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AMG 1/72 Bf 109 B. What, again? Seriously?!


109 fan

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What is it, masochism, stupidity, senility?? After all of the complaining I did about the AMG Bf 109 A build of a few months ago one might think I would never touch another AMG 109 again. Well, the farther that model progressed the more I grew to like the kit. Sure, it had its fair share of fit problems and really, really stupid engineering, but the final product looked the part and it is by far the best Jumo powered 109 available.

This time, I decided to go beyond "out of the box", but there actually isn't very much needed. The kit includes a Nice photo-etch fret with seat belts, landing gear covers and cockpit details; but more of that later.

Initially I wanted to add the very nice Aires cockpit as seen in this photo,


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but the more I looked at it the less I decided it was needed. The molded-on map case must be removed from the left side of the cockpit and reconstructed on the right. This was done by folding some .005" plastic card using a photo-etch bending tool. This is much easier than making it from sheet brass; it can be cut with a razor blade and obviously glued with regular glue.

The main addition to the cockpit is a Yahu instrument panel. These things are little works of art and really can't be appreciated without magnification. This one was intended for a 109 E, but given the fact that the cockpit is pretty much invisible in this scale, I'll try to get away with it.


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The rest of the cockpit need only some scrap plastic and detail painting.


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Instead of using the kit's photo-etched seat belts, I opted for the new steel pre-painted belts from Eduard. These things are magnificent. I can remember threading painted paper through individual etched buckles. In 1/72nd this was a challenge. These new belts are very thin, incorporate buckles, and can bet realistically draped.I added some burnt umber oil wash and was done.


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Here is the cockpit just before closing up the fuselage. Curiously, this time I had no trouble with the cockpit being too wide. The fuselage halves mated up perfectly.


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There is one trick to attaching the wings. As you can see in the photo, there is a "tab and slot" affair at the trailing edge. This is intended purely to frustrate the dickens out of the builder. There is absolutely no reason to complicate the assembly intros manner.

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I cut off the tab and a section of the wing root as seen here. This piece contains both the lower and upper wing root areas. The wing now fits (kind of) and after cleaning up, the small piece fits nicely once the wing has been attached to the fuselage.


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Attaching the cowling panels hasn't gotten any easier, but at least I now know what to expect. First, position the lower wing on the fuselage. This contains the lower cowl and forms a base for the next step, attaching the exhaust panels. Once these have set up, the cowl panels directly above them are taped in place and progressively glued.


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As you can see in these photos, most of the airframe has been riveted using various Rosie the Riveters. Another change this time was the the process of glueing the photo-etch radiator grill to its plastic base.


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To make life (much) easier, I sanded the base totally flat, positioned the grill, then flooded it with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. I wondered whether it would still separate during sanding and shaping, but the Tamiya glue effectively welded it in place. There was still plenty of definition for dry-brushing to highlight the grill. There was a bit of sanding required, but by thinking the plastic part, this was easier than the last time.

Further progressing along, here the nose has been filled and primed:


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...then rescribed and riveted:


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Another change from the last model was the use of a vac canopy. After quite a bit of trial and error, the Squadron (Falcon) canopy proved to be the best fit.


I returned to a familiar method of making brake lines, True Details .007" coated wire. In the past I have used sections of stretched plastic Q-tip tubes for guides, but .3mm Albion Alloys brass tubing works much better, and when glued in place, stays in place.


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Another piece requiring a minor adjustment is the spinner. The prop cutouts are just a bit too large, leaving a gap when the base plate is attached. A strip of .005" card was glued in place, then the joint was filled in with very thin superglue. Once sanded things fit very well.


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At this point everything is buttoned up and ready for paint. The white rudder and wingtips have been done...now the fun begins. This aircraft, 6 O 51, is one of about three very oddly painted early 109s used in the Spanish Civil War. Instead of the common RLM 65/63 or even 65/70/7, it had three upper surface colors. Initially I thought it was just a partial overpaint of RLM 63 over the delivery scheme of 70/71. But after the urging of a knowledgable friend, I studied the photos for some time. The contrast was just too great for the greens, so the natural conclusion was 61/62/63 on top and 65 underneath. There was something curious about the starboard stab though. The lighter color looked lighter than RLM 63 and the darker one was darker than RLM 61. So I lighted up the 63 with white and used RLM 70 for the other.

