[Late War Bf-109G-6]

 Just applied the wing crosses.  The stencil fit better, given that the wing surface was flatter than the fuselage.  Still had some overspray but since both wing crosses were on a solid background color, clean up was a bit easier.  I just taped the white and shot the base color.  This makes for a nice tight border.   I'm happy with the end result, took a lot time but better than what I would have achieved with decals.  My only thought for next time would be to possibly use the stencil as a template to lightly mark the borders with a fine tipped pencil and then tape everything off.  This would keep my alignment correct and eliminate any overspray due to a loose stencil.  More work up front but less on the back end.   We'll see...   One other suggestion - to those of you who are using regular masking tape, I highly recommend getting a roll of Tamiya tape.   I was skeptical about purchasing "modeling tape" but this stuff is the schiznit.  It is low tack, cuts easy, can be bent into shallow curves and can be removed and reapplied again and and again.  It makes a big difference.

Anyway, here are some pictures.  Sorry for the poor lighting, it's a cloudy day.   While I was touching up the wings, I went back and touched up the fuselage crosses.  I still need to deal with a bit of overspray on the black tail band but that will come during the final stages.

Here are some pics:

My hardworking stencil set.  I'm going to save these for my next -109.


Wings (still have a few more minor touchups to get everything nice and tight).  Will it ever end??






Touched up fuselage crosses.  Still a work in progress.  Somehow I got a couple of specs of RLM84 on this cross.  I'll add that to my punch list.  I also noted on pics of the real thing that the braunviolet fills the area immediately above the horizontal sections of the fuselage crosses.  Previously I had a bit of RLM84 showing through.  I addressed this while doing my touch up work.




That's it for this update, thanks for looking & happy Labor Day to the US ARC'ers!

[WNW Fokker DVII Seven Swabians]

How did you get the prop looking like that?  It's amazing.  That's one area I always struggle with.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Filled in the center sections with Braunviolet.  Note that it doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the cross.  Did a bit of touch up, still have more cleanups to do but all in all, I'm quite happy with the outcome.  Previously, I always had a bit of silvering or could detect the raised edge of the decal.   

 

 

 

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Great Job John ! Your late G-6 looks stellar, i love those late paint schemes !

 

 

 

 

I'm also building this revell G-6 (it will be an italian Regia Aeronautica G-6), with the Alley cat detail set. A few days ago, i've said on another topic that i was very happilly suprised by the revell kit. At this time i've just had finished the cockpit and a few other things and i had only tried dry fit. Now it's built and almost ready to paint and i have to say that it is not as easy as i thought. It needs quite a lot of putty and in my opinion, the hasegawa kit is a lot easier to build (but with less details).

And i was a bit disapointed with the Alleycat resin set, which i found not as good than their kits productions (i have the Dewoitine D.510 and it's wonderful, with perfect casting job). I did not even use the provided control surfaces as they were too long to fit their locations (i could have correct this with sanding, but i was lazy and i prefere to correct the plastic kit parts), the bulges and the radiator cowling casting were very soft and undefined (a pain to cut from moulding block and clean up) and i did not use the replacement top engine cowling (with the correction regarding the gun spacing) because the one i wanted to use was way too short in width and the details were very very soft (i could have rescribed the panel lines, but not the hinge in the middle), with a quite granular surface. So i went with the kit part, even if the gun locations are misplaced (but i can live with that !). The price was very correct so i'm not so upset and i still have used the radiator cowling, the bulges, the bottom of the seat (i've cut out and sanded the moulded seatbelts on the upper part), the exaust pipes (they were very nice, though, even if it's always a pain to glue them before the paint job), the scoops and intake (fitted with a trop filter from an Hasegawa G-2), the prop and nosecone and the PE templates. But it could have been better.

 

Anyway, John, you have done well, and your model looks way nicer than mine !

