Eduard Bf109G-4/Trop - ready for inspection

[Fanes]

Hey there folks,

this will be my firs WiP on this forum and my first build in the last six years.
Since I want to join the multi engine group build with a german desert bird, I decided to practice on the RLM78/79 camo with a quick build in 1/48.

The eduard weekend box fell into my hands for a very low price and I plan to this buiild quick out of the box.

 

The depicted plane will be Franz Schiess' bird from Tunis in february 1943. It features a quite interesting camo with a high damarcation line (air intake in light blue) and overpainted markings.

(source. bundesarchiv.de - if there's a copyright violation, feel free to take the image down.)

 

This build will start like 99% of all builds:
...construction started with the cockpit.

It's looking good for my eye. What's  there is nicely detailed.

 

 

Here's a quick mockup of the tub and to be honest I expected a little bit more. The oxygen hose is just blank and any other wires, tubes ect. are absent. - same for the left side.
The seatbelts are provided as decals - meeh. Maybe I will not resist the urge to put "just a little more" details in the cockpit.

 

 

Comments, critics and any other input are highly welcome.
 

So long
Joachim

Edited February 22, 2019 by Fanes
title change

[Gazzas]

Welcome to the Forums Joachim!

[Out2gtcha]

Welcome Joachim, great start!

[SCRATCH BUILDER]

Welcome! 

[Hardcore]

Nice choice! The desert birds were quite good looking. 

 

Jerry Crandall had valuable info on this aircraft in this post.

 

 

 

 

[Fanes]

Thanks a lot for your kind words guys.

9 hours ago, Hardcore said:

Nice choice! The desert birds were quite good looking. 

 

Jerry Crandall had valuable info on this aircraft in this post.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for the information - this will get in handy when it comes to painting!
 

I made the decision to put a little more effort into the cockpit.  More to come tomorrow - stay tuned.

[Fanes]

25 minutes ago, Jennings Heilig said:

Nice!  But I don't see any evidence that the supercharger intake is blue.  Compare it to the highlight on the RLM 79 along the upper cowling and the spine of the fuselage.  Be careful you're not seeing what you want to see.   Common things (supercharger RLM 79) are common because they occur commonly.

You're right Jennings - I examined the pictures from the thread posted above by Hardcore and in the last picture there the supercharger intake is clearly a dark color.
Those b/w photos can be quite confusing..

[Fanes]

Time for an update.
As already mentioned the cockpit of the eduard Bf 109 leaves room for some improvements.
First up the trim wheels.
On the real aricraft the trim tabs are connected to the wheels via chains. The more expensive Profi Pack edition gives you some flat etched parts.
I want to do someting more 3D.

Therefore I twisted two 0.2mm copper wires and used a vice (pliers were to fiddly) to flatten the wires. I swa that technique in a beautiful WiP for the Hasegawa Bf 109F-4/Trop.

For a first try it looks quite promising to me and the lower part won't be seen anyway. So there's two more chains to do.

In the meantime I draw my attenton to the right sidewall an started with the oxygen-hose.
The 0.5mm copper wire was bent with the oroginal plastic still in place.

After that there was some extensive scraping, swiping with a fiberglass brush and some sanding to get rid of the tubes and cables.
I used some pictures from the internet and the MDC resin cockpit for the 1/32 Bf 109G-4 as a reference to add more details.

I opted for a busy look instead of 100% accuracy since this shall be a "quick build". Some clean-up ist still required, the oxygen-hose needs a fitting on its end.
Somehow the regulator knob of the oxygen regulator got knocked of and disappeared into nirwana. I don't have the skills to scratch this part, so I rely on the eduard support to get a replacement part.
That's it for today.

 

Cheers
Joachim

[Fanes]

Not a real update right now. I've been putting together parts of the fuselage, wheel wells and so on - pictures will follow soon!
But I encountered a real problem (okay multiple problems) with the decals.

First of all the seatbelts: no way to get them look properly now that I started detailing the cockpit. I'm right now looking for PE alternatives, since I don't want to fiddle with fabric belts in the small scale. Are the eduard STEEL belts any good?
Next up: the decal for the instrument panel: the print is nice and sharp, but why are the dials printed in grey?? - MDC instrument dials to the rescue! (ordered them today)

And last and maybe least decal No. 26 is supposed to represent the airfilter. The plastic part is bare and is in the more expensive boxings covered with PE parts.
Option 1: live with the decal - no way!
Option 2: buy a resin replacement - this would cost one fourth of the kit price..

