Great Wall Hobby 1/48th FW-198A1 "Nachtjager" Build Pt.IV

1/48th Great Wall Hobby FW-189 A1 Build.

Part IV – Getting better every day… sealing the deal and ready to paint.

When we left the Fw 189 kit last time we had the whole major structure together and the kit was looking pretty structurally sound. Next was the masking of the glass that surrounds the cockpit and fuselage  and to go to the undercoat and painting stages - but first to seal many of the seams that are created by a twin-boom multi-engined aircraft.

Great Wall Hobby

Focke Wulf Fw189A-1 “Nachtjäger”

Styrene Parts: 182 (grey and clear) on 6 sprues

32 P/E parts on one sheet

Canopy masks + Decals for one aircraft

 Where I got mine: Airbrushes.com  for £34.99

Part I Part II Part III Part V

There are several joints in this aircraft which need to be held together when glued – and if you only have two hands like me then you may have a problem.

I used my two hands to hold as many joints as possible while sealing the parts for the aircraft gluing it from one side to the other around the kit in order, but you have to be very good to hold everything at once – I am not that good! Of course now I grabbed out the clamps and the upper glue to fix together many of the parts, I use superglue for filler especially on wing seams because it can be sanded down to a smooth finish and also it has the bonus of holding the wing together.

 When using a small sanding stick like these Alpha Abrasives sanding needles and files from Master Details – (an absolute life saver if there ever was a tool of the month these are them) you can get right into the gap without destroying the fabric of the aircraft’s surface texture. You could do this with a less risky method- but this makes the joint “super” strong and smooth. On to seal it all up? – Not yet!

There are several steps before you can do this – installing the radar – masking the canopies, decaling the instrument panels and building and installing the armament – let’s get on with the masking first.

The sheet above and easy placement below - you will be left with some extra masks – don’t panic like I did and go foraging in the carpet for lost transparencies!!

Before Masked up the canopies I dip all of the clear parts in future floor polish after removing them from the sprues – this make them super shiny and also adds a protective coating to them – I have had them all stored in a little compartment “thingy” box I got a the newsagent that keeps them all separated and undamaged while off their sprues – before this container I had them wrapped in a soft cloth – it was however like handling eggs I was never sure if I was crushing them. So this system is MUCH better.

Handily for us the masking sheet is provided – numbered so as to easily work out which sheet goes on which mask - or vice versa) – a lot of reports have come in about the decidedly “un-sticky” nature of these masks

I jumped in there – largest bit first the front canopy – and of course the largest masking pain of window – this fitted just fine and stuck ok – I thought it was going to fly off from what I have heard before in reviews!

The masking of these panels took about three hours – I know because while I was doing them I sat thru a really depressing documentary about an asteroid hitting the earth “When we least expect it – maybe tomorrow” and two episodes of the priceless “so bad it’s good” program “Deadliest Warrior” – the episode I liked especially was “Pol Pot against Saddam Hussein”

Why I mention this is because before I started this was a bit apprehension about the canopy masking process on probably the MOST glass-ridden aircraft ever – it was really a piece of cack and quite relaxing. There were four parts I did replace with Tamiya masking tape – these are on quite a bendy part of the back of the glasshouse near the rear gunner – otherwise it was not half as stressful as I thought it was going to be.

The FuG212 C-1 radar is represented in plastic here and I did think it looked a bit thick – but once off sprues and then glued together it looks very convincing.

The pictures of this radar I have show the control box quite well and it looks good installed in the glass nose – a good thing to do is to put the stem for the radar inside the vertical slot without gluing before you install the tiny antennae on the radar or you could put them on facing horizontal instead of vertically.  Once dried take the stem out – put it thru the hole you have made in the mask in that portion of the nose and connect it to the ‘scopes inside by the stem and all was good.

The cockpit instrument panel has to go inside the canopy before I can seal it all up – I couldn’t find a lot of detail in English about the order of the dials but my limited German (helped along by Mr Google) helped me realize in order from left to right what the dials were. I found these two diagrams explaining what goes where...

