1/32 Hasegawa Bf109K-4 Weisse 8

[dodgem37]

Nice work.  I believe the empennage was made of wood, and the fasteners didn't show.  Nice detail pics of the mast.  Love the twisted wire detail.  Plenty of great info on this thread.

 

I did some work on the outboard door while working on the K-4 in my signature.  Posts are no longer numbered, but if you look on Page 13, April 21, 2011, you'll see what I did.  My recollection is I traced the kit part for the outside panel and vac'ed the door and used the indent for the inner panel.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[fab]

On 5/21/2019 at 7:52 AM, rafju said:

Hi All

hi Matsu @Shiba

Thank you very much for translation! 100% ok about Model Art  book!

About the aileron balance, ok that's confirming what Vincent said, but about the filling hatch, are you sure about oxygen? would have preferred compressed "air" as the oxygen filling was under the starboard wing, no? Please have a look at the Augsbourg Eagle Model Art book p.138.

In fact that is my pb, was there a filling hatch for air compressed under the port wing? (Mk108 use) , knowing and confirmed now that there was a filling hatch for oxygen under the starboard wing.

Why  my question? because each time I found at a Bf109 K-4 underside drawing (Model Art, JaPo, Kagero, 109Lair...), I can see at x2 new additionnal hatches under wings:

and joined explanation are sometimes contradictory from port to starboard between compressed air and oxygen.

 

 

And don't worry for your english ;-) I'm french…

 

Best to you

Raph

Ouuuuups wrong way...sorry I only want to copy...

 

Great built!

 

Fab

[Thunnus]

Hello again.  I hope everyone has been well.  I've been enduring another long break without the desire to build models.  I've checked into LSP now and then but even that eventually petered out.  Fishing season is long over and both my daughters have left the house and are in college.  I've got the time but the motivation is still lacking.

 

I forced myself into the modeling room today.  It's a long weekend and I thought Veteran's Day would be an appropriate time to mark a return but... honestly, I don't know how long it will last or how consistent I'll be.  I'm trying.

 

Of the two projects that I have going, I picked to K-4 to do some work on.  I feel more comfortable with Late War Luftwaffe subjects than anything else.  After reviewing my own build posts to catch myself up on this one, I thought I'd do some riveting.

 

The Hasegawa kit is pretty well molded but does not include any rivet detail.  I'm sure it is not everyone's cup of tea but I rather like the visual interest that riveting can give to the surface of an aircraft.  Here's what the clean wing looks like before I put hundreds of tiny holes in it.

 

Using a detailed plan view of the Bf109K-4, I draw the lines of rivets on the wing using a soft lead pencil.  Balancing the desire for accuracy with my innate laziness, the accuracy meter for these rivets is probably around 75%.

 

Using a roller-type rivet tool (RB Productions Rivet-R being the accessory of choice), I slowly apply rivets all over the wing, one line at a time.  The key is keeping the wing solidly in place on the table while applying steady pressure on the tool as it rolls.  It kinda feels like mowing the lawn on a microscopic level.

 

Forcibly punching holes creates little craters of plastic around each hole.  I like my rivets to be very subtle so after wiping off the excess pencil marks off with a paper towel damped with iso alcohol, I sand the riveted surface with fine sandpaper to remove the craters but leave the hole.

 

The sanding process makes the riveting work difficult do see in the photos but they are still there!  The weathering process way down the road will make them pop out more but for now, the riveting on the wings is complete.

[Thunnus]

With the wing riveting done, I want to turn my attention to the photoetch landing gear wells.  These are made by Radu over at RB Productions and will help dress up the rather simplistic renditions that Hasegawa offers.

 

As with many aftermarket detail sets, some removals are necessary to get the new parts to fit.  The RB instructions seem very detailed and that gives me a bit of confidence that I won't be getting stuck in a dead end alley.

The molded detail on the inside of the top wings need to be removed.  I used a curved x-acto blade to slice off the portruding plastic and then cleaned it up with sandpaper.

 

Late model 109G's and K's had fatter tires and therefore had to incorporate a larger upper wing bulge to accommodate the new rubber.  The RB photoetch takes that into consideration and requires a rectangular cut-out from the upper wing to portray this additional space.  Outlines are made of the wing bulge parts and then the inner rectangle is traced onto the upper wing using the measurements in the RB instructions.

 

I chain-drilled holes to facilitate the lateral cuts.  The aerodynamic curve of the upper wing allowed me to use a straight saw to start the longitudinal cuts.

 

The holes are complete and wing bulges can now be glued onto the upper wings but there are some ejector pin marks that need to be filled before I do that.

 

Some removals are also required from the wing bottoms.  The photoetch also calls for the replacement of the half-tunnel gear leg receptacles but I'm playing with simply hollowing out the holes in the kit part since the required removals are bit tedious.

 

The wheel well roof is dry-fit onto the upper wings.  Comparing with the first photo, you can see how the deeper accommodation for the fatter tires is better replicated than the kit parts.

[Thunnus]

After filling the ejector pin marks on the inside, the wing bulges have been glued into place.

