EMP

The Grey Ghosts I think Graham? There’s something magical about the nicknames and markings of the navy and marine squadrons from this era.

So, I’ve more or less finished the cockpit tub. Save for some minor touch ups, dry brushing side consoles and gluing seats/pilots in place it’s ready to go into the fuselage. It’s all strictly OOB but that’s the challenge I set for myself with this dated kit. The one ‘aftermarket’ addition, if you can call it that, are the red decal stripes to the pilot helmets done in a sundowner-esque way. These were cut to size from my spares. I doubt these helmet markings are historically accurate but they do brighten up the pilots complimentary to the airframe marking scheme. For painting I used the following acrylic and lacquer paints: Pilots: a custom mix of Tamiya Olive Drab and White for the flight suits, Vallejo Air Insignia White for the helmets, Vallejo Model Colour Black Grey for boots and a generic dark green/grey for the flame retardant flight gloves and oxygen mask/flexi pipe. Helmet visors worked out ok with a flat black and a gloss varnish over both the helmets and visors, hand painted with a good quality Kolinsky sable brush. Cockpit and panels are Mr Color 317. Radar are transparent green or red over white. Other instruments are flat black with a glaze to make a wash consistency so capillary action draws the paint to the instrument bezel. A drop of gloss varnish was added by brush to each instrument. MB ejector seats: Frames Tamiya Nato Black, seat base and backrest Tamiya Olive Green lightened with a little white, headrest in Vallejo IDF/IAF Green with a wash of AK green/brown panel liner to tone down the colour and add a little bit of grime. Next up is to try and figure how to take decent enough photos to show you. I had some difficulty in using my iPhone to take the pic above in focus to illustrate any detail. Thanks for reading and please do let me know if the above is too much detail. Also comments and criticisms are most welcome if you have the time and inclination. Always looking to improve and will take all on board. Kind regards EMP

Great work so far and really looking forward to seeing how your Academy kit turns out while I do my Hasegawa F-4. Can I suggest some latex disposable gloves from your local supermarket, not just to keep paint off your hands but the oils from hands can interfere with the finish, especially if you handle the model a lot. I know it’s another expense but once I get to painting stage I find they really help to preserve my paint finishes. Maybe not so much of an issue if you’re using Mr Color lacquer paints as they’re more durable than say vallejo. Anyway, best of luck with your build and looking forward to your next update. Cheers EMP

Hi and thanks for your interest and time to post your comments. Hopefully things will get a little more interesting when I sort out a host for my photos so you can actually see what I’m up to. Currently hand painting the pilot figures after cleaning up the mould lines and working on the cockpit generally. And trying to decide on pilot helmet colour and how to make the visors slightly reflective/ translucent other than with a straight gloss. Possibly need a glaze darkish colour over a silverish base. I’m usually not that fussed on detailing cockpits as a lot of it tends to become forever hidden and I can’t be assed putting time into what I’ll never see again. I prefer to admire the externals with a whisky in hand but this is a big kit and the front office needs some tlc. I do however, greatly admire the work of others who like to go to town here and frequently produce incredible results. The raised panel lines present an interesting opportunity. I tend not to preshade my models as I find my bias towards uniformity and symmetry tends to works against the effect I’m trying to create. I generally prefer to post shade with airbrush or hairy stick after decals are applied as I can better control how much and where I add as opposed to how much I hide. So working within those raised lines I should be able to lightly weather individual panels and get a different result to uniform panel line wash highlighting. Other thoughts so far...having cut out the fuselage halves to check rear cockpit bulkhead alignment, these two big chucks of plastic go together extremely well (alignment is better than a lot of newer kits) and there won’t be much filling/sanding at all. Once I’m done with with the cockpit, this thing will build quickly. The key to really making this old kit pop is I think in the finishing. Bear with me while I sort out my photo host, then I should be able to share some images, far more interesting than the words I’m sure but thanks for reading. Cheers EMP

