1/32 Hasegawa Fw190D-9 Black One

[speedgraflex]

I agree with Carlos! It is so great watching you create Black One from start to finish, John. I feel honored to be viewing and absorbing so many techniques and tips. I don’t know what else to add except when I saw the crosses appear on the wings, I was very happy for you. What an achievement so far. Something Robert DeNiro said about acting, he was asked to sum up his approach to acting in one word. He said, “Refinement.” And I feel that happens here, in your work, with experience and willingness to... try new things.

[BlackSheep214]

Fantastic job on the crosses and swastika !!!

[jkim]

Thanks guys! Yes, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Still LOTS to do but it's definitely on the downhill side of the journey. I appreciate all of the comments and dialogue on this long build and I hope that it was entertaining and informative.

No commitments or duties this Saturday so I essentially spent the whole day in the workshop trying to get as much done on Black 1 as possible. I like to take advantage of any forward momentum. Before I forget... if you are careful with the Montex masks, they can be re-used. I've put them each mask carefully back onto their backing sheet just in case I need to use them again.


Continuing on with the markings... I thought I'd be at the decal stage but looking closer at the Montex masks, I had the choice of a couple of "1" numeral masks that I could use. Red 1 was actually too small but the "1" in "13" seemed to be the right size. If given a choice, I'd rather paint markings rather than use decals.

It's a simple matter of blocking the "3" using a Post-It.


First the black. Compared to the fuselage cross, this is actually sprayed black to match the relative newness of the Black 1 marking.


The inner "1" is CAREFULLY placed within the outline mask, trying to keep an even border around the entire numeral. The white is sprayed on after that.


Here, I've removed the outer mask but the inner mask is still in place. A small piece of paint lifted but I think I can work that "chip" into the weathering.


And here is the finished numeral 1. It turned out ok but do you know what I notice? The little trace of black long the bottom edges of the fuselage cross. One of the dangers when spraying the dark color first... I'll fix that!


Here's the other side. The 1 is ok but same thing with the cross.


Seeing the end in sight, I decided to crank out some painting on the smaller bits. After a flat coat, these will be weathered a bit.

[Stikpusher]

Well you sure can’t beat the look of those painted on insignia and markings. Obviously a bit labor and time intensive compared to decals. But the control over colors and final appearance... outstanding.

I take it decals are just stencils and such similar small markings?

[speedgraflex]

I am not sure if you had not pointed out the overspray, if I would have seen it... and I am on the big boy computer with the big boy screens capable of minutely examing pixels, so... I was making "oohs and ahhs" over the number on both sides which is great work, John. You have to be feeling good! So good!

I meant to ask you what kind of tape do you use for attaching your parts to be painted to old sprues? I tried using some old painter's tape but the adhesive reacted to both the resin and the 50 year old plastic. I had to break out the Goo Gone to remove it. Apologies if that was off-topic, the strip of brownish tape on sprue in the last tasty details being painted shot reminded me!

[jkim]

Well you sure can’t beat the look of those painted on insignia and markings. Obviously a bit labor and time intensive compared to decals. But the control over colors and final appearance... outstanding.

I take it decals are just stencils and such similar small markings?

Yes, the painted markings look a bit more realistic than decals. A bit more work but well worth it. The decal process is quite onerous in its own way. Getting the decals to settle onto the model surface with the various solutions takes time too. The welle (wave) marking is going to be a decal since I don't have a mask for it. Other than that, yes, just stenciling remains.

I am not sure if you had not pointed out the overspray, if I would have seen it... and I am on the big boy computer with the big boy screens capable of minutely examing pixels, so... I was making "oohs and ahhs" over the number on both sides which is great work, John. You have to be feeling good! So good!

I meant to ask you what kind of tape do you use for attaching your parts to be painted to old sprues? I tried using some old painter's tape but the adhesive reacted to both the resin and the 50 year old plastic. I had to break out the Goo Gone to remove it. Apologies if that was off-topic, the strip of brownish tape on sprue in the last tasty details being painted shot reminded me!

I often miss little mistakes until I start reviewing the photos. Another reason why I think posting builds online is good. The tape is good ole 3M masking tape. It's too sticky for paint masking but it does a good job of holding small parts. It's good at not leaving any sticky residue behind but on occasion, it'll leave a bit which can be easily removed by dabbing with another piece of tape. I've also seen people use little blobs of Blu-Tack or Silly Putty to hold small parts. Sometimes I'll go through the trouble of drilling a small hole into a part and then wedging a toothpick into it so that I can paint all sides without having to lift and replace like I do with the sprue tree/tape jig.

