After sleeping on it and some reassuring words on my last post I decided to continue with this kit!
Not only is this just my second kit, but when I rebooted this hobby I already made the conscious decision to not go straight for the high-end and more expensive brands. I already accounted for failure by buying the cheaper Revell kits rather than a Tamiya kit for 3 or 4 times the price. The only thing is: the Spitfire just feels a lot cheaper, where as the FW-190 just seems to offer a lot more for just a couple of euro’s more. That makes it even more of a bargain though, so I just need to go for it and have faith in myself and if I should fail take good note of what went wrong and learn from it.
Since there is more work coming up that needs some time to properly dry up I want to at least have a very broad idea of what to do when:
- Airbrush the inside of the engine covers and temporarily place them on.
- Check the entire body for seams and holes that shouldn’t be there and try to get any scratches out.
- Place fuel rack on body.
- Fill up the landing gear bay with something to mask it (cotton pads?) and temporarily place the gear doors I am not using, for masking.
- Mask the cockpit of with the canopy I am not using and mask off the windscreen.
- Investigate what materials to use for temporary placement of masking parts and how to apply the primer all around the aircraft?
- Investigate how to properly use primer?
- Apply primer layer!
- Apply primer on propeller, cap and fuel tank separately?
- Antenna’s, landing gear and other easily breakable stuff to place on in the end, place them in the Box-Of Future-Parts.
- Airbrushing the livery?
- Clear coat?
- Decals?
I wrote this list this morning and as much as energy allowed I started some work.
- First I painted the last of the insides of the engine panels. I have to say I have a lot less trouble with the airbrush now I use a thinner mixture, I just have to apply a second layer after half an hour.. I neglected to do that here and the paint is still slightly too thin.
I will fire up the airbrush for one final round of olive since I haven’t decided yet which panels I want opened up.. so I want them all to look good! Besides I also found I missed one part that still needs olive color..
I decided I wanted to try some primer at this point before messing up the FW-190.
I think my first attempt was sprayed from way too close. The layer in the picture above is better, although not smoothly applied everywhere.
And the result after three layers:
Very educational day in modelling world for me..
- They are not kidding when they say you need a well ventilated room.. what they actually mean to see is: get that stuff out of any room you plan on using for things like living.
- Don’t spray too near to the part.
- Don’t spray too long in the same place.
- Be fluent.
What I still have to research:
- What to do when I find imperfections after the first layer? If I fix the imperfections I will scrape off the first layer and if I apply a second layer on top of that you will probably see a ‘crater’ on the body where the first layer used to be?
- How to be able to turn around the whole model. I see constructions with sticks to turn the thing around, but a 1/32 FW-190 model is probably too big and heavy to do that.
- How to temporarily fit panels, canopy and landing gear doors for the priming and air brushing?
My plan is to ready up the rest of the body tomorrow in terms of sanding and filling, and maybe also use the part I used primer on today to try a bit of the FW-190 livery on! It’s drying in the shed tonight while spreading a strong chemical smell.
Dutch Scale Models 
I don’t prime nearly so much, it can obscure the detail on the plastic. Just a single thin layer; that’s enough to see any flaws in the surface that need fixing. Then sand, course to fine, and prime over the scar. Sometimes, on good kits that required very little body work and are being painted fairly dark colors, I don’t prime at all.
I wouldn’t try to paint markings beyond the basic camo, decals work well and should be indistinguishable from paint when applied correctly. Just gloss up the surface good so the decal will settle in without “silvering” (caused by very small air pockets on a textured surface like “flat” paint). There are setting and solvent solutions out there for decals, but Eduard usually has pretty good decals that won’t need much help. Then dull coat and weather over the top.
That is good to know! I based the 3 layers on a Humbrol demo video. Of course they wouldn’t mind if you use another 5 layers of their stuff!
I am getting a bit more confident about this, so hopefully things will be fine in the end!
I think that’s like “rinse and repeat” on your shampoo!
I forgot to ask: do you ‘wetsand’ and then apply more primer on top? You have to clean the old primer off right to get an even result?
I don’t normally wet sand, but Use thinner to clean the panel or area when I’m done. I think those two accomplish the same thing; just keeping the old paint from making a mess of the surface.
Yes I think so too. This will work! Thank you!