Swappable Fw 190 - Build thread

[xuzme720]

It looks great! How are you planing on sheeting the outer skin? or rather, what are you going to use?


The paper could still have been peeled from the FB to give you a lighter built up structure on the cowl if the weight is an issue. A foam to foam bond might also be stronger. Just thinking out loud, pay no attention...

 

[Imprez]

It looks great! How are you planing on sheeting the outer skin? or rather, what are you going to use?


The paper could still have been peeled from the FB to give you a lighter built up structure on the cowl if the weight is an issue. A foam to foam bond might also be stronger. Just thinking out loud, pay no attention...

Thanks, I plan to use poster board for the outer skin. I need to fit more fuselage formers first though.

Yeah you're probably right that removing the paper from the foam board would be more weight efficient and create a smoother surface as well.

 

[808aerosquadron]

Imprez, looking good. Looking forward to seeing the final product. Keep those photos coming.

 

[Imprez]

Sorry about the lack of updates. I caught the flu so the build got put on hold for a few days. But I managed to do a few things tonight.

After looking at some Fw 190 pictures in two WWII books I have it seemed to me that my fuselage was a bit too "fat" in the mid section. So I decided to make it a little more sleek to more closely resemble the original.


Fuselage formers cut down a bit.


I've also added two supports around the cockpit area to make skinning easier.


Rear servos for rudder and elevator have been installed.

 

[Blenderite]

Looks great! When are you going to make the speed build kit? lol

 

[Imprez]

Looks great! When are you going to make the speed build kit? lol

Hehe, I think I'll leave the speed build kits for the FT crew. But I've kept all the templates so hopefully I will be able to scan them into a PDF if the design is successful.

 

[Imprez]

Tonight I started doing the turtle deck out of poster board. This is maybe the hardest part of the build. Fitting and sizing turtle deck is time consuming and fiddly enough to make my patience wear thin.

The method I use is to start with a regular paper template and modify that to size before cuttning it out of poster board.

The rear turtle deck was ok to do since I had the Spit template as a base but the mid section piece was a lot more difficult since that is completely new. But finally after I came up with the idea to use needles to keep the template fixed things started to go the right way.


Rear turtle deck is quite similar to the original, both ends that have been modified to fit the Fw190 though.


Test fit of the rear turtle deck.


Using a large piece of paper and needles the mapping of the mid turtle deck starts.


First rough cut of the template before removing it and making adjustments.


After some adjustments to the rough template I was able to cut out the mid section turtle deck from poster board and test fit.


Not too bad! Some minor adjustments and I'll be able to glue it in place.

 

[earthsciteach]

Very impressive. I love seeing the progression of the simplistic $store foam planes as they approach a scale model. Soon, everyone will be building scale models out of a $4 airframe!

 

[Black Knight]

that is looking great, I can't wait to see the finished product

 

[gumbyluvsu]

Okay. Share them plans when you can. I'd love to make this my next build. Make sure to add a scale to all plans so when we print the PDF version we have it to size.

By the way. SUPER great job so far!

 

[Imprez]

Thanks guys!

Finished off the last piece of turtle deck tonight and did the nose mount.


Front turtle deck piece cut out and ready.


Three pieces of bbw skewer to fix the nose position on the front fuselage.


Small neodym magnet on the back side beneath each fix point. Just cut out the foam but not the front paper and glue them into place.


Seems like the magnets work


Small piece off metal on the nose beneath each skewer for the magnets to attract. Works great! Nose stays in place and is very easy to remove and put on.


Couldn't resist taping all the turtle deck pieces on and fitting the nose to see what it looks like before going to bed.

 

[NewZee]

looks like it's coming along nicely! Great job on the magnetic nose piece. share some pics of the powerpod installation and nose interface when you get that far along, and keep us posted on your progress.

 

[earthsciteach]

Fantastic! I think you and Jason should get together and have a FW-190 vs P-51 swappable duel.

 

[Andrew C.]

What is this made of?

 

[xuzme720]

Dollar Tree foamboard and imagination.

 

[Blenderite]

Looks really great. Nice job!!!

 

[Imprez]

Thanks for your support guys!

