opus999

Oh, yeah... I forgot to note (and take pictures of) the work I did on the wings and tail. I filled in gaps with CA, sanded off flash and then sanded them smooth to about 4000 grit. I'm pleased with those too. I guess you can see the leading edges in the pictures above.

Yes, I'd thought about dealing with that before I glued the fuselage halves together, but (of course) forgot, so now it is harder to deal with. But I managed it: The hardest part was getting that divot in front of the intake to look ok. don't know if it does or not -- it will take a coat of primer to determine that. I'd also planned to drill out the gun holes. @Fin, thanks for pointing me at @Giampiero Piva's build -- it made me think of a couple changes I hadn't considered. This week was busy, so not much time at the bench. Yesterday I'd planned to do more than I accomplished. My allergies were really bad, so I woke late, took a nap and went to bed early. Still I was able to accomplish a little bit. First, I dealt with that terrible step on the starboard side wing root. I used a cylindrical file, and then sand paper from 120 grit down to about 1500. Once i was happy with the shape, I filled it with Tamiya putty, removed the excess with Mr. levelling thinner, and sanded from 1500 grit down to 6000 grit. I think it looks OK. It will probably not be perfect, since wing roots are practically impossible to get perfect. After a camo job with flat paint, however, I'll bet it will be very difficult to see the imperfections. Then I tackled the engine panel on the starboard side. The biggest problem I noted with the panel, was that in places where the panel was flush with the rest of the fuselage, it still didn't look right because both sides of the seam sunk down to make a trough with the seam running down the middle. So I decided to fill those troughs in to make everything flush, and rescribe the panel line. That turned out rather well. You'll note I didn't fill the aft panel line. This is because of the sanding involved -- I didn't want to change the shape of the machine gun cover. For that, I will have to settle with Tamiya putty and Mr. levelling thinner. I still need to rescribe the panel lines. WIth any luck, I hope to get the port side wing root and engine panel squared away today. A bonus would be getting that "warped area" on the bottom fixed. We'll see. Still need to figure out that canopy. I really don't know if there's anything I can do to make it look nice. I haven't been able to find any after market canopies either.

I took the clips off the fuselage and the seam actually looked pretty good -- particularly that there were no steps to deal with. Here's a picture of how I added some "insurance" for the cockpit assembly (that I described yesterday): Here are some examples of the lip of flash that is on each part. It makes a raised area around each seam, but it is easily fixed: I filled the gaps left in the seams with CA and sanded them all smooth. I was generally pretty happy with the result, but a couple of phantom seams have appeared, so I will need to go over those spots again. Here's how I left it last night: Oh yeah... it's poor... Its actually better after I did some trimming to improve the fit. The gaps will be easy to deal with. What kills me is this step: and even worse, this one! Those will definitely be a pain to improve. The back part of the wing assembly has a strange asymmetry, so one side is sunken and will need to be re-shaped: So, yeah, it looks like I've got 2 or 3 sessions at the bench devoted to sanding and filling. Then all the obliterated panel lines will need to be rescribed. Not exactly looking forward to this tedious work, but it still going much better than some other builds I've done. (I'm looking at you, Cooperativa!) I think that turned out rather nice! It's really got me thinking about finding a Heller version. I generally don't scribe panel lines, but use a 0.2 mm pencil to draw in the panel lines. It's much easier, and looks more realistic (to my eye, anyway). Yes! I decided to do the one on the box top.

I think this turned out very nice! The scribing looks pretty good to me.