Thanks Zero,

 

Sorry to hear about the Alleycat issues.  Thanks for the heads-up on the problem with the control surfaces. My elevators fit fine, I'll have to check the ailerons.  I had fit problems with the cowling but I found the quality of the resin to be good.  If I do another G-6 again, I might try the Barracuda set which wasn't available when I started this project.   There is also another outfit who offers a single piece cowling that looked really nice, can't remember their name.

 

I'll be looking forward to seeing updates on your upcoming project!

 

John

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Next up, the fuselage crosses.  I've always had issues with the hollow German crosses, in that the decal film over the center portion inevitably has some silvering or the raised edges are visible.  So I decided to try painting them.  

I used the kit decal as a mask, carefully cutting out the white cross.  Not the best media, vinyl masks or tape would be better in that they would hold tighter to the fuselage surface.  As it was, even after being taped in place, I had to spray each corner while holding down part of the decal sheet with my finger.   I think it came out ok, a bit of cleanup required but no biggie.  Still need to fill in the center with brownviolet.  Not sure if I'll use this approach for upper wing crosses. Those are much thinner, not sure how well they would come out.  

John

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Is the Revell-kit ok?

Boy, that's a tough question.  The short answer is - yes.  However, if you read some of the online reviews, or some of notes on my build, you will see that there are still shortcomings to the Revell kit.  If you want the best outcome for your kit, I highly recommend the Alleycat correction set (the various parts address all the Revell shortcomings).  Barracuda has also released various updates as well.  I haven't seen their kits in person but typically their products are first-rate.

 

Regards,

 

John

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Got some nice decals for this bird from Kagero.

In 1/32nd?  Didn't know anyone had released Yellow 5, I was going to have to source the numbers from an old Eagle Cal sheet (and cut them up a bit to reflect the markings on my aircraft).

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Thanks very much guys, appreciate the feedback!

 

I've added a bit of weathering to Yellow 5, much more to do but the rest will be completed after the decals are in place.  For those folks building late war German aircraft, keep in mind that weathering should be held to a minimum.   Most aircraft were grounded due to fuel shortages, some never flew at all and spent their lives hidden in forests.  The ones that could fly typically only lasted a few missions before being shot down.  At best, maybe some exhaust soot and a few paint chips from foot traffic on wings.   Certainly no heavily faded paint.

However, Yellow 5 is an exception.  She's a veteran, a mid-war G-6 model that managed to last until the end.  As such, she will have a bit heavier weathering.  I already subtly lightened some of the upper camo colors, again nothing extreme.  German paint was typically of high quality (except at the very end) and was pretty resistant to fading.  Next up I used a dull silver to replicate foot traffic along the wing roots.  Heavier on the left because that was the side that provide access to the cockpit but still some scuffing on the right wing route as well.  I needed to do this first so I could then add the exhaust staining. I used a mix of flat black with ~ 20% dark brown and a bit of white.  I don't use straight black, to me it doesn't look realistic.   While I was at it, I added the scalloping to the starboard wing leading edge. I used a different pattern than the port wing, a bit more random.  Still have touchup work to do on both leading edges.

Anyway, some pics.









Also started some weathering on the undersurface.  Much more work to do in this area.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

  Making progress with the painting.  Added the mottles on the fuselage sides.  Yellow 5 was a pretty unique late-war -109, in addition to the mismatched cowling and wings, it also had what appears in the photos to be a painted over number 3 on the starboard fuselage side.  Also had what appears to be a fresh patch of RLM84 in the same area (perhaps touch-up of some combat damage).  I did my best to replicate these features. I also very lightly oversprayed the fuselage sides with brown RLM81 to darken the base paint and replicate the appearance of the original.  See the color pic of Yellow 5 on page 1 of this thread.  Lastly I added the faded black ID band to the rear fuselage.  This was used by JG53 but it's not certain that Yellow 5 was assigned to that unit at the end of the war when it was captured by the US Army.

Still have a great deal of touch-ups to do, also need to add the prominent exhaust soot.  I think I'll lighten the mottling on the cowling a bit as well.

