all closed up. The next decision is the cowl flaps. Open or closed? Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[moon puppy]

Hey guys, here is my current update.

So first off I got some parts to help out with the kit. The kit seat was pretty poor, and the photo etch belts are not 1/48th scale. They are way too big. I don’t have any reference material to prove it, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the Ta-152C followed in the footsteps of the Ta-152H in that it had a lot of similar parts to the Fw-190s. So I replaced the kit seat with the Ultracast seat for the Fw-190. This seat has the molded on belts. I also ordered a Master Model set of brass gun barrels. Not sure if I’m going to use them or not, but they are fantastic.

You can see how much of an improvement the Ultracast version is over the kit parts.

Next I painted up the cockpit using model master RLM 66. I gave the parts two coats of future followed by a wash of MIG dark wash. I sprayed the parts with acrylic flat and then a dry brush of lighter gray followed by detail painting.

Then I worked on the instrument panel. It was sprayed in RLM 66 and the instruments were picked out in flat black.

The kit comes with decals for the instrument panel. I got out my punch set and punched out the individual dials. I screwed a couple up so I used Mike Grant replacements and used some Airscale placards to augment the instrumentation panel.

Last step was to add a drop of micro crystal clear to simulate the lens. Not perfect but pretty good. And as cramped as the cockpit in on this aircraft, it won’t be super visible.

And here are all the cockpit components painted and ready for assembly.

The next step was to fit the seat. The kit seat had locating tabs in the bottom for placement. Since I used the aftermarket seat I needed to dry fit until I had the right position and then I glued it in place.

After the seat was in place I finished assembling the cockpit.

One thing to watch out for, the control stick has a half circle mounting tab on the bottom, if you install the stick following this, its backwards. So I drilled out the hole in the floor and installed the stick the right way. After I finished assembling the cockpit, I installed the tail wheel assembly, cockpit and the engine half into the fuselage. The kit has mounting holes for everything, which made alignment a snap.

Then I closed up the fuselage halves. I added the rear deck behind the cockpit. As you can see, it doesn’t extend all the way to cover up the whole area. I’m not sure why Hobby Boss doesn’t provide a full piece. The photo etched option is the same length. Weird. Well I was trying to decide if I wanted to leave the canopy open or have it closed. I think this has given me the answer. Closed it is.

Well that’s all for now. I’ll work the seams and get it all closed up. The next decision is the cowl flaps. Open or closed? Anyone have any thoughts?

Love it, really making that IP pop :coolio

 

[randy_ditton]

Hi Mike, Like your progress!! The clear on the gauges looks great


Randy

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Hey guys – thanks for the kind words. Time for a quick update.

So the first thing I did was to clean up the seams from the fuselage halves. Now I just want to point out that the fit was really good. There was only one noticeable spot that needed some filler and that was because I got a little too aggressive trying to sand off a sprue attach point. But as a matter of habit, I brush some Mr. Surfacer 500 on all the seams, and sand them all down just in case. I also use 4 different grades of sanding sticks the smooth out the finish. Each grade is run at a 90° angle to the last. The point is to polish out any sanding marks. Once the seams were cleaned up, I added the 20mm cannon barrels to the top cowl piece. I used the Master Models turned brass barrels but I used some extras I had laying around. They are so much better looking than the kit provided barrels, which are nothing more than lengths of round plastic. I blew up the comparison of the two in the photo.

And then I installed them both. The brass barrels are a bit longer then the kit barrels. From all the photos of the Ta-152C that I have seen, the barrels do not stick out over the engine at all like mine do, which I’m sure is why the kit barrels are shorter, but all the pictures I have seen are of the two prototype aircraft, so do we know if they even had the guns installed? So I decided to go with some artistic license because the guns in front of the cockpit on all the Fw-190 derivatives do stick out some, and I think it looks better anyway.

Then I finished getting the fuselage together. The cowl has been added, and the top of the nose. Hobby Boss includes two cowl, one with flaps open and one with flaps closed. I chose the closed flaps, because I am going to close the canopy so I was hoping for a more streamlined appearance. I also added the guard that goes over the exhaust to prevent exhaust gases from being sucked into the turbocharger. Hobby Boss included this as a photo etch piece, which looks really nice. Lastly I painted the deck behind the cockpit using acrylic RLM66. Since I am closing the canopy, I’m not going to worry about weathering it, as the deck will be hidden anyway.