So far so good. I went to my Gunge Sangyo (say it with me...God's Paint) stash and realized that I didn't have what I needed. A quick email to Libor Jekl, a reading of the Special Hobby SCW JU 87 A, and a review of a 109 F that I posted on Hyperscale years ago, gave me a close enough set of mixes. Also my non-red/green color blind wife confirmed the matches. Then came the issue of hard vs. soft edges. The photos three available photos of this plane are inconclusive. The best of them seems to show a fuzzy demarcation but then you realize that the whole photo is fuzzy. There is an excellent shot of a sister 109, 6 O 55, that clearly shows a hard edge camo. And since virtually every other plane with these colors has a hard demarcation, I went with that.


Color RLM 63 applied and masked:

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Then 61/62 and the other two colors on the stab.


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Over the past few days I applied the decals, gloss coat, oil washes, another gloss coat and Gunze 182 flat.

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Whew; that was a mouthful. More soon.

Edited by 109 fan
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Beautiful job on that early Bf 109! So would you recommend the Bf 109A now? Please realise that I am no stranger to limited-run type kits, and have a very strong masochistic streak when it comes to kits. Is this kit the most accurate Bf 109B in your opinion (I'd really love one for my SCW collection)?

 

Regards,


Jason

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Thanks for the compliments, gentlemen. Learstang, I would definitely recommend this kit and I do think it is the most accurate early 109 on the market. When I built the 109 A (there is a thread on this site of that) I was constantly annoyed by the seemingly stupid engineering decisions made by the manufacturers. On this second go around, they were expected and this build is going more smoothly. 

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Oh, my! Just saw your WIP- what an incredible build. After reading the trials and tribulations you endured in your first effort, there was no way I was going to try the AMG kit, but looking at how you did this one, it doesn't look nearly as daunting. Beautiful choice of scheme and markings, and you nailed the colors, in my opinion. Best early 109 I have seen in 1/72 scale. You are a steely-eyed modeler!

Mike

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Again, thank you for the compliments. A bit more progress to report.

One fairly essential modification to the tailwheel. Ask me why it is essential; in fact ask me three times. The tailwheel strut has two lateral pins that fit into a slot in the wheel well. Tiny pins, tiny attachment. After the tailwheel fell out of my Bf 109a three times I knew I'd have to come up with a fix. The following seemed to be a solution.

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 I threaded some aluminum Albion Alloys tubing over the upper section of the strut and made it long enough to reach the top of the inside of the fuselage. The tube was secured to the strut with thin superglue and to the top of the fuselage with 5 minute epoxy. And it seemed to work. I did the same thing on this build and everything was fine...until I tried to flatten the tailwheel. I usually do this by setting the plane on its gear, gripping the tailwheel with tweezers and pulling sandpaper under it. It was working well this time until I decided on one more swipe. Suddenly the strut broke free, superglue and epoxy notwithstanding. With the strut loose, I scraped off the epoxy, which was surprisingly easy. Then I noticed the strut could easily be pulled from the aluminum tube. Huh? I tried more superglue. Nothing. So I have now learned that aluminum tubing is impervious to the strongest glue on earth. Well, why not try another metal? Out came Albion Alloys brass tube. This seems to be working, but since it is still setting up on the workbench, I'll have to report on it later.

Next comes the canopy, as I mentioned this is a Squadron (Falcon) vacformed item. I made the frames from painted clear decal film. The interior frames were painted RLM 02 while the exterior were first sprayed 02 then 63. Frames were cut with a scalpel and applied with MicroSol. A locking handle was made from stretched sprue.

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Here is the prop. The front of the blades were painted with Gunze Sangyo SM08 "Plate Silver Next", then buffed with Uschi Van Der Rosten "steel" polishing powder. The rear was painted flat black. The spinner is white in front with light gray on the rear. 

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The AMG rudder has a representation of control horns, but they are directly in the way of the black stripes. So they were cut off and decal strips were used for the crosses. Here are the replacements.

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They are bits of thin stretched sprue. The control horn was formed by flattening the end with pliers and simultaneously bending it at an angle. They are sprayed RLM 63 and the horns painted black where they meet the black cross. I made quite a few extras since they tend to get lost during assembly.


So here is where things stand at the moment. The landing gear, stab struts, guns and some other detail items have been attached.

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This photo highlights the rivets. I've accentuated them with oil paint. To me this adds interest to the overall look of the model.


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Thanks for following. More soon.

