RainierHooker

Kora does a resin conversion kit for the early Bendix remote turret. It is kit number CSD7231 and should be available at Hannants

I spent the majority of the evening's modeling time working on the scenery for the vignette base that the Kübel and its accompanying Bf 109F. Once i'd slathered on all the mud it was like watching the proverbial paint dry, so i turned my sights on the we KDF Wagen... First I attached the previously painted wheels and the side mirrors. A huge number of Kobe's that Ive found in pictures of the Afrika Korps have their windshields folded down and covered by various forms of tarpaulins. To emulate this, I wrapped the kit windshield in tissue paper matte clear varnish, being careful to leave it imperfect: 0-37 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Here you see the Kubel in front of the still-drying vignette base. Build details of which are in my Bf 109F build log in this GB. 0-38 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Then I started attaching all the last details from the kit; the steering wheel, doors and the now dried and painted tarped windscreen... 0-39 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr And here we are, a complete 5cm long Kubelwagen: 0-40 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr I've got to install some details of detritus and other such stuff to make the car look lived in as well as the number plates (waiting on a decal sheet) that will all be added along with a final dusting of pigments just before it gets placed in the vignette. I'll snap some final shots for this thread and the gallery just before that happens.

Fantastic diorama. I'm sure the mechanics will have that Käfer up and running in no time.

Using a mixture of a butter knife, an old sponge, and a couple different brushes I started slathering the gritty custard, I mean "terrains", on the base. I started with the rougher and darker "Sandy Desert" around the rocks and built up into mounds along the back and right edges of the base: 0-33 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr This was followed by a thinner layer of the "Desert Sand" mostly in the middle of the base and leading a little path through the mound to the right edge. I tried to maintain troughs and ditches, via my applicators, in the directions that tracks would have been left by the aircraft and the Kubelwagen. They are a bit exaggerated now, but that's just temporary. I also plopped the pile of boxes and the fuel drums into their positions so the sand formed around their bases without gaps: 0-34 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Then the most important tool came out: an opaque black beer. This was useful while I was waiting for the "terrains" to start to set up. As it was doing so and started to fir up, I came back every so often with a brush wetted with water to stipple and knock down the edges troughs and craters of the sand: 0-35 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Finally, as everything further firmed up, I went through with a few sprigs pulled from some Woodland Scenics brand "Fine Leaf Foliage" which is usually used to make fine trees for model railroads: 0-36 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

Okie dokie... I've started on Afrikan scenery. First, I started off by finalizing the positions of all the major players in the scene, including some real rocks that looked that part: 0-30 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr The rocks were then fixed to the base with hot glue: 0-31 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr After watching a bunch of how-tos on YouTube, I decided to use AK's "Terrains" line of diorama base materials. They do several different consistencies and textures suiting a wide variety of locales. I'm using two similar but noticeably different types; "Desert Sand" is very light in color and texture supposedly simulating the fine light sand of dune type deserts, and "Sandy Desert" a slightly darker orangey color and with a bit more grit to simulate the more rocky fringes of a sand desert. Either way, they come out of the pot looking and feeling like slightly demented custard: 0-32 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

Hello all, I recently purchased a decal set from Peddinghaus for an upcoming Airfix Me 262 Sturmvogel build. I was drawn in by the nice color scheme with the blue KG 51 group insignia and the red "B" shown on their provided profile. However, I cant make heads or tails of the actual subject of their profile (as we all know, profiles are a minefield). This is the provided profile: Screenshot 2023-12-01 at 2.56.42 PM by Evan Bailly, on Flickr According to their sheet, the aircraft is WkNr. 110106 and it is coded KN+9 with a red "B" on the nose. The unit code is nonsensical, according to the Schiffer/Rosch "Luftwaffe Codes, Markings & Units 1939-1945" no such "KN" unit code existed. KG 51 aircraft carried the 9K code. Are the codes just a mistaken juxtaposition on the sheet? 9K+BN would make sense, making it the second aircraft on KG51's 5th Staffel of the II Gruppe. There is a similar "Red B" Me 262A-2a in a well known set of photographs (found in, among other sources Osprey/Forsyth/Creek's Me 262 Bomber and Reconnaissance Units) but this aircraft carried the different WkNr. 170064 and its "B" markings in the more typical location on the aft fuselage. Does anyone have a source for Peddinghaus' reference? Does anyone have a photo or even a corroborating profile of WkNr. 110106? Anyone have any ideas of whether or not this scheme existed on an actual aircraft at any time? Thanks all in advance.

