Fanes

Yesterday's wheater was too good for model building, so I did some road cycling. With some new motivation I hit the engine nacelle again. I spare you the pictures of scraping, sanding, filling and so on. I wasn't even finished when I took the pictures. A quite prominent feature of the 110 is the engine instrument panel. There's two on the inner side of each cowling. Dragon supplies the clear parts surpringsly labelled in a correct way. But there's always a downside - the dials itself aren't supplied. I used individual dials from MDC, apllied from the inside. Of course the printed side isn't that sticky, so I secured them with some gloss coat. With the cowling in place I did two important dry fits: 1st prop and spinner 2nd Quickboost exhausts. The former was a bit tricky since there was a huge gap (1.5mm) between spinner and cowling. After some surgery on the Dragon engine everything is fine now. The Quickboost exhausts are surprisingly a joy to deal with. They look nice and fit the kit parts! Before sttling on glueing the wing halves, I drilled the holes for the drop tanks. Dragon supplies all small parts for the tanks but not the tanks itself This quite horribly colourized picture of W.Nr 3454 shows the typical 300l drop tank. (Source asisbiz.com - not mine, for discussion only) I went through my stash and found four drop tanks: The upper left is from Revell's Fw 190F-8 (two included) and features in my opinion nice weld seams and okayish detail, but a blunt end. Hasegawa's Bf 109F-4/Trop (right) has a drop tank as well, there are only panel lines, but crisp detail. The Eduard offering (Bf 109E-7), well I don't find anything nice to say.. What's your opinion - which drop tanks should I use?

While waiting for the next 3D print, I turned my attention to the wings. I started with the starboard wheel well to get the position for the engine cowling. First I tried to dry fit the cowling parts without the engine underneath. The result was briefly said a disaster. So, some engine essentials and I ended up here: With some force the upper cowling will fit better but the side panels still require some twaeking. The lower cowl needed some sanding to get a somewhat decent fit. Taking of the lower cowl - thanks again to @Shawn M for the Trop parts - especially the enlarged radiators and the dust filters! Assembly of the wheel well went straight foward, since I completely ignored the instructins and went with the images from the builds here on LSP! Same applies for the landing gear which still needs its brake line. If I find enough patience to seal the cowling, I'll be pleased to do the same stuff on the port wing. F*** you Dragon and your worthless instruction sheet!

I got a little aftermarket delivery today Iniatilly I just wanted to buy the exhausts for my Bf 110

Go for it - the more the merrier! Only a small update today - I've been busy the last days. First the promised picture of the auxillary stuff: Although there's no explanation for the parts in the Aufklärer Vol.1 book, I managed to find most of them in Vol.2 (free to read on scribd) for a Fw 189. The big things are the "Bildfolgeregler" (k) - I guess it translates into frame rate controller and the "Ueberdeckunsregler" (c) - controls the overlay of the pictures. The latter needs an opening/window in the floor which is included in the drawings from page 1. The wiring of the frame rate controller is a bit of a mystery though. One of the two goes to the camera motor (that's easy and included on other pictures) but the second one is linked to the IP. I have no clue about that since it's not present on the Fw 189 drawing. I got news from my camera mount. A friend of mine at university tried printing it via fused filament. Emphasis on tried but see for your self: Altough the detail looks good there's a problem with the wall thickness. It's below 0.8mm which makes removing the support structure with a water-jet nearly impossible. Removing the supports (without damaging the part) with a sharp blade, sprue cutters and other tools didn't work either. Next try will be with stereolithography - fingers crossed!

That together with Mike's pictures is enough proof for me! Styrene strips added. I wasn't going for accuracy but more for a busy look. Two very very tiny bits added. The valves on the right console. They consist of stretched sprue and copper wire with (hardly visible) blobs of PVA glue on the tips. They're not perfect but that's the best I could do: Quick and easy was the installation of the HGW rudder pedals with their straps from Tamiya tape. Afterwards I was in the mood to do some more fiddly stuff. I started with the camera auxillary units. First up the motor for the camera. It has two functions. First: Tillting the camera via a flexible shaft (like those for the dremel) and second there's a compressor on the other end which powers (at least I think so) the film transfer and shutter. Luckily this motor is included in the AIMS set. I made the flexible shaft with some wire and a very thin strip of Tamiya tape wrapped around it. The pressure hose consist of 0.3mm steel wire (maybe too stiff) and 0.2mm copper wire. Two wires were added, too. I'll show more pictures of the original when I build the other auxillary units. So far thanks a lot for the discussion,comments and pictures guys. You are amazing!

