1:32 Fw 190A-8

The eighth production version of the Focke-Wulf

The Fw 190A-8 went into production in the first months of 1944 and became the most numerous form of the whole A series. Above the engine the light machine guns of 7.92 mm caliber finally came to an end on it and a pair of 13 mm MG 131 took over, whose magazines called for two prominent bulges on the engine cowling. The fuselage also received room for an auxiliary tank or for a water-methanol mixture and a universal rack was added under the belly. In this form the machine served from the defense of the Reich's airspace to the Eastern Front.

Set contents

In the package there is a pair of films for the canopy, one for the view from outside and the other from inside, two masks for the national insignia with them and a pair of metal barrels for the fast-firing weapons above the engine mentioned above.

Why metal and not injected plastic

An injected barrel is formed in a two-part mold, so it carries a parting line along its whole length. That can be scraped off, only the circular cross-section disappears with it and a cylinder becomes an oval. A turned part has no such seam, because it is born by rotation about an axis: the surface is continuous and smooth all the way round. The difference is visible even after painting, when the mark left by sanding usually reappears on a plastic substitute. There is one more advantage to metal which a modeler appreciates mainly in this scale: at a larger size the barrel is long and slender, and plastic at such a ratio bends easily from mere storage in a box. A metal replacement holds its shape even after years on a shelf.