Bf 109F-4/Trop 8./JG27 - finished

[Fanes]

With my  small scale 109 99% finished and my group build entry a little stalled (waiting for a 3D printed part) I'm ready to start something new.

I picked Hasegawa's Bf 109F, which was my second LSP kit ever bought ca.7 years ago, from my stash.

Here's the project inventory:

 

So what's the plan?
I'm not going to build the 1000000th Marseille 109 but a quite interesting alternative: Red 2 from 8./JG 27 which has some really heavy mottling on the fuselage and wings.

There's some pictures of the original and some profiles (not sure about copyright, so link only). Eagle Cals suggest a usual RLM74/75/76 scheme overpainted with RLM79 on the upperside and followed by heavy mottling with RLM80. Not your usual 109 Trop for sure!

 

I've collected some aftermarket stuff for this build:

- MG17 tips from Master - the MG FF barrels will be used on my 109E build.

- Brassin exhausts, I hope they'll fit since they're meant for the Revell 109G-6

- CMK wheels, cheap (~4€) and a slight improvent over the kit parts

- Aires cockpit, at first I wanted to go for scratch building the cockpit details but then there was one post in the LSP discussion indicating that this Aires set is one of the rare examples of good fit.
I'll see....

 

That's the whole plan for now, building might start at the end of the week.

 

So long

Joachim

Edited July 2, 2019 by Fanes
title change

[MikeMaben]

 

                   

 

 

[Fanes]

Cockpit work

 

I guess 99% of the builds here start with the cockpit and so is this one. My reason for this start is that the cockpit will require most work.

After cleaning and the removal of the mold plugs the examination of the Aires cockpit begins.
First up: comparison of the cockpit sidewalls:

 

In my opinion the resin parts are by far superior to the sparse original parts.

Some scraping and sanding later the fuselage lost all its inenr details. With some trimming of the cockpit mounting points and cutting down the locator pin in front of the cockpit I got a snug fit:

 

 

And now the first babysteps in construction:

Gun cover and PE rudder pedals. The latter are okayish but I've definitely seen better (HGW and eduard).

The unforgiving macro reveals  the imperfect cleanup and shows the gap between cockpit front wall and the gun cover (for sure invisible in the end).

 

Next big part is the instrument panel. Although the Hasegawa part is nicely detailed I'm not into painting the dials, so the one from Aires with acetate film for the dials is my way to go.

So far only three PEs stacked up and not glued into place:

 

More to come

 

Joachim

 

 

[Thunnus]

Great work!  I love seeing a resin cockpit set come together.  Out of all of the different ways to represent an instrument panel, I prefer the Aires way... unpainted and stacked PE panel faces and acetate film for the dials.  You can even add some color to the instrument faces.

 

[Fanes]

14 hours ago, Thunnus said:

I love seeing a resin cockpit set come together.  Out of all of the different ways to represent an instrument panel, I prefer the Aires way... unpainted and stacked PE panel faces and acetate film for the dials.  You can even add some color to the instrument faces. 

I do agree to a certain point. It will hopefully look good with its 3D detail, but it'll require some careful painting of the instrument housings (especially the red/yellow ones) to look as clean as a Yahu instrument panel. We'll se what I can do

[Fanes]

For therapeutic reasons I needed a little break from may Bf 110 and so here's some progress for you.

Before the fiddly PE work began I opened the lightening holes on the IP and added the Revi (still needs it's power connector).

First PE bits were the headrest mountings. I will for sure regret using them when it somes to attaching the whole thing to the canopy, but they look nice.

 

The weird angle on the upper right one is now corrected.

The left sidewall recieved only one PE part and I'm not sure if it's in the right place. Placement in the instructions is more than vague..

 

Two small handles on the right side and the trim wheels, PE chain and one that's missing in the Aires set from copper wire:

 

Now the cockpit is ready for a coat of primer (oh boy that's a quick build ).
One thing is still bothering me. Aires wants me to drill a hole in the fuselage and to add a resin part and PE lid. Does anyone know what this part is ment for?

[wmoran]

That looks like the fuel filler point.

[Fanes]

1 hour ago, wmoran said:

That looks like the fuel filler point.

That's kind of embarassing - you're completely right, thank you!
I should have looked at the box art, or the decal instructions. The yellow/white triangle would have been a good indicator

[Thunnus]

The Aires pit looks great!  And yeah... I can confirm that the Aires instructions are annoyingly vague!

[Fanes]

Putting on some colour!

