Building Eduard's 1/48 Fw-190A-5 ‘Weekend Edition’ in a Weekend By James Mustarde

Introduction

For those of you following the plot from my review last month of Eduard’s 1/48 Fw-190A-5, the next challenge was to try and build the kit in a weekend.

With four kids at home between the ages of 3 ½ and 13, any modeling time I can steal is a luxury and then it’s typically restricted to later in the evenings two or three nights a week. So spending the better part of a whole weekend locked away in my work room building the Fw 190 was a practical impossibility from the start (in thinking through this problem I couldn’t help wonder how so many of my fellow modelers manage to churn out so many beautifully finished kits). So I settled on a compromise and decided to do as much to the kit as I could in a combined 24 hour period over a couple of weeks.

Planning the Build

Given the pressure of time, I decided that my build would be a fully buttoned-up ‘Werger’ with no open access panels to the engine or gun compartments. That would save a lot of time on gun and engine detailing and avoided the need to build the relatively complex and delicate engine mount. The canopy would be opened just a bit to break up the shape, so I wasn’t going to spend much extra time on extra detailing of the cockpit interior. This would be an OOB build, adding only foil seat straps.

The Last Bits First

I seldom build kits in the order laid out in the instructions. I always start by building and painting bits like propellers and hubs, wheels, undercarriage legs and doors, gun barrels and any ordnance. I decided to build the three-piece tail wheel assembly rather than the single piece alternative – it would be easier to paint (although a small disaster was looming). I also decided to fit the external drop tank as the aircraft just looks unfinished without it. Lastly, I decided not to add brake lines to the gear legs at this point, thinking that I could do that later if time allowed. Most of the aforementioned parts went together with just a little prep work. The propeller needed a little more light sanding to remove the molding line around the edges of each blade. Both the windshield and the canopy were tidied-up and dipped in Future for a polished look.

Wheel Well

The wheel well was the first major subassembly work to be undertaken. With 14 individual and nicely detailed components, the wheel well was a straightforward build. Be careful not to loose the small rib detail pieces - I lost one and spent a few tense minutes searching for it on the floor. Component fit to the lower wing half is excellent and the finished wheel well looks fabulous. The kit instructions call for the gun and cannon barrels to be fitted to the lower wing as part of the wheel well assembly process. I decided to leave those until the end. I then attached the upper wing surfaces which required only a little filler around the wing root and tips. At this point I drilled out the gun openings, pitot tube opening and navigation lights – having decided to install thin, painted plastic dowel rather than try and preserve the molded lights during sanding.

Cockpit

The kit has two cockpit instrument options – molded in detail for the dash and side walls or alternate transparencies. The latter would require simple sanding in order to remove the surface detail. I chose to build using the molded in detail parts simply in order to keep to my build schedule. Cockpit tub, sidewalls, forward bulkheads and instrument panels went together with no fuss whatsoever. The cockpit was painted RLM 66 Black Grey, with the instruments picked out in white, filled with thinned black and given a gloss vanish cover to simulated glass. Knobs, buttons and levers where highlighted with whites, reds and yellows. That was it for the cockpit.

Engine

As I was not intending to show the engine, I built it, attached the exhaust pipes and cooling fan and gave it a coat of Floquil Engine Black. I had already built the five-piece cowling assembly and pre-painted the inside surfaces RLM 02. The engine was then simply glued into the cowling without bothering with the engine mounts. Be careful when you build the cowling – it’s a bit fiddly and needs a little patience to get squared away before gluing.

Main Component Build

Once the cockpit and engine were completed, assembly of the fuselage, wings and tail assembly went ahead with no issues. I used a small amount of filler at the wing/fuselage joint near the trailing edge and a little more around the wing/fuselage joint on the fuselage under side. Overall the fit was excellent. The biggest fiddle and my only real issue with the whole kit was the fit of the wing root gun bay access doors. I probably spent more time on those two doors than any other component and some gaps required filling and rescribing. Once everything was dry, I gave the kit a light sanding.

Painting and Decaling

Paint and decaling was always going eat up the time, especially as I was determined to apply some light weathering to the airframe. The question was whether I could do it all with the hours that I had left.

The color scheme for Lt. Emil Lang’s Fw 190A-5 was the standard two-tone RLM70/71 green upper surfaces with the addition of sand colored stripes designed to better fit in with the Russian countryside. Under surfaces were predominantly RLM 76. Unit identification colors included a yellow lower rudder, center fuselage band, chin cowling and outer 1/3rd of each wing under surface, excluding the aileron.

After giving the finished model a gentle wash with soap and water, I lightly primed it with Floquil grey primer. After that dried I dealt with a few rough spots. First color was the RLM76. I used Tamiya tape to mask the RLM 76 at the demarcation line and then sprayed RLM71 all over the upper surfaces. To achieve soft edges on camouflage schemes I normally use paper masks held away from the surface with thinly rolled sausages of UHUtac, but I didn’t think I had time for this so I simply free-handed the camo.

I used the lights in my paint booth to try and accelerate the drying time between applications.

All the yellow identification bands were masked and sprayed, with particular attention being paid to getting the width of the fuselage band to match that of the decal. The light green fuselage hearts were achieved by folding a Post-it-Note in half and cutting out a half heart shape. I used RAF Interior Green for the color.

Tires were painted using Floquil dirty black with engine black hubs. Undercarriage legs and actuator arms and inner gear doors were all RLM 02, with chrome silver for the oleos and pistons.

Before decaling began I gave everything three light coats of Future (which I spray thinned 50:50 with 99% rubbing alcohol). I then applied the very limited set of decals, which all settled very nicely with a little Solvaset. At this point I noticed that the tail Swastikas suffered from a little irregular registration. Nothing major, but noticeable. Fortunately, Lt. Emil Lang’s Fw 190A-5 had these painted over with RLM 75.

The canopy didn’t come out as nicely as I had hoped for. A reaction of some sort must have occurred between the Future and the first coat of Floquil Engine Black, as a ripple effect appeared all over the surface. I simply didn’t have time to correct it and decided to continue as is and repair it later.

Following two more light coats of Future, I gave the kit a light wash using Burnt Umber oils. This really brought out the kits panel line detail and softened the whole look of the airplane.

Disaster!

At this point I was close to the finishing line. The paint looked good and the weathering was ok. All that was needed was the fitting of gun barrels, pitot tube, under wing and fuselage aerials, drop tank, pilot’s retractable step, canopy, and the main gear and tail wheel. Ah, the tail wheel. The three piece tail wheel that, when I picked it out of the finished items box, was now missing half the yoke assembly! I shan’t detail the expletives that were used during the hunt. Suffice to say that it wasn’t found and, to make matters worse, the all-in-one molding was nowhere to be found either. I had no option but to scratch build half a yoke in quick time. Hope you like it!

Conclusion

So the challenge was to build the Eduard Fw 190A-5 in a weekend, or in the 24 hours I gave myself as a reasonable alternative. Did I do it? No, not quite. If I removed half of the paint and Future drying time, I would have been close, but the fact is that the paint job and masking requirements took up a lot longer than the time allowed. I could have saved a few hours by not giving the kit a burnt umber wash, but by that time it seemed a shame not to.

But let’s not worry too much that Eduard thinks its Fw 190A-5 is a weekend build. It really isn’t. I thoroughly enjoyed trying though and reckon that most reasonably experienced modelers could build up a very beautiful example in a couple of long weekends.

Thanks to Eduard for the review kit.