To break my Revell Virginity I am going for a threesome :)

Going to go for the two German Warbirds from the "Icons of Aviation Battle of Britian" set

1st, the Heinkel He 111 H3
2nd, the Junkers Ju 87B

Current Build Status for each .... 0.00% :lol:

What's going to be the third in the bed then Dave? :blink:

I thought the two planes would make it 3 (with me), but now I may try and fit in a Do-17 as well :whistle:

Doh! :slap:

As you may have seen from a different post, the Ju87 is out the picture (and out of my life :) ) so slight change of Plan(e) ....

The He-111 will be kit #2, but I will be starting with a old kit from 1965 - the Focke Wulf Fw-200 Condor C1

Box Shot is in the History section

Sprue Shots below:








Kit looks fairly basic for a large 1/72 scale kit with 115 pieces in total, but at first glance looks nice and crisp and I am looking forward to building this baby, which will be my first ever Revell model, and I think my largest ever 1/72 scale kit as well.

Should get started later this week (just finishing off an Airfix Ju-52 and a Matchbox He-70F)

Bombs Away!
:woo:

Good luck Dave. Made that many many moons ago but still recall it being a good kit then. Read about your JU87 issues. Was going to offer a 1:600 Airfix Bismark but thought better of it as I've already got the suspect Stuka in my stash already.

Made a bit of a start with the build giving all the parts a soapy wash.

Cleaned up the flash and sprue connections into the fuselage and the wings. Parts have the usual heavy rivet style of 1960's kits (compared also with my other two Fw200s and they are both pretty smooth) so may do some sanding for that (not sure, normally build OOB and treat that kind of thing as being part of the style and feature of the kit)
Did some test fits:-
Fuselage matches quite nicely with just a little reshaping and filler probably needed.
Wings are a different matter - I can chose to have them meet correctly in either the wing-tips, the root or the engine nacelles, but only one of the three :P So a bit of fun to come there :jest:

m.T.P. An "old school" Fw-200. That's a great kit choice for the GB. Also the Heinkel and the Junkers... :clap:

Cheers,
ggc

Ahhhh... Condor. Love that aircraft, must get myself one of the new C-4 kits. Can't wait to see this one come together. :)

Finally started this bad boy B)

Probably the age of the kit and how it was stored before I bought it last month, but I am finding the plastic very brittle. snapped two parts already :wall: one bit was an easy repair and part not visible anyway, but I also snapped the front of the bomb gondola, which is a little annoying :(

hey ho - it's a start anyway :D

Interior painted now, plus lots of small parts like undercarriage, seats, ariels, props, etc.
Broke another part de-flashing :angry: going to have to be balance flash removal v brittle plastic on this one :hmm:

Pilots not too well moulded, so using a couple of better airfix ones (can't remember which kit, found them in my spares box already painted :lol: )

Making pretty good progress on the old ship though (will slow down when I try and fit the wings together though :lol: )

More progress and some pics :)

Got the crew in place and the cockpit done....


The kit plastic really is brittle and I have decided to do a lot of cleanup after I have put parts together where possible to add some strength. In the pic below, as I tried to clean off the bit in the corner on one half, the tailplane cracked :(


This model has a lot of moving parts, and before the fuselage comes tgether, the rudder has to be mated together on one fuselage half, and the port and starboard tailplanes get joined together as well

The fuselage goes together just ok - had a lot better, but had worse. I predict a fair bit of filler will be making an appearance :hmm:

Put the wings together as well, but gave up any idea of movable control surfaces - lots of trimming, glue and tape needed and then the knife and filler will be out once set to make it all look right :jest:

Made a bit of a boo-boo with the undercarriage though :( Thought it would be a good idea to paint the parts on the sprue first, but the construction is so convoluted, I had to use CA to join the parts together and the paint went all globby on the joins - not sure what it is gong to end up looking like!!

I did manage to make a decent job of making captive prop-shafts though :) I like to fit the props as late as possible, but the nacelles on the Fw-200 need to be fitted before paint for the camouflage. So I used my patented "chop up plastic card and glue over end" method :P

The two on the left is the back of the radial engine part, with the propshaft in place and a piece of card glued on top, taking care to avoid any cement making contact with prop. and two the right lower is the reverse side of that part, and right upper in place with the prop just ready to be placed in position at the end of the build with a dad of glue

Keep up the good work Dave :clap:

Looking forward to seeing this made up :pop:

Andy

So ... Lots of re-profiling knifework on the wings and the fuselage join seams, followed by filler in the holes left :rolleyes:

Biggest problem was with the engine mouldings - to have the two wing halves mate along the leading edge meant the engines did not match totally, so had to be a bit brutal with the kit and then try and repair with filler to get the shape back.

Then fitted the Wings to the Fuselage - pretty nice fit at the top, though I did apply filler to the roots and then wiped with nail polish remover after just to fill the crease line.

Pics below show the engines and the leading edges around them, plus the wing roots



Underneath, the gap was a little bigger and the port side has quite a step which I need to put another filler application on.