9. Fahrtmesser – airspeed

8. Höhenmesser - altimeter

7. Variometer – Variometer/rate of climb indicator

6. Wendezeiger – Turn indicator

5. Horizont – horizon (c’mon we all can get that one)

4. Seitentrimm – schalter – Side Trim Switch

3. Anzeigegerät f. funknavigation - Display device f. radionavigation

2. Führertochterkompass – secondary or repeater compass

1. Doppelladedruckmesser - double-loaded pressure gauge

I ended up using the kit decals for the instruments as the replacements ones did not fit – obviously the instrument panel on this aircraft is pretty small!

A little micro set and sol and they went down like they were sewed on! With a special dispenser I wrangled with a needle tip to apply the future I dabbed a bit on the dials to make a glassy shine where it should be. And all was good

 The upward firing cannon sits in a ring fairing but is pretty hard to mask with all of the painting - although i did attach it i later took the ring (and the wheels ) off the plane to aid handling and painting. I also gave this cannon a better paint job than this - it looks a bit rough here.


The rear MG 15 was glued with its frame on to the canopy ring. The canopy ring is frail but holds on ok once the canopy holds it in there.

The rear canopy glass house parts went in pretty easily after the internals were all finalised. The last two parts needed a small sanding on both sides because as you see from this picture it was a little wide – probably 1MM but enough to halt “production” for a tea break and a think!

Above shows how it needed "a'sandin" - below after the elbow grease... It fits nicely

Once this was sorted I used watchmakers glue to seal it all in there. I was able to cheat a bit with the tiniest bit of Tamiya extra thin “hot” glue – this really is playing with fire though and its waiting to get punished with a “frosted” canopy, so try only to use the White glue or clear to seal it all up.

Speaking of a plethora of clear parts – the wingtips are moulded in clear plastic as well – well I know why – but it’s an odd choice – one would be tempted to make them as an extension of the wingtips as normal and add a small clear part for the navigation light. I do see the smart pat of this though. Before I have been the victim of a “squashed wingtip from using too hot of a glue and trying to clamp them together – in this instance just add the clear part to the wing outer edge and mask the small dot off with masking fluid – blu-tack or anything else you have to hand – a novel if not unusual way of doing things – I see the merit in it.

On to the penultimate part of sealing this up - I got the nifty little instrument panel and secured it into the lugs provided in the front glasshouse section. This fits perfectly and the front glass then goes onto the fuselage – taking care to not let the Radar panel hit your pilot’s foot pedals it all secures in quite well.

I took the cannon and the mounting out so I could pack that hole with foam to seal up the bird cage prior to undercoat – I left off the two doors either side of the cockpit as well as I had decided to paint them separately and add them later (they are going to be posed open) – the tiny glasshouse is too fragile to risk losing anything or even breaking it. I used foam to fill up the holes in the openings I left – this doesn’t damage the inside as long as you don’t try to pack too much in – a great solution to how to temporarily fill space.

It's like someone shot off a carton of expanding foam inside!

The next part was to paint on the insides of the cockpit glass RLM 66 – I took the Vallejo model air for ease of use and gave all of the cockpit areas a good going over – this was made a longer job by some of the canopy masks flying off when the airbrush air hit them! Anyway after hunting them down and re-sticking everything down I got that out of the way quickly.

The undercoat – well I needed something strong. I had sworn off using neat – out of the rattle can undercoat but am yet to find one which applies easily and does not separate from the kit when masking later or when the going gets a little tough. I used some of the Plastic grey primer from Halfords (a car repair store here in the UK) I am sure you could use any thin undercoat meant for plastic – and this was my choice – with a little thinner mixed in I gave the kit a going over once or twice.

I found some gap issues with the light overall colour showing them up – back to the sanding board! – The fun and games never finish in modelling; a few small sanding fixes and I can get onto the real camouflage of the aircraft – but that is for the next instalment!!

Next time we will paint and finish the aircraft – and try our hand at a little diorama making in 1/48^th!

Thanks to the guys at Airbrushes.com from whom supplied this kit.