Fw 190A-8

I finally finished my first installment of the 1/48 Eduard Fw 190A-8 and I have learned quite a bit about the kit to super-detail the second installment in the future. As advertised, the detail is already fantastic, but the kit is over engineered.

The most noticeable thing to watch out for is the fit of all those engine parts. The engine did not set in the proper position on mine so the fan blades protruded from the upper cowl about 1/16". I did my best to correct this, but it still wasn't perfect. However, I know to watch for this on the next one before I glue everything into position.

Some other problems to be aware of are the fit of all the parts in the wheel wells and the upper wing halves at the wing roots. I really had to sand down the tiny pieces in the wheel wells to get the wing halves to match up along the leading edge. Once I was able to get the wings together, I joined them to the fuselage and there was a bit of a gap along the wing roots towards the trailing edge. A little gap filler fixed this problem and then it was on to the gun access panel on the upper deck.

My only advice about the upper deck gun positions is this: leave the access panel in the open position. The piece does not fit, nor do the machine guns - I had to do a lot of work to get the panel to look decent in the closed position. If you want to build an excellent model of the Fw 190 with the gun panels closed, buy the Tamiya kit.

The rest of the assembly was very good as well as the decals. I was lazy and used the kit decals for the ID bands, but don't do what I did. The plane will look much better if the bands are painted on. However, the other decals were very good and I really enjoyed this build. I am so looking forward to my second chance to work with this model.