[Epapazian]

Yesterday morning I visited my bin and noticed a bashed up Corgi History Channel FW-190A--- one of those with permanently extended undercarriages. The undercarriages had broken off and when I took a closer look, I saw major glue dribbles on the side of the fuselage and one wing---very unusual for a Corgi model. Also, the sides and undersurfaces were painted a funny light blue, bearing little semblance to RLM 76, a gray/blue that should have adorned this model.

So, I decided to fix the little guy. First, I sanded down the glue dribbles, making quite a mess of about half of the upper surface camouflage, which I decided to restore. This was done by matching the gray and gray/ green colors and carefully painting over the sanded portion.

Next, I redid the sides and bottom with an approximation of RLM 76.

Then came the hard part---fixing the undercarriage. Fortunately, I found all of the pieces, including the braces. With luck on my side, I drilled little holes in the broken parts of the undercarriage and where it joins the wing, inserted some brass rods, and pinned the mess together, using crazy glue. Amazingly, it worked. I got a good fit, and the pinning gave me a sturdy undercarriage.

The last step was some weathering, repainting the props and spinner into RLM 70 ( black/green ), applying a yellow number ( 4 ) and adding other minor touches. One of the decals tore while being applied, but, undaunted, I put on my magnifying lenses, grabbed a fine liner brush and painted the damaged part so it looked OK.

This is the kind of work I really enjoy most, since it poses a lot of challenges and requires "creative" solutions as well as a steady hand. The next page shows how my little FW-190 looks today.

[Bluenosed Bastard]

Very nice work E!!!!! I can see you are pretty talented.

[Cruver Collecter]

Another great looking repaint!

[Hurriup!]

Nice restoration job as per usual Epapazian! Thanks for posting.

[ZS-VAN]

You'd never guess that that was a busted model. Looks even better than the original! Great work, lots of passion.

[Paladin18]

I could never have guessed that it was a restored job either. Looks like any mint diecast off the shelf of a respectable hobby store. Great work!