Nothing much new to report other than I'm impatiently waiting for my scenery supplies to arrive in the mailbox and for the varnish to dry on the base... 0-29 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr hopefully both of those things will have occurred by the time I return from work this afternoon. Then I have the whole weekend worth of evenings to shut myself in and get back to diorama-ing.

Spent the evening straining y eyes and wits painting boxes, barrels, and what seemed like a million jerry cans... 0-28 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr The cans came from Shapeways and are really neat for such a small 3D print. You get a bushel of them and there are several variations in "markings" on them. I painted them in four different theoretically correct colors and painted about a third of them with the white crosses denoting their use for drinking water only, essential in any desert diorama. The remainder ostensibly contain gasoline, that other desert-war essential. The pile of boxes is a resin bit from my stash of random bits, I think it came from an HO scale railroad kit, but fits the bill in size and shape here. Im anxiously awaiting my sandy scenery supplies. Alas, the local model shop doest stock much in the way of diorama makings, so I had to order my supplies online a few days ago. Hopefully by the weekend I can get cracking and get to the beginning of the end. Or at least the end of the beginning...

Im waiting for a decal sheet to come in the mail (should be here friday), the III./JG27 shield on the engine cowl. My available sheets only have the Stab./JG27 emblem which is similar except the little airplane silhouettes are gold/yellow on the later and black on the former. In the meantime I've turned to making and painting all the ancillary details for the vignette. Starting with the pilot... 0-26 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr This little guy is from the Ammo by MIG figure set "Panzer Crew 1943" but this particular fellow is wearing a Luftwaffe Tropical flight jacket. So while it's maybe not ideal for a tanker in 1943, it is perfect for our little scene here. Figure painting is just about my least favorite thing in this hobby, I almost universally avoid it, because I almost universally botch the job. I nerded out on youtube figure painting videos for a while and finally relented and picked up the paintbrush. I'm actually delighted at the result this time around... 0-27 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr From now on though, in this diorama at least, I can rejoice in only having to paint machines and man made junk from here on out...

After a short work day I came home and whittled out the base for the diorama out of that chunk of mahogany from my scrap bin. It fits the poly carbonate box/hood/cover/thingy rather well for only about 15 minutes of work: 0-23 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Its just about the perfect size for a Friedrich, a Kubel, and some desert airfield detritus: 0-24 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Also on my way home I stopped into my local hobby shop where they were having an anniversary sale. I was mostly successful in only gathering up some thinner and other small supplies that I needed and not adding to the stash. Sort of. There was a Plastic Soldier brand kit that includes the parts to build three German trucks, either as an Opel Blitz or a Mercedes Benz L3000. I brought the wee trucks home and quickly mocked one together. As it turns out, I stand by my decision to use just a Kubelwagen in this vignette. The wee trucks aren't wee at all, one would dominate the display too much I think, especially once the scenery and other details are added... 0-25 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

I love, love, love these little Airfix Tomahawks. Like you said, very nice for less than a tenner, even across the pond in the US. Im looking forward to watching this one develop.

Moving along in the process: Little Afrika Korps Palms on the doors were provided by a Peddinghaus Decals sheet intended for motorcycles. Also I started brush-painting the tires and other small details: 0-20 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Pin washes (a combination of Tamiya Black and Dark Brown panel liners) were then slathered about: 0-21 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr And finally for this session, the wee bucket car was presented to the Friedrich that it'll soon be joining in a vignette: 0-22 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr At this point I need to finish brush painting all the little details and apply them to the model. After that I'll be lightening up the paintwork and adding dust and grime with pigments. Stay tuned for further adventures in Kubelmotoren...