Stayed tuned, thanks for all the great feedback.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

  Lots of detail painting ahead of me.   I started with the mottling of the engine cowling.  Pictures of Yellow 5 don't show the cowling from every angle but they are detailed enough to give you the basic layout.   Latewar brown violet and olive green mottles over blue 76.

Will still probably go back a second time and tighten these up a bit.









Also, I forgot to mention this previously but another nice feature in the Alleycat correction kit are revised control surfaces.  The real thing has fabric disks sewn onto the control surfaces (I read somewhere they were drains for any condensation that might get inside).  For some crazy reason, Revell opted to replicated these as if they were made of armor plate!  Way too thick and if you sand them down, you will lose other details.

Alleycat to the rescue:

The kit part is separate, the Alleycat part is already attached to the horizontal stab.   Big difference!
[url=http://s285.photobucket.com/user/11bee/media/IMG_6449_zps56ff9471.jpg.html][/url

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

After a month of work to get get everything marginally ok (putty, sand, prime...  find defects, putty, sand, prime, repeat again), I've got my Gustav with her base paint coat.  

I've found that very few WW2 German model paints look right without a bit a tweaking.  I'm using a Testor's enamel for RLM76 (lightened a bit), RLM74 (ditto) and Testor's acrylic for RLM74 (added a small bit of green and some white).  The late war violet brown RLM81 is from White Ensign. Straight out of the tin, it is very dark.  I used it on the rudder which from the pictures of the real thing, looks to have been overpainted with full strength 81 later in the life of the aircraft.  The color pic I have shows the rest of the aircraft to have a much lighter, browner shade of 81.  I added a bit of white and approx 30% Testor's tan to the White Ensign paint for the fuselage and wings.   For the latewar green (RLM82) I again used White Ensign paint, with just a touch of white to represent a bit of fading.  Real happy with WE paint, very easy to airbrush.

For the mythical yellow-green "RLM84" I used Testor's RLM76 white blue, with approx 25% yellow and a few drops of white.  For all I know, that was how the German's made this stuff. There are no records that discuss the manufacture of this paint so it may very well have been a field modification, using stocks of existing paint.   I sprayed a slightly darker version on the underside of the fuselage and sides, then added a bit more white to the mix and shot some random blotches on the fuselage sides.  The few color pictures of late war, unrestored German aircraft show major variations in paint colors and extremely poor application.  On some aircraft, there are visible runs of paint and it looks like a few areas were applied with a brush.  I'm not planning on going that far but I don't feel the need to produce an immaculate paint job on this particular aircraft.

Based on the few pics available of this particular G-6, it appears that this aircraft had a replacement starboard wing, painted in the mid-war greys.  The port wing is late war brown / dark green, with natural metal undersides.   This aircraft was also somewhat unique in having the cowling finished in overall RLM76 with just some lightly applied brown/green mottle.  

At this point, I've got the base paintwork completed.  Now comes the hard part - adding the mottling.  Wish me luck.

Here are a few pics of my progress.  Sorry for the crappy lighting, keep in mind that aside from the mottling, I still have a lot of touch-up work and weathering.  



Note that the rudder is just dryfitted in place.  Have to clean up the RLM76 overspray.


Added shell ejection chutes from scrap PE.  As far as I can tell, Yellow 5 didn't have the fittings for an external fuel tank.


I'll be cleaning up the scallops on the leading edge, still need to add these to the port wing as well.




\

It appears that the tail was originally overall RLM81(slightly faded). At a later time, light blue 76 was applied around the swastika.  This is pretty common on late war 109's

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

  I'll be honest, if I had known I was going to have so many issues I never would have started this build.  I'm blaming Aires for crappy parts and myself for not fully catching the fit problems until it was too late.  I've spent the last couple of weeks either ignoring this project or once I get some motivation, sanding and filling gaps.  Once I had the cowling under control, I test fitted the windscreen and found out that it was too low.  Not sure if this was an issue with the Alleycat upper cowl or a result of other previous fit problems but I ended up having to use very thin shims of plastic strip to get elevate the windscreen a few mm to align it with the cowling.  This was followed by yet more sanding.  Once done, then came the rescribing of various panel lines that were obliterated by the previous work.