I picked up this limited edition 2021 re-release Hasegawa F-4B/N in 1/48 from my lhs for $78 AUD. It was an impulse purchase as I’d only intended to buy a tub of paint. I’ll build it completely OOB with no aftermarket whatsoever and no rescribing its raised panel lines. My goal here is to see what I can make of this older 1980’s kit OOB...is it really 40 years ago it was first released. A look inside the box shows the moulds have held up very well and the recently printed decal sheet is superb. Hasegawa also chuck in a one piece canopy in addition to the 4 piece. Armament as you’d expect is limited but you do get some AIM-7s, 9Bs and 9Ds. Will post again once she’s on the bench. Cheers EMP

I don’t filter it Scargsy, I just give the bottle a good hard shake. If the paint is getting thick and lumpy, thin it. Thinning is the key. I do get occasional tip dry if I’ve skimped on flow aid for only a quick blast but nothing that a wipe of the nozzle doesn’t cure. I used to have all of the above mentioned issues when I first started using Vallejo Air but now I’m not stingy with the thinner, I just build up the opacity with really thin coats. The ultra thin coats also help to mitigate ridges from masking tape. For me, the spraying just takes a bit longer with lighter colours than it does with Mr Color paints which I also use (and are excellent). Its 28 degrees and about 50% humidity here today and had no issues airbrushing in this environment. I know its currently a lot colder where you are 🥶 Cheers, Nick

BikingLampy, I hope you don’t mind me resurrecting an old post but your woes with Vallejo Air, did you manage to get the results you were after? As I think you discovered, the spitting of the paint from your airbrush is usually because the paint is too thick for the air pressure being used (assuming a/b is otherwise clean). Vallejo Air (VA) gives an absolutely beautiful finish (I find it’s not the most robust paint to handling - dealing with that is entirely possible but another discussion) but the key is to build up with thin layers. The thin layers will dry off quite quickly in most environments, enabling another thin coat on top without much hanging around. I use a 0.2mm needle and often thin VA by 50% or more with Vallejo thinner plus a drop or two of Vallejo Flow Improver at about 20psi for base coating. If I’m doing close up work like mottled camouflage, I will use a lower pressure and thin the paint even more, depending on which VA paint I’m using, they do vary a bit, so my advice is to find a default thinning ratio/pressure that generally works and vary it a bit to suit as needed. I have a sheet of paper handy and test the paint flow before committing to model. If I’m getting spitting, I’ll add a bit more thinner and retest on the paper. Once the flow is nice and predictable at the same airbrush trigger point, I’ll commit to the model. Occasionally I’ll stop and clean the tip of the a/b but the flow improver usually means I can go make a cup of tea, come back and carry on without issue, and that is with a 0.2mm needle. Hope the above may be of some use to you, current and former Vallejo Air users. All the best.

A bit late to the party on this thread so I hope it’s ok to resurrect. I recently did a couple of 109s in 1/72 by Tamiya and Airfix. The Tamiya was done in Wick’s well known scheme and I did the stipple with an artist sponge using several RLM colours applied over the blue. I found the sponge to give a superior finish to using a brush, in that my stippling brush left a rough, out of scale surface, whereas the sponge did not, for me at least. To finish I did a bit of blending with the airbrush but it was mainly the sponge. For the Airfix Yellow 13, I used an airbrush with 0.2mm needle, nozzle cap removed. I got the contrast of the paints wrong (if doing again, I would adjust the stock RLM colours to suit the opacity of my thinned paint) and my squiggle lines were not as thin as they should have been, but just doing it helped me develop better control of the airbrush and if I remade this model, I’m sure I’d be able to improve on the look I was after. I see that Vallejo has a range of Luftwaffe camo stencils though they are marketed at scales other than 1/72 I believe and I haven’t tried them. What I can say is that doing the German camo schemes is highly enjoyable to me - you never quite know how it’s going to turn out when going freehand but that’s part of the fun and when it goes well it’s pretty satisfying.