The turbo intake is just dry fitted in the photos. It will be added after I paint the aircraft as I think it will be in way of the masking of the exhaust panels and the camouflage pattern.
So that’s it for now. For those wondering, this has been a pretty good kit. The cons include cockpit detail is wrong and underwhelming and there really isn’t enough interior detail if you look into the hollow MLG bays. But on the plus side, the fit is really good and there really aren’t a lot of complex steps to figure out. I’m enjoying this build quite a bit and, unless I do something to really mess this up, it should look really good when completed.

That's all for today! See ya all soon.
:drinks

 

[phantom II]

Looking very snappy Mike

Christian B)

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys. I’m having a good time getting this project done. And it hasn’t stalled out like the 4 other things I’ve started in 2012! Maybe I’ll get one finished yet!

On to the progress…

I started on the wings. First step was to open up the empty shell casing chutes for the guns. There are the 2 20mm cannons in the wings and then I opened the chute for the nose mounted 30mm cannon. I’m really not sure where the 20mm cannons in the nose empty out and I couldn’t tell from my very limited resources so kind of ignored those.

Next I cleaned up the ejection pin marks in the wing spar. This also makes the rear wall of the MLG bays. And I cleaned up some of the other pin marks. Hobby Boss provides the wing root cannons that should be added through the wheel wells and then out the front of the wings. I am going to use the resin barrels found in the Quickboost Ta-152H update set. These are longer than the barrels on the kit supplied guns, and I wanted to add the barrels after painting to avoid breaking them off so I measured out the proper lengths and added some plastic rod behind the wing spar as a stop when I slide in the gun later.

Next I painted the wheel wells with Alclad White Aluminum. The instructions say to use RLM 02, but I know that the Ta-152H had unpainted aluminum MLG bays so it seemed reasonable that production models of the C version would as well. Then I did a quick dry fit. Here I found a problem. The kit fuselage has the sides of the wing roots extend pretty much too where they would meet the wing bottom. This leaves a strip of plastic running through the gear bay that should not be there! Here is a photo from the dry fitting.

It should look more like this MLG bay, from my Eduard D-9.

So I cut out the offending plastic and fitted the wing. This looks better, but it’s still one of the weak parts of this kit.

Oh well not much I can do. :vmad So I attached the wings.

This brings us to the other really bad part of the kit. There are really bad gaps at the wing roots. And a large step on the right hand wing.

So how to fix? Well after a little thought I pulled off the wing assembly and I stuck in some plastic tube just behind the wing spar on the RHS wing. This fixed the step, but the gap was obviously still there. So next came out the Tamiya tape and the Tamiya putty. I masked off the gap and spread on the putty.

Then I removed the tape. I’ll let the putty cure overnight and then clean up the seam.

I also attached the horizontal stabilizers in the process. They went on great. No gaps there at all. So that is where we got today. Hope to make a little more progress tomorrow and then I should be off to the paint barn this week!

Thanks for looking and as always, comments are welcome.
Mike

 

[moon puppy]

I've always read that the bay in the gear well has been a weak spot on a lot of models. Just don't turn it over..

Looking good Mike

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Unfortunatly in most cases that's true. It's disappointing because it's such an obvious part of these airplanes. I know I keep singing the praises of the Eduard Fw-190d kits, but they really got it right. I also have the Dragon Ta-152H in my stash. I'm interested to see how they did. There's an entire engine and the 30mm cannon. It should look pretty good though.

 

[razordws]

Starting to look the part Mike. :coolio

 

[jknaus]

Looking snazzy. A lot of work in this kit. You know you guys are making me itch to do a 190 now eh??
James

 

[Ruben Lopez]

Maybe manufacturers don't expect you to show the bottom of the model!
But you are doing a marvelous work on this one!