I''ve now shot some thin RLM76 over the nose and other surfaces to check for any flaws.   I've found a few so it's back to more filling and sanding.   At least with some paint on my Gustav, it's starting to feel like I'm making some progress.   We'll see what the future brings, in the mean time:

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Alleycat upper cowl because the Revell piece has the MG troughs too close together.  The Alleycat replacement is finely cast and has the correct spacing.

The MG bulges that Revell provides are too small, still don't understand how Revell managed to miss this detail.  Thankfully the Alleycat corrections set comes to the rescue (again).  It took some filing to remove the excess resin from the bulges but again, nothing out of the ordinary.  As I progress through the build, I'm coming to the conclusion that the Revell kit leaves much to be desired.  The joints of the three-piece cowling occur where there are no panel lines on the real thing.  This requires additional putty / sanding work (and the rescribing of some nearby panel lines that will be impacted by the sanding process.  The crappy engineering coupled with the inaccurate MG troughs and botched buele are leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Anyway, here are some pics of my progress.  The basic components are in place, just note that I have a lot of putty / sanding / rescribing work still to be done.  Prior to assembly, I also drilled the engine starter port on the starboard cowling and the muzzles of the 13mm machine guns.  It's been noted that the Revell parts are a bit inaccurate but I elected to use them vrs purchasing aftermarket replacements.







Note that Yellow 5 has the additional fairing under the starboard MG bulge.  This was originally seen on the G-5 high altitude variant and covered the compressor for the pressurization system.  For whatever reason, more than a few later version G-6's also had this fairing, although the pressurization gear was not fitted.  Alleycat thoughtfully provides a choice of the regular fairing or the G-5 style.   Note that I still have a good amount of work to do on this fairing to thin down the edge.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

  Here is where things get interesting.  I've got the two side cowling panels glued in place.  I dry fit the top cowling (the resin Alleycat one with the correct, wider spacing for the MG troughs) and find that the lower fuselage is too wide to mate with the upper cowling.  I also find that the Aries instrument panel is sitting too low in the cockpit. I carefully remove the resin instrument panel and reglue it at a higher position.  I then realize that the panel itself is too wide and when installed, it was forcing the fuselage sides apart, which contributed to the upper cowling fit problem.  So I need to remove the IP again and trim the sides a bit. While doing this, I pop off some of the PE on the panel.  I fix this and reglue the panel.  While dry-fitting the Alleycat upper cowling, I put too much force on the resin part and snap off a big piece of it.   I superglue the piece back into place and again dry fit the upper cowling.  It looks like my width problem now is corrected.   However I now note that the instrument panel was glued in too high.....

Whoever said that this was a relaxing, stress-free hobby lied.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Quick update, I've been working on the side cowling panels.  As noted above, Revell provided solid cooling air scoops on the cowling.  I drilled openings in the cowling and then affixed the very nice Alleycat parts over the holes.  Definitely easier than trying to drill out semi-circular openings on the plastic part.   I also affixed the Alleycat supercharger (turbocharger?) air intake.  The Revell part is missing the prominent weld along it's side and the front of it is much too thin and lacks the very visible screws.   While I was at it, I also drilled a hole for the engine starter crank on the starboard cowling panel.  Revell actually has this but for some reason it's flashed over.   Here are a couple of pics.  Keep in mind that I still have a good amount of filling / sanding to do on the main parts.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Finally had some time to devote to this project.   The fuselage is together:  


The Aries cockpit did require some trimming but things seemed to go ok.  The big test will be whether the 3 cowling sections (the top one being an aftermarket resin product) will all fit nicely.  As you can see, the Revell kit is a bit odd with regard to it's design.  I imagine that this was done to allow multiple versions to be built from a single base component but it does add to the complexity of the build.