You're absolutely right about the uniqueness of the photo. The numbering of the parts in Mike's picture makes it likely to be from W.Nr.2831, too. This particular 110 (a C-1) was shot down by swiss Bf 109s in 1940 and was inspected by their authorieties. This would justify the missing yoke boot, cockpit floor and of course an inspection panel (?) on the throttle quadrant. So a picture from another plane is highly welcome to clear this matter!

Shawn - take all the time you need to sort things out!

Thanks Mike! One more thing came to my mind: if it's a hole, the levers and linkage behind should be visible - more scratch building!

Do you have a clear picture from the side? I didn't find any and went with the impression from the first picture in my post where it looks like a hole. Closing the hole from behind shouldn't be a big problem either! That would be a mess - so far everything except the right console is just dry fitted. I gently ripped of the throttle quadrant to ease up painting.

The interior colour question is delayed until my camera frame arrives! SInce I needed a little break from painting my smalls cale 109, I revisited the cockpit. The instrument panel looks quite nice, but painting the instruments itself may be quite fiddly. I don't think that decals will work on the raised details. Compared to the pictures in John Vasco's book the kit panel seems nearly complete. Two little things are missing: the Revi power plug (will be added together with the Quickboost Revi 12) and the two small lamps above the IP. On to the left side of the cockpit: Pretty sparse! The distinctive map case (n.11 in the picture), the rivets on the c shaped profile and again the lamp (n.3) are missing. But worst of all: The wing root opening will be visible after closing up everything. The right side of the cockpit recieved more attention from the Dragon designers. There's just some small stuff on the console missing. Another small glitch: the opening for the pipe/cable from the oxygen regulator (right of n.3) is in the wrong place. Nothing too hard to fix, except the valves (?) marked as n.9 in the picture. I have no idea how to scratch those! So I put some elbow grease, lots of swearing and searching for small parts in and here's the result so far: Looking at the picture I realized that the map case needs some attention and the lightening hole in the left console some cleanup. Still thinking about the two small valves (or whatever those are).. Since I had my favourite copper wire out, I went on adding cables to the rear cockpit. The instrument housings aren't perfect but they won't be visible since a cover will be added later on. The rightmost instrument was faired over because it represents a shot counter for the MG FF not necessary for a recon bird. Thats's it for today. Joachim

Decals are finally sealed, touch ups were necessary because of the decal softener, some paint lift later - again repaired - I could finally start the wheatering. First up oil-dot-fading/filtering. We all know how a model with dots on it looks like, so here's the result: The decals don't stand out that much anymore. The base for exhaust stains was laid down with black oil paint. Next up: Gloss coat followed by a subtle washing.

That's looking really good! I'm looking forward to the finished plane.

Indeed a build of a Storch in desert scheme is on my list! I've seen pictures of the Fi 156 as 5F+YK before, but thanks for the reminder. This Storch wore the markings in 1941, the Bf 110 W.Nr.2408 (previous 2.F/123) wore it in 1942 which leaves only a later date for W.Nr.3454. I really like the RLM78/79/80 scheme on a Bf 110, but on the other hand there are builds of a Bf 109F-4 and Fw 190F-8 painted RLM79/80 in the pipeline, too.

I'm not entirely sure on the interior colour. Since I want to depict 5F+YK, there is a little problem of which airframe exactly wore that code. There's one in overall RLM78/79 (W.Nr. 2408) which was photgraphed in 1942. I guess the cockpit would have been RLM02? Then there seems to be another airframe in RLM78/79/80 (W.Nr.3454) without a particular date on the photo, but I guess it should have a RLM66 cockpit. The closer I look, the more confusing it gets!

I used the thinnest sheet in my stash which is 0.15mm. You're absolutely right Max, I've been thinking about this for a while now. The camera itself will be quite visible, but the surroundings (mounting frame and auxillaries) are likely to disappear in the dark. Option 1: Live with it and be happy to know what's there, or Option 2: Display the camera outside of the airplane (like here), but then I have to go into super detailing the cockpit floor and the inside of the camera window - there is almost no reference material for that.