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Thanks, Chris. In my opinion these drawings are a misinterpretation of the aircraft's colors. I have seen three different schemes on 6 O 51 and none of them match this. On one of the photos the contrast is rather minimal, which is perhaps what the artist used as a reference.

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She's getting closer; on her wheels now. The main wheels are Barracudacast resin items. The tailwheel strut required further attention. The plastic strut became wobbly so I added a plastic tube collar at the joint of the plastic and aluminum. This was then flooded with superglue. It seems strong enough now. 

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The prop is stuck on with a bit of Blu-Tac.

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Inching closer. Some of the fiddly bits have been added and at this stage the 109 becomes almost impossible to pick up without knocking something off. The aileron mass balances, underwing pitot tube, rudder control horns and tenuously attached photo-etched landing gear doors all are just itching to break free. Fortunately there aren't many more parts remaining.

 

Here the canopy has been propped up on a sheet plastic brace and tacked on with diluted white glue. This one was particularly fussy and so I just touched the glue in a few spots. Tomorrow I will firm it up and remove the brace.

 

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Well, this one is about done. I will check for flaws over the next few days. It always seems that by the end of a project you become blind to the problem areas. Photographing (and posting) the model helps accentuate things that you miss with the Mk 1 eyeball. The final bits included a restraining cord made from very fine wire. It is attached to a bit of stretched plastic tube mounted to the open section of the canopy and a tiny bracket made from .005" card and a nub of stretched sprue attached to the rear canopy. I replicate the measurement using a piece of stretched sprue. By progressively cutting it back after each try, you get an accurate length without bending the fine wire in the process. A small loop was made at one end by twisting it around needle nose tweezers held against a piece of glass. You really can't see this anyway, so one may wonder why bother.

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Other bits include the radiator flap under the cowl. In the kit this part is made of rather thick and stiff photo-etched brass. It is far too unwieldy and heavy to be attached to the fuselage at the end of the build. A piece of .005" plastic card is much easier to form and bend up on the sides. Since it weighs nothing, it can be mated to the airframe with some diluted white glue. The wingtip lights are small blobs of white glue mixed with red and green food coloring. A small drop of this is picked up on the end of some stretched sprue and deposited on the wingtip. If you mess it up, it can be removed with a wet Q-tip. 

I also made another prop. The first spinner still had fit problems even after I lined the prop openings with plastic card. So I decided to make another and ignore the small gaps. Since the AMG kits come with both props, I had a spare left over from the 109 A project. There is an inherent problem with the propellor in this kit. The spinner sits too high on the prop and will not meet the backing plate properly. I sanded the backing plate quite  bit and scraped the inside of the top of the spinner. After a number of refinements, it finally fit. Besides, I like the finish of the second attempt better. 

That's about all for the moment. I'll take better photos and post them soon.


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Thank you for the encouragement and compliments along the way. They are always appreciated.

      
 

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I've taken some proper photos of the model:


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More will be posted to the Ready for Inspection section. Back in the 109 A thread I had also promised some comparison photos with the Heller kit, so here they are:


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And in the words of the great Sheldon Cooper, "Oh what fresh hell is this?"...


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Beautiful work on one of my favourite SCW aircraft. I built the Heller kit many years ago, and it looks like it compares pretty well with this new kit, at least in your photographs. At any rate, it looks like I need to buy me an AMG Bf-109B.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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  • 9 months later...

This is one of the most Beautiful model planes I have ever seen.

 

I looked an researched myself about this Aircraft and 6-51 was the first delivered to spain Bf109D-1 and not a B (6-52 and 6-53 followed also beeing Bf109D-1s).

 

I Think I can not see that the Brown paint was that far in the wing since you can see it does not cover the roundel completely on the back inner side like you made it. Also the splinter camo lines on the inner part of the left wing seem

quite different from the angel you choose to do it. I even doubt that they used that Brown color on the outer parts of the wing. Lookd more like you used style of camo used on He51 airplanes at the time Before this.

 

So puzzling really.

 

Fron where did you get info that this individual was a B model and not the D1 mentioned everywhere else?

 

so for me this is sadly a what if because stated version and top wing camo differs from the known photos.

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I built the Heller kit and was satisfied despite its raised detail.

That didn't last long, so I sawed off the nose and grafted it to a suitably modified Airfix 109E.

Now I see this beauty, and realize that I better start over one more time and finally get it right...

 

Thanks for sharing, you've done a magnificent job!

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