[BlackSheep214]

Montex masks... I need to look into those for my future builds. I’ve always liked the painted on look of numbers, letters, and Luftwaffe insignias.

[mostrich]

Greetings, John!
It took me nearly half an hour to catch up with your report. So much progress has been made. Enjoyable and informative at once.
I thought a lot about that paint lifting issue. The last issues I had lay a couple of builds behind, when I still used polyurethane primer (Vallejo brand). Since I use a 'hot' primer those issues vanished, at least on all styrene surfaces. PE is still hard to convince to hold its paint, but thankfully as an aircraft builder, you seldom have to mask PE parts.
But I'm pretty sure you can't make this troubles dispappear. Since we're 'sandwiching' a lot with lacquer, water and alcohol based acrylic paints and clears, it is a question of time when it has its troublesome appearance. Like you, I love to work in super fine, very controllable layers. New paints like MRP give you fantastic coverage with nearly no paint in the cup. But the price is that there are only some atoms of pigment on your model. If you look to harsh at them, they're gone.

Seeing your work with the masks one phrase comes to mind: "There's only one kind of decals better than Cartograf. No decals."

[kahunaminor]

Kudos John,
Great tutorial and result.

Regards,

[jkim]

Thanks for the comments guys! Sorry for the volume of updates posted recently... I'm sure it is a bit overwhelming. But I tend to get a lot of work done if given the time and opportunity and that window has opened up for me this weekend.

The Montex masks are very nice. I don't much care for their canopy masks as I've found they tend to not hold on curved surfaces very well. But their marking masks work very well. The material is a very good blend of being flexible enough to place but stiff enough where it does not stretch out of shape.

Torben... your comments about the paint lifting issue are very well taken. I may have to look into applying primer to the entire model prior to starting the camo finish.

So here is a post dedicated to clean up of markings. With any type of masks, some error is bound to occur. The errors I found were very minor and caused by user operator as opposed to anything faulty with the masks themselves. However, once I noticed them in the digital pictures, I couldn't ignore and set out to correcting them this afternoon.

The main issue is the trace of black along the bottom edges of the fuselage crosses where they should be white. But upon closer inspection, I found a couple of other imperfections that I thought were worth fixing. The right arm of the cross has slight curvature downward caused by the inadvertent bending of the mask. The other is the top border of white on the number "1", it is a little thinner than the rest of the border. I am going to fix all of these.


First, I mask the entire white portion of the cross that I want to correct. Careful attention is put upon placing that bottom edge of masking to expose the black line I want to eradicate. In order to avoid any "bright" spots of paint, I do the entire white portion and not just a piece of it. Thankfully the area is small and easily masked. The tape is de-tacked by purposefully handling the adhesive side with my fingers.


I want the repair to match the other areas of the cross so I can't just spray white or it will come out too bright. So I spray some neutral gray as a pre-shade filter. This also serves to eradicate the hard contrast between the black and the white, which would be hard to cover otherwise with white.


The white is applied, making sure that I spray into that bottom edge. Highly-thinned paints sprayed at low pressure is the key to these small repairs. You can see from the test sprays on the tape how small the spray pattern is. I was using a 5:1thinner to paint ration here.


Here is the cross after repairs. As you can see, I've also straightened out the curve on the right cross arm.


The top of the "1" is next. This is a VERY small area so placement of the masking is 99% of the work. I use a pair of magnifying loupes for this type of work, even when spraying.


The port side is all finished and no lifted paint, thankfully! Please note, the latches of the large fuselage hatch have been painted red per the description in Crandall's Dora book about Black 1.


Similar type of repair is called for on the starboard side. There is also a slight paint leak on upper portion of the cross that can be corrected.


I use the same pieces of tape for this side.


Black being an absolute color, the masking of the repair to the black area is much simpler. I just have to define a corrected edge with the tape and I can simply spray the black onto the repair area.


Here are the results of the starboard side repair. The circular port in the cross was painted red instead of using a decal.


This type of repair is only possible with the use of an airbrush. And it is MUCH easier to do these types of repairs with a gravity-feed brush. So if anyone is in the market for an airbrush, please consider a double-action airbrush with a small gravity-fed cup like this Iwata HP CS Plus. I can't imagine the amount of cleaning I'd have to do between each color change if the brush was siphon fed.