Last night I took the liquid mask off the parts I'd painted. I also did some detail painting. This control stick is ridiculously oversized, and too tall. I left it because I don't think it will be easily visible in the end anyway... Got the cockpit glued together and details painted. I forgot to take a picture, but I wasn't entirely sure about how good the connection of the cockpit assembly to the fuselage was, so I took a piece of L-shaped styrene and used it to secure the cockpit to the fueslage. Then, it was time to button the fuselage up. There wasn't any real drama involved, but since there are no alignment pegs, slow and steady won the race. Here's how I left it when I went to bed:

Welcome aboard Steve. We'll see how it goes! Coming off of an Eduard Bf-109 build, everything seems terrible, but I'll try to be objective. Of course, I did manage to slog through the Cooperativa La-15 a couple months ago and this is heavenly compared to that! 🤣 This is all good to know!I thought the gunsight looked awfully big.I have a dozen gunsights left over from my Eduard builds. They may not be totally accurate, but at least will be reasonably sized. I've got some 109 E wheels, so that won't be a problem. And I'm pretty sure you're right that the pitot is not there, but that's easily fixed too. Yeah.... that looked really janky. Not sure if I can make it look decent or not. Yes! I see now that I completely missed mentioning Romania in my opening post which is an oversight on my part. I feel more and more this way. In this case I really wanted to model this aircraft and (at the time I got it) this was the only kit I could find. Maybe the old Heller kit would be less stressful?

I'm going to tackle the RS Models He-112 this time around. I really love the look of the He-112 -- It seems very elegant. I have book about the He-112 and it had quite a career in the Spanish Civil war and was flown by Hungary and briefly by Germany. I've read that the He-112 was on par with the Bf-109 -- it seems that they were somewhat complimentary in that the Bf-109 was better in some respects and the He-112 was better at others. At any rate, it lost the contest and the Bf-109 went on to be a legend. Makes me wonder what would've happened if the He-112 came out the winner. Anyway, the kit looks nice at first blush. I don't know if its considered a short run kit or not, but it appears far better than any short run I've worked on. The surface of the plastic is smooth and the detail is nice (not terrific, but I admit I'm coming off a build of an Eduard Bf-109, so everything pales in comparison). Plus there's no major flash, which is also nice. That's at first blush. When I really started looking closely, some little annoyances pop out. There's no major flash, but all the parts have a small (maybe a half mm or less) lip of flash. When it comes to the fuselage, that's not a problem because it can be sanded off quickly and easily, but around the edges of parts like the wings and the horizontal stabilizers, it becomes a bit more of a problem because it needs to be trimmed off without damaging the edge, or changing the shape. Not a huge deal, but like I said, an annoyance. Not many parts. I spent most of my time at the bench yesterday cleaning up parts. I also had to study cockpit photos because the instructions were mostly useless. The instructions show 3 diagrams, and are small enough that it is hard to tell what arrows are actually pointing to. So I decided to ignore them and just use the cockpit photos to guide my assembly of the cockpit. This will be challenge to make nice-looking. I assembled cockpit parts and prepared for painting. I used latex liquid masking to cover mating surfaces. Also you'll notice an addition to the fuselage: yes, that's a speed brake to an Airfix F-86. There was supposed to be a part that goes there that the tail wheel would attach to. That part was completely nonexistent. It wasn't even on the parts diagram. I was rummaging through my spares box to see what I could fit in there to anchor the tail wheel and that speed brake was the right shape to mostly fit the contour of the fuselage interior and make a good bond. The fuselage halves have an opening for one of two panels: one panel has an opening for a single stack, and the other has an opening for a row of 6 stacks. I had to do a lot of cutting, sanding and shaping to get it to (sort of) fit. The panels were too large in all dimensions. It will take a little work to make those look nice, but its not horrible. You can see that the panel sticks out too far in the front. Before I went to bed last night I sprayed the interiors and the landing gears and bays RLM02. Didn't get any pictures.

@Troy SmithThanks for the comments! I keep forgetting about the asisbiz website! I think this is the second time I've done that this year. It would've been really helpful because I see that the cowl has the intakes right behind the propeller and I guess and picked the cowl with out the intakes. So that's a bit disappointing. That's excellent! Thanks for pointing me to that. I've seen the book before, but didn't look to closely at it. Right, I didn't mention that. I was fixated on the parts because I figure its easier to scribe/re-scribe than it is to find parts. Thank you very much guys!

