Tamiya 1/48 Fw190 A3

[jeaton01]

I started on this one, with the intent of having it done before January 1. It's the motorized version and came with a plastic base which is supposed to hide the battery and switch but after starting I thought it would be more fun to run the wires to a German style battery cart, which I thought I had. Nope, only British, but Sprue Brothers is saving me on that score as Tamiya makes a Kettenkraftrad/battery cart set. I thrashed around until I found a picture of a 190 hooked to a start cart so I would know where to bring the wires out, but I needn't have bothered because the Tamiya box art for the set mentioned has the cart hooked to a 190. I am putting the pilot in, and I painted the instrument panel which looked pretty good, but of course it is so far under the glare shield no one will ever see my "fine" work.

 

[Robertp]

Wow! Great idea. I really want see this when it's completed.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

John usually has a pic with the prop spinning on his builds. This one won't need all the hot air needed to do so.

 

[jeaton01]

Ooohhh Noooo, my secret is out!

 

[paddy]

Hi John
I had no idea Tamiya ever produced a motorised aircraft in any scale ? As a kid my brother used to build motorized Tamiya tanks back in the 70;s.
there is a German starter in the old Airfix airfield sets and several other newer sets, its the British trolly starter that quite hard to find now.
Good luck with this one, looking forward to seeing how it urns out and its given me a whole new idea for motorizing displays

 

[jeaton01]

Paddy isn't the cart in the center of this picture a British starter trolley? It was in the Airfix Hurricane Ready for Battle set.

 

[mike walsh]

Hi John,

Nice effort on the Hurricane and vehicles. They all come up looking pretty good.

 

[moon puppy]

This is fun, git'er done!

 

[jeaton01]

That's the spirit, Bob!

Mike, I need to study up on your posts to put more life in scenes, slowly working in that direction. I've always worked from the position of trying to be clean and error free first and then learn weathering. I sure like how you do groundwork.

 

[Skinny_Mike]

good progress John.

 

[sharkman]

Clever idea John!

 

[jeaton01]

Got the cart and kettenkraftrad assembled and painted, also the airplane, which is getting its clear coat now. I found a 1.5 volt silver oxide battery that will fit in the battery cart right where the real one would, after thinning everything until it was nearly transparent. It still needs more work in this photo.

 

[moon puppy]

 

[Rhino]

Outstanding!

 

[centaur567]

Staffing the cat should be a lot more fun now. Looking great!! Gary S.

 

[sharkman]

Sweet!

 

[jeaton01]

Staffing the cat should be a lot more fun now. Looking great!! Gary S.

You lost me there Gary
Thanks all!

I put a clear coat on, and then decided I'd rather paint on some of the markings. I wanted to try using a stencil to paint on the walkways because it is hard to get the decals for those on straight and the amount of clear often leads to silvering on my builds. The left side fuselage cross was going to be a problem for a decal because the APU connection is right in the middle, touching on part of the cross, so it was safer to paint it as it was a simple white marking. The walkway markings are a little iffy, I'll just say they are wearing off. The small size of each dash is getting close to what my Silhouette Cameo is capable of.

 

[moon puppy]

Looks swell!

 

[jeaton01]

Decals are on. I was concerned about the black eagle decals because there was a lot of surface detail they had to settle over but with very warm water, Microset, and Microsol they went down very nicely.

 

[jeaton01]

It's together good enough for pictures. I weathered it with an oil paint dot filter and a silver pencil, and made a mat for it from a section of Woodland Scenics dry grass. It needs to be stuck down on something so it will lay flat, or maybe I should preserve the lumps on the middle but get the edges to stay down somehow. Movie at the end, just for Carlos.