Here's the latest on the build. Progress is a bit slow now due to the christmas rush at work right now and less spare time to build. I'm going to start this update slightly off topic with a little story about what happened to my FT Spitfire.

I had planned to maiden the Fw last weekend but weather interfered with high wind on sunday. I decided it was too risky with high winds and a new design so I took up my Spit instead. First sortie went well even though the wind was gusting hard. Second sortie did not go quite as well. Took off, went almost a whole circle around the field when a gust of wind blew my plane inverted.

An more experienced pilot certainly would have handled that but I'm not experienced enough to handle a situation like that. Anyway the Spit went pretty much straight into the ground. Watch the video:

However the damage could have been a lot worse. Came away with a broken prop, hstab and the fuselage under the wing, so it is definitetly repairable. These are some durable planes! Here´s a few pics of the damage:


Broken h-stab


Wing has detached a bit from the fuselage.


Prop broken and some minor impact damage to the front fuselage.

Ok, so enough with the Spit, what has happened with the FW 190?

Well it was ready for maiden on sunday, but it did not fly due to the wind. So this is what I did to get it ready:


Cut open a battery hatch in the front fuselage.


Rear turtle deck is gued in place. BBQ skewer that holds the power pod in place and a hole cut open in the cockpit to get a finger in to lift the rear of the power pod into place.


Battery hatch is reinforced with packing tape in the hinge and a piece of foam board have been attched to the front to act as a locking point.


Two holes have been made to lock the battery hatch in place and two more BBQ skewers have been added to the nose cone to go through those holes.


Nose cone in place, locking the battery hatch in position. 8x6 prop looks a bit small, will have to order a 9x6 instead.


Mid and front turtle decks glued. Was a lot harder to get straight than the rear and unfortunately both got a bit crooked and wrinkled. It's not perfect but it will have to do. Also I did a quick cockpit window frame from some scrap foam board just for fun. Not sure if this will make it to final design or not.

The plane is now minwaxed and I've bought some paint so that is the next step.

 

[JasonEricAnderson]

This is an amazing build. Your front cowl design has given me inspiration for how to create a form for my Mustang's canopy. I'm thinking of using the layered foam to build up the form and then use earthsciteach's heat shrinking trick to form a clear bottle over the form to make the canopy.

Sorry to see what happened to the Spitfire but like you said, fixable.

 

[NewZee]

too bad about the Spitfire but we have all been there, in fact the last time I flew my spit it did a very similar "dive" but is rebuilt and to fly again. The FW190 is looking great I'm anxious to see her maiden but please wait for a calm day!

I'll fly the Cub tomorrow, and am working on a twin boom design that I'll post pics of soon!

 

[Imprez]

This is an amazing build. Your front cowl design has given me inspiration for how to create a form for my Mustang's canopy. I'm thinking of using the layered foam to build up the form and then use earthsciteach's heat shrinking trick to form a clear bottle over the form to make the canopy.

Sorry to see what happened to the Spitfire but like you said, fixable.

Thanks, I think that's the great thing about this community that you can get inspired by what others have done and apply it on your own model. Great idea to apply the heat shrinking trick on a layered mold, taht can take a lot of pressure.

too bad about the Spitfire but we have all been there, in fact the last time I flew my spit it did a very similar "dive" but is rebuilt and to fly again. The FW190 is looking great I'm anxious to see her maiden but please wait for a calm day!

I'll fly the Cub tomorrow, and am working on a twin boom design that I'll post pics of soon!

Yeah, I almost can't wait for the maiden either but that gives me a little more time to work on it. Looking forward to seeing your new design, twin booms sounds interesting! P-38 perhaps?

Did some work on the window frame and the canopy tonight using a water bottle and some foam board for support.


Selected a water bottle with smooth surface and quite thick plastic. Cut off the top and bottom to get a big sheet of plastic to work with.


Cut out small pieces and glue them to the window frame. This increased the strenght of the frame ten fold.


Then I made a support frame for the canopy out of foam board and glued a piece of roughly the correct size to it. After that I trimmed the edges all around the support frame.


Canopy in place over the cockpit. I plan to use BBQ skewers and magnets to keep it in place, similar to how I fitted the nose cone.


View of the whole plane with cockpit window frame and canopy in place.