Yeah, I'm about half Norwegian on my mom's side. And my dad's side is mostly scot. My mom's parents were 2nd and 3rd Generation Americans and my cousin has traced one of our family lines in Norway back to the year 1304.

It's a shame the transparencies didn't work out the way you would've liked, but I really like the look of the U-17!

It could be that it's tough to find. I just assumed it was dwindling stocks because it wasn't being made any more. But that was purely an assumption on my part. I did manage to find some though since I last looked in here.

Your wish is my command! I'll get a proper RFI up soon and post here when its ready. Thanks guys! I really like the look of this paint scheme.

Bf-109B | Dora Wings | 1/72 1.J/88, Spain, 1938 Finished this on 4/13/2025. This was a delightful little kit. The detail was very impressive and the fit, with only one exception was excellent. The kit came with canopy masks and unpainted photo etch. The photo etch was pretty thick though, so it was difficult to bend and made an impressively thick stack in the seat when all the belts were put on. It's OK though because you can't really tell through the canopy. The one place where the fit wasn't very good was the photoetch for the radiator, under the engine. The photoetch was too big so it wouldn't fit in the part correctly. Not a big deal since it's hard to see anyway, so I didn't install it. The instructions were a little vague on colors and optional details (such as the wood vs. the metal propeller). I have a reference book -- Squadron's "Bf-109 in action" -- that has a picture of 6 - 27 and states that it had the metal propeller. So that's what I went with. I also elected not to fill in the vents on the side of the cowl, which didn't exist in the early, original B models. The book stated that those vents were often found on B models with a metal propeller. It isn't stated on the box or the instructions, but this kit gives you every part needed to make any of the Jumo engined Bf-109s. I figured this out after comparing all the spare parts to my reference book.I think it may even have 2 windshields (I can't remember for sure though). It even has the underwing blisters for the wing cannons on the C-2 model. So, you could buy this kit to make a C or D model Bf-109. Paints: Mr. Paint RLM 62 and 63 on the top and Hataka RLM 65 on the bottom. All markings except for the octane and oil triangles were painted using masks cut on a Silhouette Portrait 3. Here's some cockpit details. The wheel and chain here are photo etch: For those of you that don't know, Dora Wings made a baffling decision with the seam for the upper and lower halves of the wings. Instead of making the aileron and flap hinges the seam, like just about every company in the history of modeling, they did this: It wasn't hard to fill in and fix, just a little irritating. If you ever plan to make this kit, you have to be very careful when gluing this area to prevent a step. the lower half is too thin, and if you press too hard when the glue sets, it will sink lower, creating a step. I managed to avoid that and the filling and sanding were simple. Hope you like it! Questions, comments and constructive criticism always welcome!

I wrapped things up yesterday. Not much to show or talk about -- just lots of little details not worth photographing. I did a light wash in the wheel wells, on the landing gears, and around some protrusions on the outside of the aircraft. Then I did a few small oil and dirt streaks. Not much though, because this was a post war aircraft an I figure it was taken care of better than German Bf-109s during the war! I also painted the exhausts (which was a pain, because the exhaust stacks and the shroud on top are all one piece). I emulated dirty water splash from the wheels on the underside by putting a paintbrush in the wash and using a toothpick to flick it, so it makes a line of backsplash in the same plane as the wheel. Neat trick I picked up recently. After that, everything got a dull coating. Those are some nifty alligator clips with plastic over the "teeth" and magnetic bases. My wife got those for me for Easter. They turned out to be really useful! After the dull coat, I used Tamiya pastels for the exhaust, and did a 2nd dull coat. Following that, I removed any remaining masks, and glued on all the little bits... and its done! Well... not entirely... As I was cleaning up prior to going to bed, I realized I hadn't glued on the guns in front of the windshield. That will just take a minute or so, though. Next up... I'm going to tackle the RS models He-112! I can't wait!

Hey Erwin! Nice to see you again. Welcome aboard -- though I'm just about done with this one. Thanks guys! Very carefully... 🤣