1/32 Hasegawa Bf109K-4 Weisse 8

[Thunnus]

On 11/17/2019 at 10:22 PM, Gazzas said:

Nice work, John!  Love those LG covers.  You really make me want to dive into my big scale 109's.

 

A few weeks ago I was at my monthly club meet.  We were talking 109's and I told the guys there that my most hated part of building 109's was rescribing the upper and lower center lines from cockpit to tail because I could never keep them straight.  They told me what they did was to use sand paper with a block behind it, and give each side a couple swipes at an angle before gluing the fuselage halves together, then test fit then repeat if necessary until it looked right.   So, on my next 109 build I tried it.  The result was instant, and straight seam.   I used a little card on the inside of the fuselage to bolster the joint a bit...just in case.

 

I wish I had known years ago!  I feel like I should tell the world.  I'm going to use it on a lot more than 109's, that's for sure.

 

Gaz

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the tip Gaz!  That's definitely one way of doing it.  I am going for the fill/re-scribe approach for those central panel lines along the top and bottom.  I'll use adhesive Dymo tape to guide my scriber and hopefully, I can get it straight!

 

 

On 11/18/2019 at 12:14 AM, AceofClubs said:

The riveting is absolutely perfect! All lines are aligned each others. Tell us your secret .

Bravissimo.

Ciao

Filippo

 

They are not perfectly straight but I'm not a stickler for that.  The Rivet-R tool is a wheel and it's fairly easy to track it over the plastic in a straight line.  The main thing is to make sure that you can make the entire run with the wheel in one smooth motion.  Pretty easy to do on surfaces that are relatively flat.  A little bit trickier when the rivet line wraps around a curved surface.  The result is subtle so the rivet lines, as long as they are fairly straight, will not draw undue attention to themselves.  If you are not careful, the rivet wheel can slip during a run and on past builds, I've had to fill and re-do them.

 

I'm starting to think about the colors on this aircraft.  There are some funky things going on in the photo that I'll be basing my decisions on.  I'm also heavily referencing the JaPo Bf109K Camouflage & Marking book.

 

The Werk Number for this aircraft is 332884 and the fuselage camo pattern corresponds well with the general scheme that JaPo describes for 332xxx aircraft.  The photo seems to indicate a main fuselage coloration of RLM 81 Brown and RLM 83 Green on the top side with the bottom of the fuselage in the unusual yellow-green variation of RLM 76.  This color has also been referred to as "RLM 84", although this was never an official RLM designation.  The fuselage coloration contrasts with the tail unit, which appears to be in the older RLM 75 Grey and RLM 83 Green combination with the standard RLM 76 Light Blue on the bottom. There appears to be thin vertical line of dark color between the fuselage and tail.  This line, in combination of the color mismatch may indicate either a repair replacement or maybe it's just a result of the decentralized manufacturing process, in which various sub-components were painted at separate factories and then assembled later.

 

Normally, the wing colors would match the fuselage colors.  But even this standard cannot be assumed with late war Luftwaffe fighters.  Decentralization of the manufacturing process resulted in wings being assembled and painted in one factory, while the fuselage was built and painted in another.  So what color would the wings of White 8 be?  There is a limited view of the top of the wings in the color photo and it's hard to make any definitive conclusions but I can't see any hint of brown.  On the deployed leading edge slat of the port wing, I can see what appears to be a color demarcation (look at the leading edge of the wing just beneath the white fuselage cross).  This demarcation matches the typical camo pattern for 332xxx machines so I am assuming that I am looking at the two upper wing colors.  Both look greyish, possibly grey/green but I'm not seeing browns.
 

For a possible clue, I look to another 332xxx machine, White 12 (332380)...

 

JaPo has a color profile and analysis of White 12.  It says, "The fuselage carried 81, 83 and 76 but the wing was in 75, 83 and 76 which can be seen in the photograph."

So... based on what I am seeing in the color photo of White 8 and the example of another 332xxx machine, I am leaning in painting the top of the wings in 75/83.

[Thunnus]

I haven't been able to do much work on the K-4 during the work week.  Just cleaning up the fuselage.  Here's the tail wheel area after a coat of primer.

 

The joint between the fuselage halves was re-scribed and the rest of the riveting has been filled in.

[Antonio Argudo]

great job  John, very interesting subject!

I think this pictures can be interesting for you, looks like they have the same camo pattern, not sure about that white 8 color picture if it is legit  or colors can be photoshopped,  anyway, keep the good mate, cheers!