Due to this decision, you are required to filling unneeded panels / access doors.   In my case, that meant I had to eliminate the compressed air service door on the starboard aft fuselage (this was used to access the pneumatic charging system for aircraft equipped with the 30mm Mk-108 cannon)


Also deleted was the MW-50 (methanol and water overboost mixture) filler port on the upper right side of the fuselage and the upper oil filler port on the left side of the nose.  The G-6 and most G-14's used a smaller oil tank.  Later versions had a larger 50 liter oil tank that required the elevated filler port.


The picture above also shows one of the areas of the kit Revell skimped on.  Revell molded the various engine cooling air scoops as solid pieces.  Thankfully, the Alleycat correction set (more on this later) provides resin scoops that are hollow.  I'll be cutting off the kit intakes and adding these in a bit.

The Revell kit also has the fuel filler port and side cockpit ventilation doors molded in the wrong position (and in the wrong size in the case of the ventilation panels).  Thankfully, the Alleycat set also provides scribing guides to make the correction process much easier.  Simply fill and sand the kit panels and re-scribe new ones.   Easy-peaszy!

The fuel filler panel:


Cockpit ventilation port:


Starboard ventilation port (still a work in progress):


The Alleycat set provides dozens of very useful parts. Next up will be the installation of their corrected radiator and most importantly the resin "buele" (those large fairings over the MG breeches) that replace the much undersized kit parts.

Thanks for looking,

John

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Cockpit "module" is complete (minus the gunsight and some small bits that will be added later).  Had to remove and re-glue the right sidewall because it didn't fit flush.  Also had some problems getting the IP to fit.  Just by eyeballing the cockpit, I think I have some sanding ahead of me.

Some pics:







 



Regards,

John

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

    Made a bit of progress - PE harness is installed. As mentioned, I'm not a big fan of PE harness in general.  This one was ok but I felt it (and most of the others out there) are too wide.  I carefully trimmed a bit from the side of each piece, also reduced the size of the lap belt padding.  To give the PE a bit of flexibility, I annealed each piece prior to painting.  I then pre-bent each component prior to carefully supergluing it in place. Took a few tries but things worked out ok.  I'll be going back with a light wash once things have set up a bit.  I also glued on the right sidewall.  It doesn't fit flush with aft bulkhead, I may have to do a bit of sanding on the outside surface.   I'll have to dryfit it to inside the fuselage to check the fit.  I also have to tweak the placement of the shoulder harnesses a bit, that too will be done once the glue sets up a bit.  Sorry for the crappy pics, I use natural lighting for my close-ups and there wasn't much of that today.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Cockpit is pretty much complete except for the harnesses and some resin bits that will be added later to prevent them from being broken off during the assembly.

I used a mix of tan and brown pastels to add some dust to the sides and floorboards.  I don't think many late war German aircraft had clean cockpits.  The spring of 1945 had heavy rain throughout most of April and since most Luftwaffe aircraft were parked in the woods and flying (if they had the fuel) off of grass fields, my guess is that there was a fair amount of mud / grime tracked into the cockpits.  This would also explain why the landing gear covers on Yellow 5 were removed (a standard procedure to minimize mud build up against the wheels during take-off / landing).  The pastels were purchased at a local Michaels art supply store.  A box of 20 colors cost me approx $6 and will give me a lifetime supply.  Beats paying exorbitant prices for "weathering pastels".   I then added the fuel line that runs from the aft bulkhead, along side the right console and then down into the floorboard.  This part was from the Revell kit and was molded in clear plastic to replicate the clear sight tube on the original.  Some modelers paint the entire fuel line yellow but one reference I have of a late war, unrestored G-6 shows the line partially in natural metal, so I went for that look.  I also added some scratches and carefully picked out the metal hose clamps that connected the steel fuel line to the clear site tube.

Lastly, I added the control column which is a particularly nice bit of resin.  Many pictures show the canvas "boot" being loose at the top.  The Aries stick replicates this, although I don't know how they were able to cast something this fine.  Kudos's to whoever made the master!

The floor section (note the loose fitting canvas boot):


The floor with right side dry fitted.  Note that the weathering colors are not this bright in real life.  I was working with some crappy light when I took these pics.

