Nick's old 1/72 FW190 kits

[Nicko]

Well, for this group build and tribute to Alan I have been for a deep-dive into the stash and pulled out a couple of dusty old kits that have been with me for probably 45 years or more. I give you the Frog 1/72 FW190A4 and Hasegawa 1/72 FW190A5:



I can remember buying the Frog kit in probably around 1976. There was a model shop over the road from School and in what I later found out was the result of Frog going bust, they had a large dispay of kits being sold on a buy one get one free basis. The smaller fighters such as the FW190 were therefore two for 35p. Yes you read that correctly, I got this for 17 and a half pence. Larger aircraft were priced at either 45p or 55p and I probably managed to afford about a dozen or so from my meagre part-time milk round wages before they were all gone. I still have a few others. The Hasegawa kit was likely bought more recently, but still in the 1970s and probably cost well under a pound.

Please join me as I attempt to make a reasonable job of these two little 'gems'. A more detailed look at each will follow shortly.....

Nick.

[Nicko]

So, taking the Frog kit first. I thought there must be some parts missing when I first opened the box - not a lot is there:



Here it is all spread out:



You'll notice there isn't even an attempt at undercarriage bays - think this will be built 'wheels-up':



Pretty basic instructions too:



A short trawl on the web revealed that this was a new tooling in 1959! So a bit older than me. With this boxing being from 1975.

Nick.

[Nicko]

The Hasegawa kit is a relative newbie, being tooled in 1976. And it shows:



Instructions are quite nice too:







Both kits had decals that were curled up rather horribly so I have sourced alternatives.

Nick.

[Nicko]

I found a rather nice set of decals which give me a Western Front A4 and an Eastern front A5 with quite different schemes and some really nice artwork for inspiration:













More to follow once I've made a start. Thanks for looking.

Nick

[Geoffers]

Wow ? things have certainly moved on since then thankfully.

Good luck with both builds ?

Geoff.

[Valeron]

I'll be following.

I love the personal history story of the kits.

[Steven000]

Nice old kits you have there, will be interesting to see how they turn out, have fun ?

[Tim Marlow]

Interesting kits. Should be good fun. Great schemes as well….

[rtfoe]

Great looking oldies Nick. I built the Hasegawa D version which still sits on the shelf. Two other kits from the same era are Messerchmits also sitting on the shelf.
It should come together well. Looking forward to the comparison of the kits built up.

Cheers,
Wabble

[Jim R]

It's interesting to see geriatric kits built. Surprising how often some skill and patience can turn them into nice models. Excellent idea to replace the decals.

[papa 695]

Just pulled up my chair Nick. Will be watching with interest.

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Good luck Nick.

[Nicko]

Welcome along Guys. Hopefully some progress over the weekend.

Nick

[Nicko]

Some modest progress on these two......

Here is a pic of the interior parts for the Frog kit...



That's right, nothing. I therefore gave the interior of the fuselage a coat of matt black and closed it up. Tailplanes were a single piece also added at this point.



Inside of the lower wings got a bit of scrap plastic added to give me something to fill against for the holes left for the undercarriage legs.



Wings were then joined and added.



Plastic sticking out under the wing is a bit of filling for the lower wing root joins. Sorting out the seams is now in progress.

The Hasegawa kit is a little better in terms of detail. Here are the interior parts.....



And there was a decal for the instrument panel..



I say 'was' because it disintegrated as soon as it came out of the water. Anyway, fuselage closed and lower wing added. The front engine part was very tight and needed 'easing' a bit but the top cowl part and the lower wing fit were very good.


Here's the two together.... Frog seems to be a little larger...



Only fly in the ointment is that I appear to be missing the spinner from the Hasegawa kit. I'll see if I can make something suitable. Both canopies have been dunked in 'Looks Like Glass' but neither were particularly great to start with. Hopefully it will have warmed up a bit by the time I'm ready to apply some paint.


Thanks for looking in.

Nick

[Tworrs]

Looking good for such oldies Nick