 

The wheel well roof sheets were just placed for this photo but got glued into place soon after.

 

The wheel parts including the roof parts have layers of photoetch to give some 3D depth to the assembly but first I wanted to check the fit of the wheel well walls against the removals that I performed earlier.

 

These dropped in fairly easily into the wing bottoms, with only some minor adjustments to the removal areas to accommodate the walls.

 

With the wheel well walls simply resting in place without glue, I check the fit.

 

I didn't notice any problems so I can continue adding stacking photoetch to build up the wheel wells.

 

But it's getting late and I have a busy week at work so I'll stop here.  Surprised at how much work I did over the last two days... proud of myself! 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Thunnus

[LSP_Kevin]

Good to see you back, John! Great work as usual.

 

Kev

[AceofClubs]

Superlative! 

Ciao

Filippo

[MikeMaben]

Nice work John , take your time . 

 

 

[Gazzas]

Glad to see you back at it, John!   Beautiful results!

[Lothar]

3 hours ago, Thunnus said:

Hello again.  I hope everyone has been well.  I've been enduring another long break without the desire to build models.  I've checked into LSP now and then but even that eventually petered out.  Fishing season is long over and both my daughters have left the house and are in college.  I've got the time but the motivation is still lacking.

 

I forced myself into the modeling room today.  It's a long weekend and I thought Veteran's Day would be an appropriate time to mark a return but... honestly, I don't know how long it will last or how consistent I'll be.  I'm trying.

 

Of the two projects that I have going, I picked to K-4 to do some work on.  I feel more comfortable with Late War Luftwaffe subjects than anything else.  After reviewing my own build posts to catch myself up on this one, I thought I'd do some riveting.

 

The Hasegawa kit is pretty well molded but does not include any rivet detail.  I'm sure it is not everyone's cup of tea but I rather like the visual interest that riveting can give to the surface of an aircraft.  Here's what the clean wing looks like before I put hundreds of tiny holes in it.
 

 

Using a detailed plan view of the Bf109K-4, I draw the lines of rivets on the wing using a soft lead pencil.  Balancing the desire for accuracy with my innate laziness, the accuracy meter for these rivets is probably around 75%.
 

 

Using a roller-type rivet tool (RB Productions Rivet-R being the accessory of choice), I slowly apply rivets all over the wing, one line at a time.  The key is keeping the wing solidly in place on the table while applying steady pressure on the tool as it rolls.  It kinda feels like mowing the lawn on a microscopic level.
 

 

Forcibly punching holes creates little craters of plastic around each hole.  I like my rivets to be very subtle so after wiping off the excess pencil marks off with a paper towel damped with iso alcohol, I sand the riveted surface with fine sandpaper to remove the craters but leave the hole.
 

The sanding process makes the riveting work difficult do see in the photos but they are still there!  The weathering process way down the road will make them pop out more but for now, the riveting on the wings is complete.
 

 

Perfect result, I wish I had the gutts to do it freehand!!

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Lothar

[nmayhew]

i am glad this build is back!

 

too late for this build but you should try the rosie the rivetter wheels - they awesome and make it sooo easy to do rivets

[Troy Molitor]

Wow. Thanks for sharing this John.  Lovely efforts going on here.  

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  I appreciate the welcome back.  After such a long break, it feels weird/good to be modeling again.

 

My work schedule is a lot more hectic right now and I don't have as much time after work as I used to.  So progress will be spotty during the weekdays, I imagine.  Started building up the detail on the roof of the wheel wells.  I worked on one side so that I can show the comparison between  the two.

 

There is much more detail to be added to the wheel well walls, which I will get to soon.  But overall, this PE addition is going fairly smoothly.  Everything seems to fit just where it is supposed to.  I replaced one PE stringer with a piece of stretched sprue because I couldn't get the metal part to bend to the contour of the wheel well roof.

[scvrobeson]

Happy to see you back at it John!  The -109 looks fantastic, and that's nice of RB to include that little cutout direction to account for the bigger wheels.  Never would have thought of that.

 

 

Matt 

[Thunnus]

Thanks Matt!  The comments are always appreciated!

 

Working with photoetch used to be completely frustrating for me.  ONE thing that really reduced the stress of working with PE was getting a good debonder (in my case, Great Planes Pro CA Debonder). Now I don't have to worry about the CA glue getting messy.  For example... I'm building up the right wheel well roof using black CA glue.  For the circular ring, there was no way of getting it into place with one glue application so I did it a small section at a time.

 

After I was finished gluing, I used the debonder on an old paintbrush with stiff bristles and simply scrubbed off the excess glue.  The debonder CAN weaken the glue joint so you have to watch where the excess debonder seeps but otherwise it's really easy to clean up the CA glue.  You can even remove the glue and parts completely and start over if necessary.

 

 I spent today building up the detail on the port wheel well walls.  There are lots of little parts with intricate bending involved so it is slow going but the fit is good and I encountered no headaches along the way.

 

Here's what the wheel wells look like from the outside.  Once I finish the other side, I may elect to prime/paint the wheel well area before gluing the wing halves together.