 
Right sidewall with oxygen hose added (kit piece):


Left sidewall:

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

  IP is pretty much done.  I didn't go heavy on the colored gauges, just a couple of yellow (fuel) on the right hand side.  The Aires panel is pretty decent, resin with a smaller PE cover and a piece of printed film in between.  I learned a trick from the "Building the Revel 109" magazine and used Future to fix the film and the PE sections.   It dries extremely clear and gloss so it looks like glass over each gauge and you can tweak the pieces into place (unlike superglue) since it takes 5 minutes or so to set up.

Still have a bit of work to do on detail painting and cleaning up some paint errors (also need to add the gunsight but I save that for later since it is much too easy to break) but this is how the panel looks so far:


Notice how the future looks like glass over the instruments:


Just a couple shots of the dry fitted cockpit:

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

Have you seen this outstanding model that represents the Australian Bf 109 G-6 and all its color features?

 

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47751/thread/1397924587/Bf+109+G-6+W.nr.+163824

 

May be an inspiration. Looking forward to reading your updates.

 

Roger

Oh my!!!  That is a great model. I actually thought about building that one but didn't have the courage to tackle that crazy paint scheme, plus I really like the look of the "tall tail" 109's.

 

BTW, as  you may have figured out, this is from a WIP I posted on another site (ARC).  Lately ARC has been pretty dead, not a lot of feeback / constructive criticism.   I think I got more posts in one night over here than over three months on ARC.  I like this place

 

I'm going to post the rest of my progress later today so stand by for a flurry of updates.   That will bring this thread up to it's current state (final painting underway).

 

Regards,

 

John

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

  Done with 90% of the cockpit painting.   Still need to tweak the weathering.  After that, I'll try those PE seatbelts and then move on to the instrument panel.  I've heard that Aires is notorious for poor fitting parts.  After all this work, I'll be extremely bummed if none of this fits.









[url=http://s285.photobucket.com/user/11bee/media/IMG_6230_zps5599d9f8.jpg.html]http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll78/11bee/IMG_6230_zps5599

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

I've made a bit of progress on the cockpit.   I added a chain and pulley to the left of the pilot's seat and connected it to the outer trim wheel.  It's a bit crude but from the angle it will be viewed at, it will add a nice bit of clutter.  I also added a couple of additional levers to the sidewalls.  After that, it was time to start painting.  

First off, I painted the seat a dull silver and then, using a trick mentioned in the "Building Revell's Bf-109" publication to simulate chipped and scratched paint, I coated the seat with three layers of hairspray.  I then painted the three main interior parts RLM66 (a dark grey).  I lighted the Testor's paint with a couple of drops of white for scale effect.  I then wet the paint over the seat and using a hard bristle brush and a sharp tooth pick, I scratched and abraded the grey paint to expose the silver beneath.  The hairspray, being water soluble, assist with the removal of the top coat of paint.  The seat and rear bulkhead would have been heavily scratched by the buckles on the pilot's harness every time he entered or left the cockpit.  I'm pretty happy with the overall effect, still need a bit of practice but I think it looks better than my old method of painted silver scratches on top of the base paint.  Keep in mind that a good deal of this will be hidden by the harness.

After that, I began the detail painting.  It seems there was a great deal of variation on these cockpits.  Using pictures of the cockpit of the Bf-109 featured in my initial post (completely unrestored), I decided to take a slightly minimalist approach to colors.  Some modelers go heavy on the various bright colors but since my subject is a hard-worked veteran, I wanted to show the cockpit in a bit of disrepair with a good portion of the original fittings replaced by whatever the mechanics could get their hands on.

I painted the oxygen regulator blue (the Germans used color coded fittings - blue for oxygen, yellow for fuel, etc).   While some modelers opted to paint the rat's nest of oxygen tubing blue, I decided to keep the tubing bare steel.  I also painted all electrical wiring a dinghy shade of yellow. I added a dark wash to selected features for a bit of depth.  Here are some pictures, keep in mind that I still have a long way to go. My final weathering will tone down all of the colors.  