Onward with paint... After a coating of hairspray, a layer of a sandy beigey color was mixed up (I didn't have the right color on the rack, so I mixed up some yellows, beiges, and ochres until it looked close enough to Sandbeige) and sprayed on a bit mottled and again concentrating on upper, outer surfaces: 0-17 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Then a few spots and squiggles of RLM 80 were scattered about: 0-18 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr And then it was all chipped back to reveal the Graublau in high wear areas: 0-19 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

On with painting... First, I black-based the whole model including the wheels and the doors which are still on the sprue. This is to check all the seams and to make a dark base in every nook and cranny: 0-15 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Then after waffling between the standard Wehrmacht Dunkelgrau, and the somewhat more charismatic Luftwaffe Graublau, I found that my bottle of the gray had dried up. So I sprayed the little Kubel with the dark blue trying to coat all the pertinent body parts while maintaining a high angle with the airbrush to fake some shadow in the nooks which had been sprayed black: 0-16 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Before we get all esoteric about whether or not a Luftwaffe Kubel Kar deployed to Africa would have been blue or grey, let me say that it's all an academic exercise anyway. This is just another base coat, one that will be only slightly exposed via chipping underneath a tan and subtle green-spotted camouflage scheme. Here's my muse, a Luftwaffe Kubel caught in the quagmire of the storms of Spring 1942: LW-Kubelwagen by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

I'm well into decal mode. So far ive used components of four separate decal sheets to come up with the insignia for this little guy: the Eduard kit's crosses, a Hasegawa Bf 109G-6 for the III Gruppe squiggles, a Printscale JG52 sheet for the numbers, a Techmod generic sheet for the atypical borderless-swastikas, and soon I'll be adding two more into the mix for stencils and the III./JG27 logo on the engine cowl... 0-12 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr 0-13 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr I stand by my yellow insignia punt... 0-14 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Yes, I realize that grey-scaling on a computer does not definitively account for the weird things that certain kinds of photography does to certain kinds of colors, but I fink its convincing enough. Once I fade the insignia with pigments, the contrast between the yellow of the insignia and the white of the crosses will be even less. 7IIIJG27-1 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr I'll have a few adjustments to do on the decals and painted on insignia before Im done, but that'll have to wait until I get all the rest on, the Microsol has done it magic, and a coat of clear go on. For lack of any better idea, the "Jabo" stencil under the cockpit will be drawn on with a white pencil.

Well, I got my copy of Osprey's "Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika'" and quickly read the chapter on its operations in North Africa in 1941-43. It was illuminating but sadly doesn't nail down the riddle of white or yellow aircraft markings on this subject. In May 1942, III Gruppe (group) of JG27 added a fourth Staffel (squadron) specifically for Jabo (fighter bomber) duties around the Libya/Egypt/Tunisia frontier. This squadron would then be deactivated and absorbed into the new Autonomous JaboGruppe Afrika in August of the same year. If this aircraft was a Jabo assigned to III./JG27 (verified by the wavy line insignia and the as-yet-unknown bomb badge under the cockpit) it would have been in this short-lived 10.(Jabo)/JG27 and would have been marked as such between May and August 1942. Traditionally the 10th Staffel in a JG would be assigned to the IV Gruppe, and would have had white insignia, but would also have a different Gruppe insignia (a slightly less wavy line) and required an additional staff element. Further, the fourth squadron of a group would usually have blue insignia, but I'm reasonably certain that this is not the case here. It's likely that the aircraft were drawn from the other squadrons within the same group, and simply marked with the stencil exhibited on this aircraft. So really, we are back to square one, the markings could be either white or yellow. I've kicked a punt and it landed on yellow.

Maarten, Im not sure that the RFI section is the right place to be having color chip arguments, but I'm sorry to say that you are incorrect as far as US Army helicopters are concerned. Here is an excerpt from the US Army's TM 1-1500-345-23 "Paint and Marking of Army Aircraft", the most recent edition dated 2015: IMG_4435 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr FS 34031 is the ONLY dark green paint authorized on army helicopters, and unlike the Air Force and Air National guard there is absolutely no differentiation between tactical and non-tactical aircraft and their paint schemes. It is true that many LUH-72s appear lighter in shade as delivered. This is not a color variation but rather a sheen variation, an effect of the Alkyd based enamel applied in the factory compared to the CARC that is more commonly used on Army aircraft. Sheen variations are acceptable according to the manual. The vast majority of LUH-72's in the inventory have been through at least one repaint already and, if done in the continental US, were done in the standard CARC green in FS 34031 common to all green painted Army helicopters. Thus, they will appear darker. CARC is the only paint authorized for repaints, and furthermore it's the only paint that the system will let you order. The last time I saw an Army aircraft painted in the old lighter OD color was very early in my career on a UH-1H, probably painted in the mid-1990s. I retired from the Army in 2018 as a CH-47 Flight Engineer Standardizations Instructor then assigned to a maintenance company performing overhauls and phase maintenance on UH-60s, LUH-72s, and CH-47s. Even the 1998 edition of the same manual has the earlier lighter OD stricken from the approved colors list.

