Revell 1/32 Bf109G-10 Erla

[Gazzas]

Awesome work!

 

Gaz

[Trak-Tor]

Another great show...  

 

Juraj

[tucohoward]

John, the gear legs look great! Love the two-tone paint. I might steal your shell ejection shoot method as well. I generally use the MDC parts for that but I also need to make one for the 30mm cannon on the K and I think this method will work nicely.

 

Jay

[Thunnus]

My first attempts at making chutes involved grinding out solid pieces of plastic but this is much easier! 

 

I didn't quite like the gear legs enough to keep them as is, Jay.   Turning them over so that the brake lines are in view show the remnants of the molded brake lines even though painting helped mask them.

 

 

So I decided to wipe them clean and start again!  This time, I ground down the molded brake lines with Dremel.  And instead of Tamiya tape, I made the straps out of thin brass sheeting superglued into place so that it could handle the wash treatment later on.

 

 

Here's a look a the gear legs with the new brake lines in place.  A much cleaner look.

 

 

I've primed the legs and have painted the oleos Alclad Chrome.  I'll let this dry for a good 24 hours before masking and painting.

 

 

Doing some bits and ends now... the tall tail fin has been glued into place and the glue seam eradicated with putty and careful sanding.  The rudder has not yet been glued on.

 

 

 

I damaged the wafer thin gun barrel on the AMUR Reaver spinner.

 

 

I sawed it off and replaced with a piece of plastic rod.

 

 

The fuselage cannon were taken from the kit and glued into place.  Of course, the ends have been carefully hollowed out.

 

 

The tires were painted a custom mix of grey/black/brown while the wheels were painted black.  Everything was given a brown pastel wash to dirty things up.  I will still perform some more weathering on the tires.

 

 

 

The tail wheel and long strut has been painted and weathered as well.

 

 

Finally, I've glued into place the sidewalls for the wheel wells.  I like how Revell has completely blocked off the wheel wells with detailed walls.  I am not going to attempt to replicate any canvas covering here but I might add some wiring to add some visual interest.

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Thunnus

[Daniel460]

Great stuff John! glad to see that you redid the gear legs, I didn't figure you would be happy with it.

 

The detail paint work is looking beautiful!!

 

Dan

[tucohoward]

Nice progress, John. Excellent painting and weathering. Have you decided on a scheme yet?

 

Jay

[Thunnus]

Hey guys.  Illness, work and a broken TV have conspired to keep me from doing much modeling this week.  Jay... I am going to do Hartmann's Double Chevron.  I know it has been done and recently too but the black tulip on a late war Luftwaffe fighter is so interesting to me.  Hopefully, I can bring something new to the table on this subject.

 

I have not worked up enough nerve to attach the Reaver cowling pieces.  I'm close but there are lots of other things to keep me busy.  I've added some wiring to the wheel well area.

 

 

 

The screens for the wing radiators have been painted.  The mesh is a too fine for a wash or dry-brushing so I just painted the mesh area black and left the framing in RLM 02.

 

 

I chosen to depict the wheel wells in unfinished metal instead of RLM 02.  This was a mixture of Alclad Dark Aluminum and Aluminum.

 

 

The fit of the fuselage halves is excellent with all of the panel lines lining up nicely.  After sanding, I will scribe a line down the glue joint and rivet both sides as depicted in photos earlier in this post by others.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Thunnus

[XOPCT]

Nice work, John,but Messer brake hoses twisted into a ring

[Thunnus]

Nice work, John,but Messer brake hoses twisted into a ring

 

Yes, please tell Eduard that!  Eduard chose to mold brake lines onto the gear cover, without the characteristic loop.  I was afraid of losing too much detail if I tried to remove the molded brake line so I chose to keep it intact.

 

 

Speaking of the landing gear, the revised legs have been painted as well as the inside of the gear doors.

 

 

I've added some dry pigments on the wear portion of the tires.  Does anyone have a good way of fixing the pigments in place without losing the effect, which happens when I spray a flat coat on?

 

The fuse joint has been lightly re-scribed as a panel line and I've added the rivets.

 

 

 

Ok... I've finally done it.  The AMUR Reaver gun breech cover has been GLUED into place.  Part of the delay was getting some fresh CA glue.  I didn't want to chance a bad connection with my old CA glue.

 

 

 

While I work to fair in the gun breech cover with putty, I am looking ahead to the AMUR Reaver engine cowling.  The fit up top... resin to resin... is perfect but down below there will be issues.

 

 

 

Before I glue the engine cowling into place, I am going to try and finish the gun breech fit as much as possible.  I like restricting the corrective/transition areas as much as possible so that I don't rush or get lazy or careless with this.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Thunnus

[XOPCT]

 Eduard is not right,trust only the real photos

[Thunnus]

 Eduard is not right,trust only the real photos

 

I know that Eduard is not right.  I chose not to correct it.  Or more accurately, I chose to depict the brake lines in a non-looped configuration at the wheel, which is contrary to many photos of Bf109's.

[XOPCT]

I know that Eduard is not right.  I chose not to correct it.  Or more accurately, I chose to depict the brake lines in a non-looped configuration at the wheel, which is contrary to many photos of Bf109's.

О.К ХозÑин-барин

[Daniel460]

Great update John, very nice work on the gear. 

 

Dan

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!

 

The iterative work of puttying, sanding and checking continues on the Reaver gun breech attachment.  The goal is to integrate the resin parts into the build seamlessly.  Or at least as close as I can muster.  The trickier blending will be with the engine cowling so who knows how that is going to go.

 

 

 

The first primer coat reveals lots of good and a few bad.  But thankfully, the bad seems to be very minor and easily correctable.  I've scribed panel lines and added rivets to the gun breech part to help divert the eyes away from the join.

 

 

 

I've weathered the metal wheel wells but the wings have not been glued together yet.  Build order is yet to be determined since I have to trap the wing spar between the top and bottom wing parts.  I may opt to attach the engine cowling with the wings off since the majority of the blending work will be at the wings and above.  This would give me more room to putty and sand in the always awkward wing root area.

 

 

 

The prop blades have been given a coat of RLM 70 Black Green and chipped using the hairspray method.  The chipping is a bit heavier than I like but we can make adjustments later if necessary.

 

 

 

After a few rounds of salt fading, the props are given a more worn look.  I may still remove some chipping... haven't made up my mind.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Thunnus

[Thunnus]

The AMUR Reaver spinner is given a mottle preshade.  Whether or not this will even make a difference on a black/white spinner remains to be seen but I did it anyway.

 

 

The white is applied in highly thinned layers.  The resulting effect is very subtle and will probably get tone-crushed by the black and/or eradicated by subsequent repairs to the spiral masking that I will have lots of trouble with in the near future.

 

 

 

The second round of primer on the fuselage shows the gun breech/fuselage joint cleaned up a little at a time. Most of the work involved refining the panel lines and re-establishing the wing root joint using a scriber.

 

 

 

Pulling back to a full view of the fuselage shows that we are in good shape so far and almost ready for the engine cowling addition.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Thunnus