The starbord sidewall.  The section at the bottom is just extra resin and will get trimmed off.  Makes for a handy palette as well!

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

here is the obligatory shot of the kit and aftermarket sets I've got.  I also broke down and ordered the Aeries resin cockpit set which should arrive in a week or so.  



The Revell kit is a nice one (at an equally nice price), most folks feel it is superior to the older Hasegawa kit. However, Revell made some mistakes.  The biggest ones (and hardest to correct) are the undersized mg bulges on the cowling and they have the mg troughs too close together.  The Alley Cat sets address these issues (and many more).  I'll go into details later.

[Late War Bf-109G-6]

I'm usually the first one to voice annoyance about the sheer number of WW2 German models being built, as I mostly prefer to build much more obscure subjects. That being said, I've always had an interest in German aircraft and armor, especially late war subjects when you could see some very unique and unusual paint jobs.  So when Revell released their 1/32 Bf-109G-6, I started thinking about taking the plunge and building a late war -109.

First order of business was to find a subject.  As noted, I lean towards subjects that are a bit uncommon.  Whilst surfing through a very nice website ( http://theprofilepaintshop.blogspot.se/ ) I came upon a profile of "Yellow 5" a very unique looking very late war G-6 that was captured by US troops in Kassel, Germany at the end of the war.  The profile in question is a couple of pages in on the above referenced website.  For some reason, I can't post a direct link to it.

Yellow 5 is painted in a very unusual (for a G-6) mix of late war colors - brown violet (RLM 81) / dark green (RLM 82) uppers and the yellowish lower color also somewhat incorrectly referred to as RLM 84.  What makes the aircraft even more interesting is the mismatched cowling that is painted overall light blue (RLM 76) with some random dark green / brown splotches.   After corresponding with the man behind this great website (Anders Hjortsberg, who graciously shared some previously unpublished pictures with me), I discovered that Yellow 5 apparently had a replacement wing added.  The starboard wing appears to be painted in standard mid-war colors - green grey (RLM 74) & grey violet (RLM 75) topsides, RLM 76 undersides; while it is believed that the port wing was painted in late war brown violet & dark green topsides with natural metal undersides.

This pretty much adds up to a perfect example of a late war German aircraft.  Towards the end, the normally meticulous Germans threw out uniformity.  Anything that slowed down production was abandoned and many haphazardly / partially painted aircraft were issued to front line units.  Most of these seem to have been older aircraft re-issued by specialized repair / refurbishment facilities as the large manufacturers still managed to achieve some degree of uniformity on newly produced aircraft.  These small repair facilities tended to simply replace damaged components with whatever was handy in their spare parts inventory, without much thought to repainting them.  At the same time, for whatever reason, it appears that the fuselage was often given a quick (and usually crude) paint job using late war colors and then off to the front they went.  

It is almost certain that Yellow 5, being built during the mid-war period, was originally painted in the standard day fighter scheme of RLM 74/75/76.  At some point, the aircraft was either damaged or simply needed refurbishment and was rebuilt by one of those many small rehab facilities.  At that time, a replacement cowling / port wing were added and the fuselage given a quick overspray in late war colors.  It appears that this aircraft was then issued to JG.53 (hence the black band on the aft fuselage).  

To illustrate how some of these rebuilt aircraft appeared, here are a couple of pictures of another Bf-109G.  Note the late war colors crudely applied and the variations in the paintwork. This aircraft is incredibly unique in that it's the last Bf-109 that remains in it's original paint.  All of the others that exist today have been "restored" using often inaccurate colors.
 




And lastly, here is the subject of my build, sitting forlornly after capture. At this point, it has already been partially dismantled but you can note the late war colors on the fuselage and the lighter mid war colors on the starboard wing.  As mentioned above, I have other B&W pics that show the aircraft in better condition but don't feel that it is appropriate to share them at this time.



More to follow....