MeneMene

Bombs and ladder mounted Same view from the rear Underside pretty much finished, you can see the German cross peeking through the paint

Resin tailwheel installed to replace the kit version Better view of exhausts + tire weathering Using the AIMS photoetch as a guide, I made my own entry ladder out of rod. I also assembled + painted the Eduard MG81Z and added it to the gondola hatch Gondola hatch installed

All decals added Canopy masks come off after a matte coat Graffiti decals on the bombs Weathered exhausts Weathered tires, brake lines, gear doors

Radiator flaps installed and painted Started adding some decals, and roughly blocked off where the old German markings would have been with tape I then taped around these to create hard-edged masks, and after adding some random dark green I took the masks off and freehanded around the edges to blend them Did the same with the swastika on the tail Propellers painted and ready For the final signs of the aircraft's past German life, I masked off and painted the black crosses on the upper wings, before blending them in with the base RLM 70 color

Repainted German crosses on the underside: I have clear pictures showing these through the blue paint, but what about the other German markings, like the fuselage sides and top of the wings? I would assume that they were somehow covered, but I can't find enough high resolution images to see it.

Started off the paintwork by doing the yellow and the German crosses on the underside Then RLM 71 freehand up top Then lots of masking Then the RLM 70 to finish the splinter camo.

Some progress: Re-attached the severed nose piece from way back in step one Finished and installed the bombsight. Last peek at the cockpit before closing it up Some internal detailing for the gondola Brassin machine-guns, the kit barrels were a bit thick All closed up DF antenna Some nasty seam and scribing repair needed to be done after primer revealed some flaws. I also managed to snap one of the MG barrels; it is safe and sound and will be re-attached at the end of the build

Thanks, I will go with a particularly green hue of RLM02.

Next major steps was cutting up the kit engine parts and replacing them with the Vector resin. Cutting up the kit parts. The kit comes with a seperate sprue with the older A-5 nacelles without the radiator(?) on the bottom. I used these because they were easier to cut straight without the underside bulge. Kit rear nacelles and gear bays attached to the wing, and then mated with the resin baseplate for the nacelles: Full nacelles installed Head-on view showing the improved hollow intake ducts: Does anyone know how I should paint the wells that the radiator/cowl flaps fit over? RLM 2? I haven't decided if I'm going to pose mine open or not, but jut for planning it would be nice to know what color to use for these wells and the inside of the flaps.

I test fitted the canopy, and I'm concerned that the rear/engineer's seat is still a bit too high, I don't know if there is enough clearance between the top of the seat and the canopy blister above. I might have to cut off the head-rest and shorten the legs and re-attach. Also, I need to add a reflector sight in front of the pilot. Most of the Finnish Ju-88's had a fixed cannon for strafing, and as far as I can tell most had the Stuvi dive-bomb sight as well. I don't have another kit I can steal a sight from; my options seem to be making my own rough approximation out of plastic card and acetate film, or getting an aftermarket Revi sight and posing it as a Stuvi. Any suggestions?

For my first WIP here, I'm doing the ICM Ju-88A-4 with a lot of aftermarket corrections. I will be doing a Finnish aircraft, JK-252. This was the only aircraft I could find clear evidence of without the forward-firing MGFF cannon in the gondola (which the kit lacks). Other Finnish-specific alterations will be the removal of the forward machine-gun and the dive brakes. First up is the surgery for the AIMS cockpit correction. After some pilot holes and work with the razor saw, I had the front portion of the underside fuselage off relatively cleanly. Test fit seems OK I also cut off the front of the removed section for re-use To compensate for the raised cockpit floor, it is necessary to shorten the seat supports Here is the initial layout planning. The AIMS correction fits well into the nose of the aircraft, but it would have been nice if the kit came with a bit more guidance on how the other components were supposed to fit inside the cockpit. There's not quite enough room in front of the seat for the control column, and the rudder pedal placement is very vague as well. On the underside, I used CA glue + talc to fill the seam between the palstic and resin sections, as well as some unnecessary panel lines, and sanded it smooth More layout planning, along with some Eduard photoetch Here is where we stand after adding the Eduard pre-painted interior photoetch, and installing most of the cockpit components. A few of the control levers flew off the tweezers into the great void of despair, but I got most of them on. The fuselage of my kit was warped, and formed a peak at the seam rather than a flat join; clamping was necessary to get the fuselage in the right profile. I also made a spacer out of some plastic rod to help the fuselage more accurately join with the bottom wing part that the cockpit is attached to. Wings attached. There are some medium gaps and clean-up to take care of, but nothing impossible.

Thank you! For the last unknown in the build, should I include the dive brakes or not if I'm aiming to make mine in the fall of 1943? Wikipedia says the Finns removed them in the summer of 1943, although I haven't been able to confirm. The black and white photographs of 252 from late 1944 definitely have the dive brakes removed.

I agree, I think the black and white pictures are from after the armistice. However, these pictures, if we assume they're from Sep 1944 or later, have the cannon. It's a bit blurry, but you can definitely see it in the black and white picture off the left wing. The colorized pictures above it, which I think are the same aircraft, I think are earlier. The paint is much fresher, the tail numbers crisp, yellow band is there, etc. But there is no cannon. Is it known for certain that every single Finnish Ju-88 was delivered with the cannon mounted? The timing of these color and b/w pictures would suggest that at some point, for whatever reason, JK-252 had its cannon removed, and then later had it put back on. I don't know how the cannon was removed or what went in it's place when it was taken out, but in those colorized pictures there's no trace of the cannon, not even a hole or covering plate. Or maybe JK-252 was delivered without the cannon, and then after a bit had one attached. Thanks for the images of the mounting system, I will definitely save them. Based on those pictures I think I'm going to leave the cannon off like the colorized images, but I'm still puzzled as to why the cannon would be removed without a trace and then put back on later.

Thanks- do you have any information on what conditions the gun would be removed like in the pictures I've linked above?

I have some separate photoetch sights, and I can probably sculpt the sleeve out of Milliput or something similar. If that fails, we can conclude that it would be more realistic to leave the gun off and plate over the opening, as opposed to putting the gun in (which I can't find a single picture of?)