I'll spare you the pictures of the primed cockpit - you know grey paint...

Instead here's the black base:

 

I kept the Tamiya X-18 very thin and maybe a little bit more would have given a better coverage (cockpit floor), but it's just a base coat.

Then it struck me: Aires missed the fuel inspection glass in the fuel line, despite being very prominent. So I used my favourite stuff: stretched sprue:

 

Right afterwards I added a first marbling of Xtracrylix RLM66, not the best colour for airbrushing but good enough for this job.

I concentrated the paint on the raised areas and the middle of the panels.

 

Followed by a blend coat and some highlights with ultra thin grey (more like tinted thinner).

 

The contrast may seem a little bit harsh under full light but it'll be toned down a lot after the clear coats and should be good when the cockpit is int's place.

At least it came out good on my small scale 109.

 

And last but not least a dry fit on the IP with the acetate film backed in white. The macro reveals some damage on the holes - I'll fix them.

 

Cheers

Joachim

[Fanes]

More colour!

Between work and being ill I managed to get the Vallejo paints and my fine brush out to paint the details:

That's the durrent state (touch ups on the fuel line are still necessary):

 

And the other side:

 

Paint on the IP:

 

As you can see I struggled quite hard with the yellow and the yellow/red ring on the dials. is there a good trick to get this done?

The indicators and stuff on the watch (upper right corner) were painted with a sharpened tooth stick which worked a lot better than my smallest brush.

After the touch ups I'll start adding wear with some chipping.

But there's some other things to do, too:

I need to decide on the seatbelts, options are green (orlon) fabric belts from HGW and the Aires PE belts (appear to be quite thin, annealing them won't hurt)

 

What would you guys choose for a Bf 109F in early 1943?

 

Little surgery on the fuel filler port - chain drilling the kit part:

 

After some light sanding on the inside (read heavy scraping) I ended up with here:

 

The cockpit's rear wall needed some minor modifications but apart from that fit is quite okayish:

[Fanes]

Being ill has its perks - lots of time at the bench!

 

The cockpit is near completion. I added the chipping on the seat, cockpit floor and trim wheels.

 

This was followed by a gloss coat. More pictures when the pin wash is sealed up.

Then I turned my attention to the wheel wells and wings.

Wheels first. I bought some resin wheels from CMK without having a good picture of them berforehand.

Well, they're slightly better than the kit's wheels but no comparison to the eduard brassin wheels which are however 4 times more expensive!

Hasegawwa left, CMK right.

 

Hasegawa includes a brake line on the main landing gear. I would rather say: Hasegawa tries to replicate a brake line, but look for yourself:

 

It's a good thing I like bending wires and gluing them to my fingers!

The wings are used on different kits so some panels need filling:

 

Hasegawa includes a plastic part to fill the bulge in the wheel well ceiling but it fits like crap and is surrounded by rivets.

I decided to not go crazy and to leave the wheel wells in the dark without any further work/detailing.My next 109 - a Regia Aeronautica G-6 or a photo recon G-2 will feature a detailed wheel well from Radu Brinzan - so I have no regrets going the easy way on this build.

 

Despite this little throwback I'm having a lot of fun with this build!

I still have to sort out the seatbelts. Are there any opinons on the usage of the green orlon material on a Bf 109F-4?

 

[Out2gtcha]

Looks great, and fun IS the name of the game! 

[Fanes]

I had a lot of fun finishing up the cockpit.

First I assembled the Aires PE belts - less fiddly than I expected.

 

And here's the finished cockpit. The belts recieved some Vallejo colour and a middle brown wash. Dust pigments were added to the floor and seat.

 

 

Right afterwards I buttoned up the fuselage and glued the cockpit into place.

 

Here's a look on the finished IP and the Revi. The latter was removed after the photo to ease up handling. You may notice the IP sitting a tad too low.

Well that's as good as it gets with everything in place. There's a collision with the sidewall, without which the fit is perfect. I really hope this issue will disappear with the canopy in place!

 

Onto the one and only bummer on the Hasegawa kit: the engine cowling with its separate top and side parts.

Most builds on the web show a less than ideal finish on this part. There are quite a few builds ou there with a panel line between top and side panel. Well there's none on the real thing. The small scale eduard kits have the seam line on top of the cowling which is in my opinion easier to clean up than this:

 

As I'm posting the milliput is already drying - more pictures to follow on the weekend!

[BloorwestSiR]

Nice work on this. Great job on the cockpit. 

 

Carl