Engine Nacelles and Cockpit canopy fitted (Canopy needed a little squeeze left and right to get the shape to match the fuselage, hence the tape :) ) and left to dry now before the first primer coat goes on and I can see where we are



Aiming to have the whole lot all done by the weekend (really need to get my ATF Rotodyne GB going!!)

That looks like some super work looking forward to seeing it in primer!

Well, here she is .... :)

Sprayed her up on my patented IKEA Lazy Susan with a big round of packing polystyrene taped to it,so I can stick in the cocktail sticks where ever needed for support :D

Upper

Fuselage seam is quite evident in the primer and undecided TBH whether to do more work on this area or not. In the dark camo finish of Sea Grey and Dark Green, it may disappear :P

Lower

The Gondola was primed separately.

Port Wing

The mis-join of the engine on the two wing halves is quite evident. Will need to get some more filler on there and blend in more there, but did expect that would be needed.

Overall, not looking bad :)

Good work so far, although there seems to be a Hurricat sneaking up on it's six :D

Cheers,
Paul

It's a Kittyhawk, Paul :jest:


I like the Lazy Susan and polystyrene set up :)

Painted her up and removed the masking tape.

Need to do some touching up of the demarcation lines where I had some weepage under the tape, and some tiny gaps in the paintwork (all these rivets are as much work as the Junkers corrugations!!)

Early glimpse of the nose and cockpit (props just pushed into place for photo :) )


Still have the undercarriage to complete and fix, plus flaps and aerilons to fit permanently, but looking quite nice I think :)

Looking very Nice David

Progressing well David.

Wow, you seem to be cruising with this build. Sharp, very sharp!

Final coats on and QuickShined.



My "Fw200 Condor vs Atlantic Convoy" book just arrived, so I can check the insignia and positioning now :thumb:

Still have bits to finish off on her, but coming along very nicely I think :D

That looks real good B)

Andy

looking very nice :clap:

David, what a great build, it's looking ace. I will have to steal your patented lazy susan and polystyrene spray stand idea, what a brilliant idea. :bow:

Cheers
Jim

The Condor is Complete! B)

Fitted the last bits to her just now and looking good :)





Hard to get the colours accurately shown in the photos as either washed out with the flash or much too dark, but got there in the end.

Used Humbrol Hu-116 'US Dark Green' for the darkest green, and Revell 39 'Dark Green (dunkelgrun) for the lighter green. I was planning on using either a Dark Sea Grey (Hu27 or HU164) or a Black-Green (Hu-91 or Revell 40) to go with the Hu-116, but didn't like the lack of contrast between either of those two and the HU-116 once on, so changed my plan and went lighter green :P I think it still looks pretty authentic and works well :D

One thing this Fw-200 has that the later releases from Revell do not are the positionable flaps and aerilons, so I decided to position them open just for the hell of it :)


The most complicated subsection of the build could maybe be the undercarriage.

It is a quite detailed setup but, looking at photos of the actual aircraft, a fair representation!

An old kit, with challenges, but definitely worth while making and good fun :D

So ...
I have lost my Revell Virginity to a Condor and I am sure I will be remembering my first time :thumb: :jest: :rofl:

That looks really excellent! Well done.

Lol.

Great build.

That turned out very nice indeed, David. The Condor is a great looking aircraft, and you've really done it justice. :thumb:

Great finish Dave, always liked the Condor, never understood why it wasn't used more widespread than it was given Germany's lack of heavy bombers throughout the war. Ah well Hitlers loss is the free worlds gain. Well done again. :clap:

It was very easy to break them, a heavy landing could break the fuselage in half, although much of that was down to many of the operations being conducted at low level doing anti-shipping strikes. Even if it had been used on more conventional bombing operations I suspect it was simply insufficiently robust to operate in the same manner as a purpose built bomber aircraft.

Germany never planned on building heavy bombers, a policy decision formulated by senior air commanders during the 1930's.

peebeep

I remember seing a built one of these displayed in a LMS (long since closed down) when it was a current kit in the same box.
great build, well done. :clap:

David.

Very nice Condor there.

It might have been different if the then luftwaffe chief of staff, Walther Wever hadn't been killed in 1936

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Wever_(General)

http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/tag/general-walther-wever

Derek

Wever was a visionary, although whether or not he could have wielded enough influence to change the whole philosophy of the Luftwaffe from being a tactical air force, to that of a strategic entity projecting air power would make for an interesting discussion. That's the point that Bungay makes in The Most Dangerous Enemy, the Luftwaffe was doomed to lose the BoB because it was a tactical rather than strategic air force.

But this is a thread hijack! :ph43r:

Nice work MTP, I always hankered after the Condor kit as kid, but it eluded me somehow. I have one in the depths of the loft stash somewhere and we had one donated to the squadron plastic model project, but it got mangled by a cadet. :aah:

peebeep

Thanks for the postive comments, chaps :)

I enjoyed making that Condor more then I expected and it also turned out better then I expected as well :D
That one was from 1965.
I have the Fw-200 Civilian Release from the 1991 moulding to do next, and then the latest Fw-200 C4 from 2010 (I think it is), so it will be like a build through time B)

Why, oh why, didn't I get one of these when they were readily available?! :taz:

peebeep