Thanks for the info AaCee. The OPs original question has been addressed. As for my kit, Colin’s observation above about decal thickness was correct, at least in his kit and mine. The AZ decals ruined my build. Considering I built the Tamiya 109E and had no problem with the thickness of the Tamiya decals, I could not achieve same with AZ. The backing film, which was oversized on many of the decals, remains clearly visible on the model, despite the decals conforming to every panel line and detail. They haven’t silvered, they just look ‘stuck on’ and sit proud of the surface despite clear coating and a very light buff of the surface before and after application. This experience coming right at the end of the build was disappointing and is enough for me to spend my money elsewhere. Perhaps others have had more success with AZ’s 109 decals but I’m very reluctant to use them again.

Nice job Joe! The Romanian livery is a really interesting change up from the Luftwaffe variations I’ve started to build. They liked to decal up their aircraft by the looks. Who do you use to host your images? I’d like to post up and share my first few builds after a 35+ year break 😅 but not sure how to go about it. Not sure I could bear the laughter either haha. Do you know the backstory to how Romania came to be equipped with the 109? Cheers Nick

Hi Dennis, it was a different world then, wasn’t it. My grandfather was on a few vessels during WWII, the one I remember was HMS Cowslip because he built a model of it from scraps and odds and sods. It was brilliant for what I would today refer to as a scratch build. I wish I’d got my hands on that model now, I don’t know what became of it. Your Grand Uncle would have seen a bit of life no doubt. The Polish as many will know, fought side by side with the Allies in the air. My knowledge of their sea faring exploits is not so good however, so thanks for that titbit. Cheers Nick

I have yet to put a matt coat on my AZ F2 (edit F4, not F2) Colin but I did note the decals were on thick side and also the surrounding film on some needed a trim. Some of the stencils were also a pain, some curling up to become unusable and needing more care by me in application. My AZ kit also arrived with the wing step/no step demarcation detached from its backing and attached to the masks which came with the kit. That decal I tried to rescue to no avail. By contrast, my 1/72 109E Airfix decals (Kit ***A, Yellow 13) were excellent, including the Stencils. I have used both Tamiya Markfit and Microset/sol and found them comparable in that they both sunk the decals in well to conform to panel details.

I have just about finished an AZ Model 109F (AZ 7626) in Franz Schwaiger’s Yellow 3 scheme and I’m not convinced of the shape of the nose with this kit when compared to photographs. It looks too long and narrow to my eyes, but maybe it’s just me. I am going to look for another brand, but there doesn’t seem to be many options in 1/72 for F series that are available at a sensible price. Someone was asking over $100 on eBay for a Fine Molds kit 😲.

Nick, 50+ (😢) Sydney, Aus. Greetings Werner. A model stand or fall with the paint job. How true. My first two builds and each one got at least one paint strip/start over. But these kits are my practice to balls it up and have another go.

All - thanks for taking the time to reply. Ships look difficult to build at any scale 😅 I’m having enough challenges in 1/72 not to lose or break the smallest parts. Cold War, 1st generation jets I could definitely see myself building. As for my interest in the Luftwaffe, I think it comes from my late grandfather who fought with the Royal Navy in WW2. He told me quite a few stories about being straffed by 109s over the Channel. After he’d downed a few whiskies, I often got the unedited version! He used to talk about yellow noses and, at the time, I wondered how he could see the pilot’s nose. Ah, the ignorance of (my) youth.

Firstly, thanks to all existing members for your modelling advice. It’s been very helpful to me in restarting aircraft kit building which I haven’t done since, well, a long time ago. Britmodeller has been my go to, so I’ve joined the forum to hopefully help out others once my skills are a little more polished and also to share my builds with anyone interested in WW2 Luftwaffe, my current topic of interest. I am working in 1/72, all 109s from Tamiya, Airfix and AZ except for a Eduard 110. I also have a couple of Eduard 109 in 1/48 in the queue to see which, if any, scale I prefer working in. My modelling objective is to produce a high standard of finish, I will strip a model of paint and redo if I’m not happy with it. I like historical accuracy but I’m not too stressed if a few kit details aren’t quite right. I wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2021 and look forward to chatting with you all. Thanks for taking the time to read my first post.