 

[randy_ditton]

Looking good Mike, looks like you have the wing issues well inhand


Randy

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

Here's a quick update. Cleaned up the seams at the wing roots, masked the windscreen off with Tamiya tape, painted it RLM 66 and glued it on. Also added a brass pitot tube meant for an Fw-190 that I had in the spares box. I like to use the brass pitot tubes because it never fails that I break off the kit supplied plastic ones. So its brass whenever I can now! I masked off the canopy and filled the landing gear bays with tissue.

Its off to the paint barn for some primer!

Thanks for checking it out!
Mike

 

[moon puppy]

nice and clean...

 

[jknaus]

James

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Thanks everyone for following along.

Been a little while since my last post, but progress is being made. First off I got some primer on the airplane. I use the Tamiya gray primer right out of the rattle can. I especially like to use this as the primer for Alclad. I have started to have problems with Alclad peeling off when I tape over it and use the Alclad primer. I think that has been a common complaint with the Alclad primer.

Then I checked for problems. I only had a couple. The wing roots did not look good, and I had beat up the plastic on the bottom of the airplane during assembly.

So I puttied over the scrapes on the bottom and sanded them smooth. Then I attacked the wing roots. First I filled with super glue and sanded the seam down. Then I re-primered and repeated until the seam was smooth. Before I filled the seams I made a tape template of the join line because the wing root has a curved panel line not a straight one. Then I transferred the pattern onto Dymo tape and cut that out. Once I had a smooth seam, I re-scribed the line using a squadron scribing tool and a UMM Scriber. I also repaired any nearby panel lines that disappeared during the sanding process.

This was my first time trying this technique. Honestly the left panel line looks great but for some reason I couldn’t get the right side to look as good. I had to redo it twice and in the end called it good. It’s still much better than it was. I learned a new trick, so I’m pretty happy!

On to the paint!

So as far as I can tell there where 2 of these aircraft built and rumor has it one of them was on staff with JG 301 at the end of the war, but I have yet to see photos of anything but the prototype. This gives me some artistic license with the paint scheme. So based on most other Luftwaffe aircraft at the end of the war, I figure that the rear portion of the wing was most likely left natural metal. Alclad to the rescue! I sprayed the wing and some of the belly in aluminum. Then the center line panels were sprayed in duraluminum followed by some dull aluminum for a little contrast. I left this sit for a couple days to cure.

I sprayed the undersides of the elevators in Lifecolor UA074 RLM76. This one is gray with a light hint of blue whereas the other Lifecolor RLM76 has a green hue to it. I also sprayed the underside of the ailerons and the rudder in RLM76. They’ll get attached later. Lastly I sprayed some Alclad Pale Burnt Metal around the shell ejector ports on the wings to show some heat staining.

I let everything sit overnight and then I masked the metal parts and pre-shaded the airframe. I need to get better at this technique. My lines are all too thick, not straight and too light. I'll keep practicing! But it will be enhanced later with more weathering later. I also sprayed the yellow half of the defense of the Reich band using Model Master enamel RLM04.

Once that had spent the afternoon drying, I masked the yellow and sprayed the red. Here is where I ran into trouble. I tried to use MM RLM 23, but it is too pink in color. :huh: It does not look right. Then I tried Xtracrylics RLM 23 but this is like a florescent orange color. Still really bad. I ended up using Lifecolor Red. It looks good! But my question to you fellow modelers out there is what color does everyone else use? :hmmm

Well that’s where I am right now. Plan is to spray on the RLM84, or whatever that color is, tomorrow.
Hope everyone had a great holiday! See you soon.

Mike

 

[moon puppy]

 

[phantom II]

Hey Mike . I would say the answer to you color question might be more like what did you spray over ?

I use a lot of Tamiya paint and it is easily influenced by the base coat.

In you case, it was yellow.

Hope that helps, Christian B)

 

[chukw]

I always spray a white base coat, then whatever Tamiya color is closest. Lookin' good, Mike! :drinks

 

[moon puppy]

Nice work on the Alclad, I feel your pain about the pealing problem but it seems to be inconsistent at best. I got some that are just bullet proof, others I don't look at hard in fear of it pealing.

I agree with Chris about the Red. I know the read you speak of, did this in that same red,

After an all over migs neutral wash it toned down. I think if you were spraying it over a black base it would be darker.