Early 70's Hasegawa 1/32 Focke-Wulf Fw190
Been a while since I have been on the site. Picked up this kit at a consignment shop, $20. Old kit gave me FITS. Very poorly molded. HUGE fit issues. Calling her DONE! Someone told me it is a first or second issue from the early 1970's. The browned directions certainly looked it.
There was so much (potential) nice details in the engine and gun compartments, but molding issues had me making so many mods, I only left the cowlings open. I was so tired of it, I decided I would just make her look like one "tough ridden Eastern fronter"; many take-offs, refuels, rearmament and landings with little thought to cleaning her up. This kit was soooooo frustrating. Almost kicked me out of the hobby! I trust you all are doing well.
By just looking at it, I wouldn’t have guessed it had any problems , your hard work paid off well! $20 well spent!
Joe (@jboyla), I remember getting and building this kit as a teenager in the early 70's and thinking (at the time) that it was a definite step up from the Revell 1/32 scale kits I was used to building. I distinctly remember this. The feeling is almost like what I experienced when I came back to modeling in the mid 2010s and saw the quality of kits being produced now. Of course, we are talking worlds apart in comparisons, but the feeling I had way back then was comparable.
As Jay has said, it was good that you persevered because the end result looks just fine. One of the pleasures I have these days is taking these sorts of kits and seeing what I can do with them. The best way to do this in my opinion is to treat it as a side project that you work on while you pursue other less demanding builds. But I can certainly understand the feeling of almost being kicked out of the hobby. I was after attempting to build Trumpeter's 1/32 P-38 kit and over a period of three years getting so burned out that I wanted nothing to do with modeling for nearly 10 years. But at that time, I only worked on that one kit, which is where my mistake was.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this build with us.
Excellent result out of this challenging kit, Joe! Your perseverance won!
Looking forward to your next build!
Despite all the struggles, you definitely got the most out of this kit, Joe @jboyla
Glad you continued to work on this one and come up with such a nice result.
I’d call that a win, Joe. Glad you stuck with it.
You're one of the few people I have seen successfully tackle this kit. You have an excellent result.
Great job. I remember building this kit back in 1972 while going through F-111 flight training. I really enjoyed it and thought it went together fairly well...but that was just after I had finished the old Airfix 1/24 Bf 109 and Spitfire which REALLY had fit issues.
Well, you definitely beat it into submission! Nicely done.