Bf109 E-4/B "Yellow 6" Oblt. Otto Hintze 3./ Erpr.Gr210 1940

[jeroenpeters]

Hi Nick,

 

Just spotted your build. Lovely work on a potentialy very nice kit!

Great work. And man... That Brassin sure lifts it up!

 

Cheers,

Jeroen

[JamesHatch]

You're doing a great job Nick. Amazing to see what you had to do to get that DB601 to fit, but it looks like you got it all to line up real well.

[nmayhew]

hi,

 

managed to make some progress despite fretting about not having bought many Christmas presents yet!

 

here is the radiator / coolant thingy (basically i really should learn a bit more about the engine i am trying to build here!! ) - i don't like the way the moulded it on to the casting blocks, as it is very difficult not to lose some of the surface detail when removing them

 

 

here are some pipes that are meant to fit on the back of this piece onto the cylinder blocks - very challenging to remove this bit, but the resin is flexible so it doesn't go snapping all the time

 

 

trying to fix the first part to the engine was troublesome, because the little pipe bits did not match up with the slightly flattened surface area on the engine block

so i drilled a hole in the block each side and inserted a small piece of brass tube (0.5mm i think) and very carefully tried to drill out a corresponding hole in the pipe bits - this was quite tricky

 

 

and here it is attached

 

 

 

i was quite pleased with that little bit of engineering!

[nmayhew]

next up i added some of the tubing - again supplied as soft resin

 

personally i think the best most modeller friendly way to provide these parts is as pre-shaped brass tube...maybe that is too expensive?

 

 

 

also added some of the photo-etch bits, using a combination of gator glue for etch on etch, and CA glue for etch onto resin

 

 

lots of parts in this little assembly!

 

 

cheers

 

Nick

[nmayhew]

now wiring is meant to go from the resin pipe i just added into the engine below, but where the 2 would meet is moulded as a protrusion, rather than a hole - looks cool but pretty unhelpful

 

so i had to snap off all the little pointy bits - you can see the white / lighter colour where i have removed them here:

 

 

then using a first a large-ish drill bit to remove all the remaining protrusion...

 

 

and then a smaller one to make a hole for the wire which i will stick in there, then mate up to the resin tube probably with gator glue

 

 

a small note here - there is another part to be added to the underneath of the engine, but as you can see there is no way this would fit unless you scratch built in correct proportions the chin radiator set-up

 

 

so i just left it off - here is the underside of the engine in profile - this will have to be sanded down some more later i think

 

 

cheers

 

Nick

[Loic]

Loic

[nmayhew]

i tried a test fit of the engine mounting arms...

 

 

 

they bow a little because as far as i can see the attachment points on the arms are sllightly closer together than their counterparts on the engine block; not the end of the world, but not what i would expect for the price of this set; i think i will just sand off the attachment point on the forward part of the arms when it comes to fitting the engine (i must not forget to do this!)

 

the fit is also a little "unclear" over around the supercharger, but nothing dramatic

 

after this, i sprayed the engine block gunze dark iron, and later gave it a gloss coat of gunze rattle can super clear, which dries glass like pretty quickly

 

then i added some engine numbers from MDC - they are for their DB605 but i think are the same stencilling etc

 

 

 

i had to add the decals now because once the wiring starts going everywhere and the engine mounting arms are added i won't be able to fit them in

[nmayhew]

a bit of gun deck action now...

 

i dipped my Master Model MG17 barrels in Blacken-It to lose the super shiny brassiness, and make them take paint better

 

 

snipped and drilled the kit guns - very fiddly but with patience it's not too difficult

 

 

here is how they will sit...note that i have filed down the outermost "stubby bit" (note technical Luftwaffe term ) on the gun deck; this is to help the cowling part fit over the top

 

 

the cowling itself was again thinned so that you can almost shine a light through it, and voila - it fits!

 

 

 

i still have to work out exactly what detailing i wil add to this section as you won't be able to see much in there

[nmayhew]

i then snipped off the rather crude detail around the ammo bins and added some photo etch - some of it from the update set (ammo bin handles) and also used some spare bits from the cockpit and a bit of styrene rod - it still looks too bare but not sure what to add before putting the engine in

 

 

 

i also sorted out the chin of the cowling - you will recall this looked pretty poor after initial construction

 

i used some styrene "half round" sections, and then cut them in half again, and glued them to the areas which needed squaring up:

 

 

 

 

this was then puttied and sanded using 600 grit to a smooth-ish finish; mr surfacer primer will take care of the rest (sorry forgot to take a pic - will maybe add one later or tomorrow)

[Pfuf]

Great to see this build hope to do one my self one day only I think I barrow a engine from a dragon bf110 kit to expensive the resin engine from eduard.