Here's the preliminary idea for the vignette: 0-10 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr I have a little idea in my head, so I'm trying to find any photos of Kubelwagen loaded down as makeshift fuel lorry. Two 200l fuel drums matches the tank capacity of a Bf. 109, and two full drums would be right at the edge of a Kubel's load limit, provided one came up with a way of loading and securing them. I'm certain that this was tried at least once in a forward base where one was lacking a proper truck. Speaking from experience, filling an aircraft from a pile of jerry cans is a miserable experience. I'm sure that at least one soldier thought "I have a good idea"...

Turning the model over, we are presented with the chassis' spine, a dash board the gas tank and a front panel. The dash board to front panel gluing was especially fiddly to get the angle right: 0-7 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr 0-8 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Finally I added the little details required before paint; the headlights, blackout light, the tropical air cleaner cover, tiny tow hooks, and the spreader bar / rifle rack in the interior between the center door posts: 0-9 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr I plan on painting the model as you see it and affixing the doors, wheels, and last details after the fact. In the meantime, here's the preliminary idea from the vignette: 0-10 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

Well, I scrounged the shop and attic for some diorama goodies and I came up well. 0-11 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr I found the following: - a bottomless poly carbonate box thing that will serve as a dust cover for the completed vignette - a chunk of mahogany that will become the base of the diorama - various foliage and plant making supplies, mostly intended for HO scale model railroading - some resin details including a random pile of crates and a pair of German oil drums with pumps (an airmodel.de kit) - some umbrellas - a figure that looks sufficiently "pilot-like" even though it comes from an Ammo by Mig Panzer crew set - a 1/72 scale Kubelwagen included as a "bonus" in a Dragon M4 Sherman kit (separate build thread HERE) and most importantly - a christmas mug full of black coffee Time to get diorama-ing...

However, when you attempt to install the rear skid pan it is plainly clear that nothing, well, clears. See that little gusset moulded into the skid pan in the above photo (tip of scalpel blade points to it)? Well, that goes precisely here the muffler tailpipe goes. So it has to be carved out: 0-3 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Then you realize that to get the skid pan to meet the rear of the body, the engine's crankcase needs to be whittled down: 0-4 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr And finally, the mufflers themselves have to be thinned in a bunch of places. Finally, the skid pan can go on: 0-5 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr In contrast, the front suspension and skid pan fall together with no drama: 0-6 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

Whilst mostly hammering out a Bf 109F for this GB over the weekend, I figured that since I have a few weeks left to go before the deadline, I'd make a little vignette to display it in. So, I went through the stash and the boxes in the attic and discovered a tiny 1/72 scale Kubelwagen that was included as a bonus in a Dragon M4 Sherman model. It even had DAK balloon tires on the sprue, so I figured it would be a nice addition top the Afrika Korps Messerschmitt. As it turns out, the little dragon kit has turned into a build all of itself. Its small bits and not overly-great fit has taken a full evening and morning's modeling session just to do the basic assembly. I figured it was worthy of a build thread in its own right, and here it is... Here's the kit in question with its bonus sprues: 0 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr Starting with the underbody, you get a basic chassis, a rear section that includes the drivetrain, some separate mufflers in Dragon's peculiar squishy clear plastic, a rear skid pan, a front suspension beam, and a front skid pan: 0-1 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr The rear section cams into the main body/chassis and is extremely tight but leaves considerable gaps between the rear fenders and body. The mufflers -appear- to fit nicely at this stage: 0-2 by Evan Bailly, on Flickr

Being both a WWII and a VW nut, all I can say is I can't wait to see more.

Great looking Tomahawk. One of these Airfix kits was the first model I built with my kid after not having built any models since I myself was a kid. They've become kind of a "therapy kit" for me. Great for a diversion from a bigger build. Any time I see them on sale I just throw one in the stash, I've probably built more than a half dozen in the last few years.

While going through the stash looking for things to make into a vignettes for my Bf 109F, I came across a 1/72 Kubelwagen that came as a “bonus” in a Dragon Sherman kit. Question is, should this build of this little guy be rolled into the build thread with the airplane, or does it constitute its own model outright? What does the hive mind have to say?