SPA Modeler

Before I glued the resin instrument panel coaming, I decided to remove some of the internal ribbing that is not needed and might get in the way.




I secured this piece by wicking thin CA glue into the joints while the part was held in place with my fingers.



All of the new joints will be inspected and cleaned up as necessary. Here are some views into the cockpit area with the new parts glued into place.





Checking the fit of the clear parts and a good review of the Dora fuselage with the re-shaped gun and radiator cowlings.






The pilot armored head rest has been painted. There is a glue blob that needs to be carefully fixed and re-painted.


Finally... a disc cut from a piece of stiff paper is used to as a removable mask for the opening of the radiator cowling.

Those control surface transfers really made all the difference. Looks to be a good call on the internal ribbing removal as well. These 190 pits need all the help they can get in terms of IP visibility when everything is all buttoned up.

Man... they look so real. Can I sit in the cockpit?

I'm way late to this thread. This is some seriously fine workmanship you have going here.

mustang1989 wrote:Those control surface transfers really made all the difference. Looks to be a good call on the internal ribbing removal as well. These 190 pits need all the help they can get in terms of IP visibility when everything is all buttoned up.

Thank you sir! Archer Fine Transfers is probably best known for their raised rivet decals but Woody has developed a wide range of decal-based products in his catalog... worth checking out. If you recall, he created a set of Luftwaffe latch decals for me when I had trouble trying to scribe them on my Ta152H build.

BlackSheep214 wrote:Man... they look so real. Can I sit in the cockpit?

Thank you! I guess familiarity with a model can lead to a certain level of competence.

Greg wrote:I'm way late to this thread. This is some seriously fine workmanship you have going here.

Thank you and never too late! I'm probably less than halfway through this build so please keep following if you find it interesting!

I've gone ahead and given the brass flaps a coat of primer... Mr Primer Surfacer 1000, thinned with Mr Leveling Thinner, and shot through the airbrush. Based on my experience with the Special Hobby Tempest build, I'm not going to paint the flap bays until after the camo painting. This will save on some time as it is much easier to mask the rectangular opening for painting rather than trying to mask and protect the painted flap bays in place.



Another new product to introduce... 1ManArmy's stencil masks! I saw a review on The Modeling News website and when I learned that they had a set available for the Hasegawa Fw190D-9 kit, I thought I'd given them a try.


They are essentially paint masks for aircraft data stenciling to replace decals. I guess this is the next logical step in my progression from using decals to buying Montex masks for the larger insignias and then buying a Silhouette Portrait craft cutter to create my own masks. Data stencils on 1/32 aircraft are beyond the resolution of the knife-based craft cutter and 1ManArmy employs some sort of laser-cutting process to make these incredibly fine masks.



A complete set of data stencils is provided as well as a few generic larger markings with a detailed set of placement instructions.


I am going to test these masks on the landing gear covers, which I've painted in RLM 74 Dark Grey. But before the data stencils, I'm going to paint the Brown 4 using custom masks from my cutter. I used a 1:1:1:1 mix of Tamiya White, Orange, Red Brown and Red to match the color on the Eagle Editions decal sheet.



The laser process seems to have burned away most of the smaller, free-floating pieces of the mask, which is a very good thing. On a similar mask from the craft cutter, you'd have to manually pick away these bits from the mask, which can be tedious.


One drawback to these masks is accurate placement. It can be tricky to do since the yellow masking material is opaque and not see-through.


Additional masking is another drawback... you have to protect the areas outside of the small masks from overspray.


But the result is impressive! It's difficult to make out the black from the dark grey background but the masks work as advertised.


However, I made the mistake of spraying gloss thinned with Mr Leveling Thinner to seal the paint job on the gear covers. DON'T use MLT over an area treated with hairspray or else you may get the weird spider-web effect that I got on my gear covers.


I'm not sure I liked how the hairspray chipping worked out anyway so I'll probably be wiping these clean and doing it all over again. And I'm going to test the idea of re-using the 1ManArmy masks as I've carefully saved the ones I've used.

Wow! I like how the masked stencils came out. Too bad the clear coat reacted like that. I've never had that happen to me before in all the times I've used paint thinned with MLT over hairspray.

Stencil masks… very impressive!

Very interesting

Very cool! I'm gonna have to check those out.

Thanks guys! It's really a great time to build models as there are new developments and products coming out left and right. The stencil masks work great but there is some additional work involved. It solves the decal carrier film issue but so do the wet transfer decal products from HGW and others. If I were to rank them based on pros/cons, results and work effort, I think I'd put the wet transfers at #1. Easier to place correctly and slightly less work for comparable results.

Floki wrote:Wow! I like how the masked stencils came out. Too bad the clear coat reacted like that. I've never had that happen to me before in all the times I've used paint thinned with MLT over hairspray.

It happens to me on a consistent basis using Tamiya, Mr Hobby Aqueous and AK Real Color lacquer-based acrylics. My guess is it could be related to the thin-ness of my coats. I am thinning my paints down using a 1:1 or 2:1 thinner:paint mix and my paint layers tend to be very thin and fragile.