Option 3: there might be some photo-etched grid in my stash.

[Fanes]

Small update for today:

I worked on the port sidewall and the cockpit tub.
Installed the trim-wheels and their chains.

The two of them on the sidewall, not perfect but they won't be too visible. Some pipes and cables still have to be added.

The one for the inner trim-wheel:

Everything put together for a quick dry-fit

 

I'm still waiting for the replacement oxygen regulator and therefore can't finish the starboard sidewall. So I'll be doing some other things like the wheel wells and the wings.

[Gazzas]

I had an Eduard build on hold for two months because the upper wings had been pulled from the molds too soon.  I really hate putting builds on hold.

 

 

Looking good so far.

 

Gaz

 

[Fanes]

9 hours ago, Gazzas said:

I had an Eduard build on hold for two months because the upper wings had been pulled from the molds too soon.  I really hate putting builds on hold.

 

 

Looking good so far.

 

Gaz

 

Well that sucks a lot - I can definitely relate.

Because of this I turned my attention to the other parts and did a lot of assembly which isn't interesting enough to show.
But  the I had a look on the exhaust. I plan to attach after painting and by dry fitting/fiddling I reckonized that there are two pairs.

One is nicely hoollowed out but without heat/glare-shields - they are included in the other boxes as PE.

The other pair has plastic shields but the exhausts are not hollow.
Oh Eduard - I didn't feel like drilling all those tiny exhausts, so I decided to add the shields to the other pair.

To get the dimensions right the shape was transeferd via Tamiya tape to the plastic sheet.

 

Here they are fitted to the exhausts. Right after taking the photo it hit me: I swapped the sides by mistake!

 

 

After pulling the shields of and cutting them again here is the result:

 

 

I guess it should look fine after some cleaning up. To get the exhausts to fit I had to take quite some material from the opening in the fuselage.
The cocpit is still on hold but I recieved a nice pair of etched seatbelts, so there is literally just one little piece and three little wires missing to complete the internals.

 

Until then:

A merry christmas to you all and thanks a lot for your kind comments and the "likes". You are really keeping me motivated to push on!

[Wegener]

As regards Eduard’s Steel range of belts, I’ve got a few sets of 1/72 examples and was actually quite impressed.  I don’t do 1/48 (other than for a few WW1 types) so no experience of those but I’m not a fan of etched belts in 1/32 as they don’t look convincing to me.  However, the 1/72 belts look better than the available alternatives (paper with etched buckles unfeasible, decals too flat and scratchbuilt too overscale).  Only tip I’d suggest is to prime and paint the reverse side while on the fret as some designs like the Sutton show the back of the belt and it will look pretty dodgy if it’s obviously metal!

[Fanes]

A small and tiny update on the build.

Still waiting for the oxygen regulator but my new seatbelts arrived.

These Eduard belts certainly look good enough for 1/48 -  agree with you @Wegener.
A lot of fiddling with tiny pieces went into building the air filter.

The metal mesh is from plus models and is made up of woven wires which is absolutely no joy to cut and trim.
Next time I'll look for some PE mesh!
Before looking at the picture I thought it was good enough but my new macro lens has no mercy and shows every little flaw.
I may have to do the framing of the mesh again.

[Fanes]

Starting the new year I decided to not longer wait for the eduard replacement part.
Since the part anyway had its faults, I used some streched sprue to make a new regulator which is just missing the star shaped button.

This will be put into place when the replacement finally arrives!

After adding some copper wire we're here:

 

After cleaning up the CA-reisdues I went on to priming the cockpit.
There are some first times involved:
-black-basing - I saw quite some impressive results in the forum

-gunze's levelling thinner for the good old Tamiya paints

 

 

 

Oh boy, I thought I had the Tamiya paints figured out. But this Gunze thinner does some magic!

The following painting wasn't magical at all since I had some struggle with my new airbrush, the fine needle (.15mm) and the quite tricky RLM66 from Xtracrylix.
Probably not using this stuff again.

 

 

Next up: doing some higlighting by adding ocean grey to the RLM66 and focussing onto the upper areas.

 

I still have to improve the lights for photogrraphing without sunlight.
Therefore the pictures don't really do the painting justice.
I chose a relatively high contrast for the basepaint because I think it'll level out when detail-painting, gloss coat and a little pin wash are done.
 

If painting the details goes well, there will be an update tomorrow!