 

hope to see more learn a lot how to build this kit.

 

Johan

[nmayhew]

the exhaust stacks - now for some fun and games...NOT!

 

exactly in which order to do this had been bugging me for days: i had visions of putting the engine in and then trying to fiddle around attaching the individual stacks through the slot and just getting in a terrible mess, so.....

 

i decided i would add the stacks now to the engine, but would need some surgery in order to fit the engine in with the stacks...

 

first cut is underneath the overhand so you will not see it (hopefully!)

 

 

then the front bit got the chop - i used a combination of radu's scribe-r in "saw mode" and some tamiya fine snippers for this

 

 

the stacks themselves...

 

obviously the guys at Eduard were feeling a little vindictive when they mastered these

i am sure they could have made them easier to remove and clean up

 

 

when you remove them imperfections and actual holes are visible

 

 

now that is no big deal, but as far as i can tell they are actually incorrect: they are missing the seam detail running along the stack

compare to quickboost ones, and look how much sharper these are:

 

 

i would have used them but they are attached "as one" and i would probably damage half of them in trying to separate them

 

(sorry for blurry pic)

 

 

more in a minute...

[nmayhew]

so i started to add the stacks - careful they are "sided", and have a slant where they mate with the engine block

 

 

one side done and they go in ok

 

 

next side done

 

 

now when i put the engine back in i realised that

- 1 side was not lined up correctly, so had to tear them off and try again after i had sanded down where they mate with the engine (this could be me, but eduard provide locating pins on each block which simply did not fit so i had to snip and sand them all off)

2 - despite removing part of the cowling on each side, the engine still would not fit in with the stacks attached

 

so...i rammed it in and let the engine tell me which bits were causing the problem!

all i had to do was push hard and simply see which ones snapped off and flew across the desk!!

 

obviously i recommend you don't try this at home, but it worked for me

 

i primed the ones left with mr surfacer 1000 (with a brush)

 

 

i also added a bit of bent styrene tube to keep the coolant thingy pushed forward in its place; it had a tendency to get pushed back towards the engine

 

 

and also sanded the supercharger area a bit to make the fit a little better; you will not see this once the engine is installed

 

 

ok that's it, i am well and truly "updated-out" now

 

i'm off to get a cup of tea!

[nmayhew]

ok, had my last turkey meal last night, so finally i am back to modelling!

 

not a whole bunch of progress i must say, as i have been concentrating on my Dora, but i wanted to try to add detail to the area just behind the supercharger intake, as i think this might be quite visible - here is what it looks like in real likfe:

 

 

so first up i removed the kit "detail"

 

 

snipped this little fellow from some german 1/35 figure sprues (their kit bags, boxes and bottles etc)

 

 

sanded it, added a bit of half round to the bottom, plus a bit of tube on top

 

 

and then some spare photo-etch (never EVER throw any PE away!!!)

 

 

drilled some holes in the bulkhead (some 0.5mm, some a bit bigger)

 

 

and there we are...

 

[nmayhew]

note that in the last pic in previous post, the wires were deliberately left too long - they will be cut to length later, but nothing is more annoying than having a line or any piece for that matter just too small...

 

now to the gun deck...

 

as before, i cleared away some of the kit detail

 

 

and added various lead wire and also the resin instrument panel backing / cover from aires (you can actually see the zipper detail, which is quite cool)

 

primed everything with alclad grey primer (too small an area for rattle can)

 

 

and also primed some cowling parts and engine supports

 

 

note the extra detail you get on the brassin piece?

i will have to try to replicate some of this (basically fudge it as i don't have any pics of cowling insides), as it will be visible i think

 

finally i painted the engine exhausts gunze burnt iron, and the oil reservoir and a few other bits gunze silver

 

 

the engine wiring will come in the next few days, but i have been putting that off!

 

[blackbetty]

awesome work on all the detail, nick!

109s are really not my thing (allthough i think i have built about a dozen in various scales ), but it sorta grows on me watching you do your thing to this kit