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Revell 1/32 Bf109G-10 Erla


Thunnus

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The reversed HGW harnesses have been put into place on the seat.  I've added just a bit of pigment weathering on the floor.

 

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One last look at the finished cockpit before I start gluing it together.

 

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After gluing in the starboard sidewall to the cockpit floor, I realized I forgot the fuel line!

 

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The instrument panel is wedged in between the two sidewalls and secured using CA glue.

 

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Now that the cockpit tub is glued together, another round of dry-fitting ensues.  I've added some tabs to the gun breech cover to help align the parts when the time comes.

 

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Some small adjustments are made every time I go through a dry-fitting run.  This time, I had thin the bottom of the cockpit floor and the top of the wing spar as the whole cockpit was riding just a little too high.

 

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Finished up this session with a couple of small details.  The kit instructions show the tail wheel incorrectly placed.  The long tail wheel needs to placed in the forward set of locating pins and requires the hole on the bottom of the fuselage to be opened up.

 

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I've added a small rod in the front center of the oil cooler intake as indicated by photos of the G-10.  It will be trimmed to fit once I install the oil cooler mesh piece.

 

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Don't make a rod in the oil cooler intake! Erla G-10 didn' have it! Actually it is drain tube, used on Messerschmitt/WNF built G-10/G-14AS

Edited by Fencer-1
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Thanks for the comments and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

 

Fencer-1... no drain tube in the oil cooler intake... done!  Thank you so much for that information!

 

The last few days have been spent riveting.  First, I gathered all of the wing and tail components together.

 

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I like to start small and then work my way up to the larger, more complicated areas.  Using a set of detailed plans, I draw the rivet lines using a soft leaded pencil.  I then run my scribing wheel (RB Rivet-R and Rivet-R Mini) over the lines.  The surface is then given a fine sanding to remove the raised plastic around each rivet.  If you are not careful, the wheel can damage the plastic as it gets to a thin edge of a part as happened to me.

 

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The bottom of the wings are not heavily riveted  so my work here is limited.

 

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The meat of the riveting work comes with the top of the wings.  I am using a drawing of a G-6 as reference since I am building a G-10 with the small wing bulges, similar to the G-6.  I like to work in pairs.  If I do a wing, I will do both of them at the same time to help maintain consistency and symmetry when I'm drawing the rivet lines.  The upper wings are actually two parts on each side so after drawing the rivet lines, I separate the pieces and rivet them individually.

 

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Here are the outer upper wings with the rivets scribed over the pencil lines.  I don't use a guide when running the rivet wheel over the model... it tracks pretty straight on its own.

 

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The upper wings after sanding.  This step not only cleans off the raised plastic around the rivets but it's also helping to smooth out the slightly pebbly texture of the main exterior parts, which I don't care for.

 

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I thought I was going to have to rivet the circle manually, one-by-one but found that the Rivet-R Mini was able to trace the circle if I went slowly.

 

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You can choose to leave the finish unsanded.  The raised plastic around the rivet holes sort of accentuates the rivets, which might be desirable in some cases.  I want a very subtle rivet pattern so I've chosen to sand it down.

 

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Here are the upper wing surfaces after riveting.  I think this gives a lot of visual interest to the wing surfaces but is subtle enough not to stand out like a sore thumb.

 

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Edited by Thunnus
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Riveting is easier than it looks.  The hardest part is drawing the rivet lines on the model surfaces.  Once the lines are on, the actual riveting process is quite easy.

 

The riveting on the G-10 continues with the fuselage.

 

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The metal legs from Eduard came in the mail today.  They are made of bronze.

 

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I bought them for insurance against possible weakness in the kit landing gear.  The legs are nicely cast with some additional details lacking in the kit legs.  On the minus side... there is a cast seam that is tough to deal with.

 

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The landing gear covers have some nice detail too, including the brake line molded on the inside of the cover.  Saves some work but I think I prefer a free-floating brake line personally.

 

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I've re-sanded the flat spot on the tires so that they are splayed out correctly.

 

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I've elected to glue the top wing parts together first before attaching them to the wing bottoms, which is a deviation from the kit instructions.  This will allow me to address the seam easier.

 

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Edited by Thunnus
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Great update John, you make that riveting look easy. I will have to put in an order with RB.  :)

 

Just a thought, the rivets on the fuse, there are rivets on one side of the seam but not on the other? Doesn't look right, I can see your plans are the same way. I just checked my Trumpy E-7 kit and they have them the same way. I would think there would be a line of rivets on each side of the seam?  :hmmm:

 

Is the bronze gear easy to remove the seam line? I'm with you on the brake line. 

 

Really enjoying this build.....

 

Dan

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For a brief second I thought there was an oopsie with the fuselage riveting in the photo above as the rivets are all sunken but then I surmised that the skin is probably dimpled rather than countersunk... you must forgive an old sheet metal guy.  Nicely detailed 109G-10 I must say.  The 109G-10 is my favorite 109 although I don't know much about it compared to other aircraft.  I have one of these kits (someplace!) and am taking notes.... 

 

If I can ask a question about the trim wheels in the cockpit....wait; let me go back and read the entire thread first...brb.

 

I couldn't help but notice that you painted the trim wheels in what to me, resembles wood.  I've never seen this before and am curious about how you discovered this detail.  I'm not doubting it at all, just wondering if you can enlighten me about the installation.  I do know about late war wooden components such as the horizontal stabilizer and such but have never seen wooden trim wheels.  Very interesting! 

Edited by Juggernut
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Thanks for the comments guys!  I did the riveting as close as I could to the plans that I have but it's not perfect.  It's a relief that my riveting pattern of the vertical fuselage panels is actually correct!  As far as the brown trim wheels are concerned... let's call it artistic license. They should probably be RLM66 with the rest of the cockpit but I chose to paint them brown.  No documentation found but it's a small possibility that they could've been made of wood towards the end of the war?  Stumbled onto a photo of an undocumented 109 cockpit with a brown wheel. Make of it what you will. 

 

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The riveting concludes with the AMUR Reaver resin cowling.  Most of the mark-ups are done free-hand.  It doesn't really matter if they are crooked since the Rivet-R will usually track straight once I get it going.

 

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Some pre-fitting of the cowling onto the kit fuselage. Due to the photos, I've notice at least one obviously errant rivet line.  I am going to perform a CA glue repair and re-do it.

 

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Edited by Thunnus
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