Antonio

 

[Thunnus]

Thanks Antonio!  Always great to have more photos of the real aircraft for reference!  Interesting that two of the aircraft have that mismatched, lighter colored engine cowling similar to 332884.

 

The closed tail wheel doors after a couple rounds of filling/sanding/riveting/scribing.

 

The cockpit has been glued into the fuselage using two-part epoxy.  The instrument panel will be glued into place later but I wanted to see how it fit so I stuck it on with a piece of Blue-Tack.

 

The RB Productions photoetch canopy frame does not fit well on the Hasegawa K-4 kit, unfortunately.  But I thought maybe I could make use of the head armor to replace the kit plastic.  I just had to make sure the width on the bottom matched the kit part so that it would span the inside of the canopy for attachment.

[airscale]

this is fabulous to watch, I love seeing consumate skill bringing the best out of a kit

 

..also I am doing one of these as my next build so the reference is very useful

 

Peter

[Thunnus]

4 hours ago, airscale said:

this is fabulous to watch, I love seeing consumate skill bringing the best out of a kit

 

..also I am doing one of these as my next build so the reference is very useful

 

Peter

 

 

Wow... thank you very much, Peter!  A big fan of your work and really appreciate the comment!

 

Chugging along before the Thanksgiving holiday!  

I have the Henri Daehne prop assembled and ready for painting.

 

The fuselage seams have been addressed for the most part, so now I can glue the fuselage bottom into place. Ooh... I see too big sink marks on the bottom that need to be filled!

 

An atypical kit in that the wings are separate.  Dry-fitting the landing gear struts and Barracuda resin wheels, I can start thinking about weighting the wheels by sanding a flat spot on the contact areas.  I've used a spot of wet paint on a post-it and rested each of the three tires into the paint to help orient where the flat spot should go.

[Antonio Argudo]

nice job man, since you are riveting her I thought this would be interesting to you, the lower fuselage has some 4 rivet pattern that can be seen in the australian 109, I did so too on mine, cheers and keep rocking that 109!

Antonio

[Antonio Argudo]

Also seems like the 109 K had only one hand holder on the cowling right? 

cheers

[Thunnus]

Thanks for more great insights, Antonio!  I don't think I'll attempt the rivet pattern on the bottom but I can fill in one of the hand holders easily enough.

 

I've gone ahead and made my first attempt at painting the spinner.  First comes a coat of white.

I digitized some spirals off decal sheets and made masks using the Silhouette cutter.  For some reason, the DXF files that I export from AutoCAD resolve my spirals (which are comprised of compound curves) into a bunch of straight lines.  So the spiral came out a bit choppy in some areas.

 

Using bits of Tamiya plastic tape, I cleaned up the spiral as best as I could.  The prop hub was painted too.

 

A preview of the spinner mounted on the fuselage!  I'm not 100% sold on my spinner spiral attempt.  I'm hoping I can get all of the kinks out with some more touch-ups.

 

Here is the tailwheel after I've sanded a flat spot on it to represent weight on the wheel.

 

The wings have been glued together.

 

Finally, we have the gun cowling with the gun barrels glued into place.  I'll have to paint these at the end but it should be easy since I made sure they don't touch the gun troughs.

[Thunderbolt]

lots of attention to detail here; awesome build

[Scale32]

Cracken work John. Love the 109's.

 

Cheers Bevan 

[Brett M]

Looking good! I dread ever having to paint a spinner, but yours is turning out nice with your cleanup.

[Gazzas]

All of your work is looking good!  Ever forget that a part is held in by Blutack?  I have.

[MikeMaben]

On 11/24/2019 at 9:59 AM, Antonio Argudo said:

              Also seems like the 109 K had only one hand holder on the cowling right?

 

Not sure that that was standard on Ks. I've seen lots of K drawings that

have 2 hand holds. Anyone have a K drawing that has one ?

Just curious.

[Thunnus]

10 hours ago, Gazzas said:

All of your work is looking good!  Ever forget that a part is held in by Blutack?  I have.

 

No but I've unknowingly left little gobs of Blu Tack on my model.  Thanks for checking in, Gaz!

 

 

6 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

 

Not sure that that was standard on Ks. I've seen lots of K drawings that

have 2 hand holds. Anyone have a K drawing that has one ?

Just curious.

 

I'm not sure but for my build, I'm willing to accept it based on the photo Antonio posted.  I was having trouble scribing matching handholes and this gives me an easy out! 

 

Thanks for the comment guys!  Hopefully, I'll get to do more work in the next few days as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches.