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

[LSP_Ray]

Nice job on the cockpit! That seam line on the cowling is unfortunate.

[Out2gtcha]

Good work!  Yes, agreed about the separate cowling with its ensuing gaps....a shame. I wish companies would handle things like this with extremely thinned joint between the section of the cowl that normally opens and the rest of the cowl. That way anyone who wants to pose it open has minimal work to do to score the joint along the cowling and snap it off. Otherwise, for those of us who want closed panels, there would be no muss, no fuss. 

[MikeMaben]

That seam was a clue when the G-6 came out (first) that there would be

Fs later as they had different gun troughs.  Still a pain tho 

 

 

[Gazzas]

Sweet!

[Fanes]

On 3/8/2019 at 6:23 AM, Out2gtcha said:

Good work!  Yes, agreed about the separate cowling with its ensuing gaps....a shame. I wish companies would handle things like this with extremely thinned joint between the section of the cowl that normally opens and the rest of the cowl. That way anyone who wants to pose it open has minimal work to do to score the joint along the cowling and snap it off. Otherwise, for those of us who want closed panels, there would be no muss, no fuss. 

That's my dream, too! I'm thilled to see how the Tamiya Spitfires go together in this area.

 

The dreadful seam is gone:

 

The other seams will be filled and reworked when my new scriber arrives.

Until then there's plenty to do. Like the cockpit's rear wall which recieved a PE door and resin bits for the canopy attachment.

 

That area is ready for paint but I'll shoot the RLM66 on the canopy, too. So I put some hours into masking the inside and outside.

 

To get some distraction I worked on some details on the lower fuselage. For example the oil and fuel drain pipes which were made from 0.5mm hypodermic needle.

 

Then I turned my attention to the exhausts. The ones from Hasegawa have a nice weld seam but the exhausts need assembly and are not hollowed out.

 

So I got some eduard brassin exhausts for the Revell G-6. They were cheap and good looking and I thought I could get them to fit easily. With some trimming of the basaeplate I ended up with that:

 

I really like detail but the exhausts are a little bit smaller than the kit ones and seem to be a little bit lost in the big opening. What would you guys do?

 

[Kirk]

I'd attempt to hollow out the kit part, make a  right Horlicks of it, decide that the kit parts were oversized and fit the Eduard bits...  

[MikeMaben]

Hi Fanes, Joachim, the shield above the exhaust on the port side curves down over

the exhaust.  There aren't any side or top frames on the hinged part of

the canopy until the G.

The only way to enlarge the exhausts would be to plug the openings and

dip them in Mr. Surfacer 500 (thinned with 91% alcohol) or something like that. 

Hope you're having fun 

 

 

Edited March 11, 2019 by MikeMaben

[Fanes]

7 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Hi Fanes, the shield above the exhaust on the port side curves down over

the exhaust.  There aren't any side or top frames on the hinged part of

the canopy until the G.

You're absolutely right! I guess I'll try fitting the exhausts shields and then decide what to do. There are some Barracuda exhausts in my stash - I'll check them, too.

You got me with the canopy. I was a little bit overly enthusiastic. Until now it's an easy fix

19 hours ago, Kirk said:

I'd attempt to hollow out the kit part, make a  right Horlicks of it, decide that the kit parts were oversized and fit the Eduard bits...  

I see myself doing exactly the same thing

[rafju]

Hi

Thank you Fanes with sharing to all here your building pb! your detail pix are terrific!

that is very constructive to all of us who have the same kit in  the stash and want to decide what AM parts are needed or not for this model ;-) !

 

By the way, thanks to the specialist(s) with correct replying!

 

That is why I love LSP.

raf

 

[Thunnus]

Very nice work!  The Barracuda exhausts should be bigger than the kit exhausts, assuming that the Revell G-10 kit has the same exhausts as the G-6 kit.

[Fanes]

11 hours ago, rafju said:

Hi

Thank you Fanes with sharing to all here your building pb! your detail pix are terrific!

that is very constructive to all of us who have the same kit in  the stash and want to decide what AM parts are needed or not for this model ;-) !

 

By the way, thanks to the specialist(s) with correct replying!

 

That is why I love LSP.

raf

 

Nice to see that I can make an impact! Photography is one of my other hobbies so taking pictures is not all work but fun, too .

In my opinion every review of AM stuff should feature a comparison between the kit part and maybe some competitors. Well the best review would be against the original...

 

All the experts on the different subjects are reasons why I joined LSP in the first place. There's so much information and knowledge here!

 

Back to my 109 - a quick shot from the bench:

 

1 hour ago, Thunnus said:

Very nice work!  The Barracuda exhausts should be bigger than the kit exhausts, assuming that the Revell G-10 kit has the same exhausts as the G-6 kit.

Thanks for the picture and the kudos!

I'll add my mini comparison:

 

Hasegawa (2.9mm wide), Barracuda (2.6mm) and Eduard (2.2mm). The latter has the same width like the ones from Revell's G-6 (measured 2.25mm) and presumably G-10...

So Barracuda it is for the F-4. I'll use the Eudard ones for my upcoming G-2/R2 conversion - yeah I'm into those photo recon birds !

 

Cheers

Joachim

[Fanes]

During sawing of the exhausts the cheap handle I use for my saws broke. So the test fit of the Barracuda exhausts and the Hasegawa heat shields is postponed.

Since I'm finally adding an air tank to my compressor, it's completely stripped down and I can't airbrush the rear cockpit compartment and the canopy.

So I turned my attention to some small stuff. First of all the wingtip lights. Hasegawa provides clear parts and an effort on the light bulb:

 

Well this good enough for small scale but in 1/32 there are better options. Stretching some styrene, sanding a spherical end and some polishing later:

 

Those macro photos show every nasty imperfect seam. I cleaned it up right after I saw the photo. The clear rod may seem a bit bent but it#s just not centered in the hole because I left some clearance for the clear blue/red paint.

Then it was time for some real fiddling - the brake line on the landing gear. Getting this distinctive feature right is a must for a Bf 109 build!

So I went ahead with some 0.2mm copper wire, thin stripes of thick aluminium foil and the trusty Tamiya tape:

 

That's it for today. More to come soon!

[MikeMaben]

Hey Joachim , since you haven't painted the canopy yet , there's one more PIA

you could fix that most 109 models miss. The center frame on the rear canopy

is on the inside of the canopy only , painted the interior frame color.

 

 

 

[Fanes]

Thank you very much Mike - that's valuable input.
It'll take a lot of time to get into all the 109 details.

[Fanes]

It's been a while but I managed to get some time on this 109 between work and a skiing trip.

The Barracuda exhausts were trimmed to fit an I replaced the straight heat shield on the starboard side with 0.2mm styrene - the Hasegawa pat for copmaprison:

 

The port side with the kit part thinned down significantly (just thrown into place):

 

Afterwards I painted the canopy's inside and went on tih preparations for painting. First some Alclad primer for the resin parts:

 

As my airbrush was already loaded up with the (thinned) primer I decided to give all seams and rescribed lines one layer. Well it seems there's plenty of cleanup to do:

 

The starboard side will be fixed with a small amount of CA - the port side and some underwing panels will require more love:

 

Cheers

Joachim