1/72 Airfix Focke Wulf Fw-189

by Mark M.

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I'll skip most of the history for this aircraft. It was a forward observation craft for the Luftwaffe in World War 2. It also doubled as a light attack craft, carrying 4 small bombs under the wings. It served extensively throughout the war, including the Eastern Front. I chose to do an Eastern Front paint scheme because I wanted to tackle that
white-washed look.

I didn't start this with the plan to totally re-do the entire model. I just totally hated the way Airfix took a relatively spacious crew compartment and blocked off 60% of its height with a fake (and unrealistic) floor. So I ditched the floor! I was playing around with
it, and decided to scrap the floor, scratch-build a simple compartment and close it up. Along the way I fiddled with the wheel wells (which were non-existent) and figured a simple way to create boxes inside the wing booms using plastic card. I'm by no means a great scratch builder, so I was keeping things simple. The problem is they became complex! 

After making a box for the gear wells I needed to create gear mounts on the forward wall, and door hinge mounts. During this time I was also working on the cockpit. I found a diagram for the rudder pedals of the real aircraft and, in a burst of insanity, scratch-built a pair of my own (hydraulic tubes and all). Now I started wondering how I was ever going to see these under the thick blob of a canopy. The answer: I wasn't. This leads to more insanity further down the road. I decided the only way to see the details I put in was to NOT have any clear parts.  Anywhere. The more you could see, the more I had to detail. I put in scratch built ammo boxes, radio boxes made from paper, a few wires, a couple of basic seats and I modified the heck out of the rear gunner.

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I had to set about building a greenhouse canopy without glass panels. I used the existing plastic parts and carved them up as best I could to build lateral frames. I started with exacto blades and a small drill bit (which cracked the plastic badly. At first I was trying to cut out the windows and keep a single piece to put on the plane when I was done.  This, as you can imagine, didn't happen. Then I cut the front to back braces off and kept the arches. I used plastic card to make the straight frames. The carving of the clear parts got easier once I got a dremel tool halfway through the project. I actually started on the nose and rebuilt it 3 times, to get it the proper size and symmetry. Once all was said and done I was rather pleased with the results. For me this is a leap beyond what I've done before. It's got some rough areas, I admit, but I look past them, and into the cockpit (which was my intention in the first place).

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I used bent wire to replicate hand-holdes and wires inside and outside the crew compartment. The hardest parts, and the most vital, were the front canopy and the rear tail cone. If they didn't turn out well the entire model would suffer. The dremel tool was used to carve out the glass on the tail cone, so that it was a single piece. The nose was
assembled from plastic card and clear parts of the original nose.  Another part I worked on was the crew. The Airfix Fw 189 comes with a pilot, half a copilot (waist up) and an un-detailed prone tail gunner.  The co pilot was replaced with the pilot from the Airfix Bv 141 (which I find ironic), and the tail gunner was modified. The tail gunner was molded from the left and right, so there was a solid wedge where his arms should have been, and his legs were smooth on the top and bottom. I whittled away the plastic with an exacto knife, almost as if idly whittling wood, and separated the arms. I carved a line down the legs to replicate some detail, and then took the Dremel cutting disc and cut out the front of his ankles, bent his toes in a bit and glued/sanded them down. It's much better than the default plastic. 

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The bombracks were rather simplistic. I took the racks from the Airfix Bv141, which looked much better. The kit was very old when I got it. The decals were useless. I used spares and paint where I could. The retraction struts on the gear had to be extended with the use of sandwiched plastic card to replicate some detail ... which is invisible
to the human eye (oh well). I did the standard splinter camo Lichtblau/Schwarzgrun/Dunklegrun, as the instructions said to, but then I took Model Master Acryl White and tried applying it with Q-tips, which didn't work. I then applied it to the entire model's upper surfaces, and sanded it down with 2 different grits of sanding sponges (which really helped because they conformed to the shape I was sanding better than sandpaper or sanding sticks). I wore down the white wash in the flow of
the air over the surfaces, and in areas that would see a lot of work, such as step areas and the engine cowlings. The greenhouse didn't get much white wash, from the sources I had, so I left it green. The end result is something to behold. And while I enjoyed the splinter camo before I defaced it (see the picture) I am very happy I tempted fate and gave it a shot.

Mark

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Photos and text © by Mark M