Ju 88A-4, Sicily, June 1941 (Revell 1/72) +++ Finished 19-08-2016 +++

[jrlx]

Thanks Ced, very kind!

Cheers

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hi again,

Just a small update. Tonight I just finished cleaning the engine and propeller parts, which took me about one hour. Just to show you something, here's a picture of the propellers. The nearer one still has horizontal moulding lines on the centre, while the other is already cleaned:

Thanks for looking.

Jaime

[PlaStix]

Lovely progress Jaime. The detail is quite nice and it's well worth getting rid of all the seam lines - even if it is slow progress.

[jrlx]

Thanks Stix, much appreciated! Now I'll have to clean all the joins in the wings, control surfaces, etc and apply several PE parts and mask the transparent parts before priming.

I'd also like to start my Harrier GR.3 in the next days for the 80's NATO vs Warsow Pact GB. Otherwise I won't have time to finish in time. Let's see if I can manage.

Cheers

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hi again,

Tonight I managed to progress some more.

I started by glueing to toothpicks the smaller parts that were already cleaned and ready for painting. This picture shows the present collection of parts awaiting painting on toothpicks:

Next, I glued the wing tips in place. This wasn't straightforward, because there was some wiggling of the tips and I had to hold the parts in my hands while the glue cured, trying to ensure the correct continuity between the surfaces and avoiding odd angles between the parts. I used Tamiya's medium thick glue first, followed by super-thin when the correct positioning was achieved.

Anyway, the fit is not perfect and there are seams to treat as well as a small step between the parts, which I tried to keep to the lower surfaces. Maybe it would be better to glue the upper parts of the tips and wings together, then the lower parts of wings and tips and, finally, glue the wings' upper sub-assemblies to the lower sub-assemblies, instead of following the instructions, which make us glue the wings' parts, the tips' parts and then the tips to the wings.

The following set of pictures show the results I achieved and what still has to be done.

This is a general view of the upper surfaces:

This is a general view of the lower surfaces:

A detailed view of the join on the lower surface of the starboard wing:

A detailed view of the join on the upper surface of the starboard wing:

A front view of the join of the starboard wing, showing the small step on the lower surface:

A rear view of the starboard wing doesn't show noticeable steps:

A detailed view of the join on the lower surface of the port wing:

A detailed view of the join on the upper surface of the port wing:

A front view of the join of the port wing, showing the small step on the lower surface:

A rear view of the port wing doesn't show noticeable steps:

Next, I decided to apply some of the exterior panel PE parts.

The following sub-assembly is the lower part of the cockpit. A seat is already glued in place and some PE panels must be applied to the underside, external surface. To avoid damaging the seat, the sub-assembly was placed up side down on a box of cotton buds:

The three panels were applied and here's the result:

Though these PE parts are self-adhesive, I applied first a drop of CA to ensure a permanent bond.

A lot of PE panels also had to be applied to the spine of the aircraft. Here's the part, where we can see the engraved detail on the plastic, which will be better detailed by the PE panels:

After application of the PE panels, here's the result:

Finally, the tail fin also got some detailing. Here's the part:

And here it is with a small panel applied:

There's a lot of PE panels still to be applied to the wing surfaces, tail plane and fuselage but I'll have to clean these parts of seams and steps first.

Sorry for the excessively detailed discussion of the wing tips' joins. Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Jaime

[Mottlemaster]

As Sean Connery would say ----Etchellent

Edited June 24, 2016 by Mottlemaster

[jrlx]

Thank you Alistair!

Cheers

Jaime

[CedB]

Good work on those wingtips Jaime, and on the PE.

Wingtips are always a pain for me too - I tend to try and use my Berna clamps as these don't stick to the glue but they're not always successful - well done sorting yours out so well.

[jrlx]

Thanks for the kind words, Ced! I have a set of Berna clamps ordered, which should arrive at my LMS next week. Just another set of tools bought after your recommendations

Cheers

Jaime

[rob85]

Love Pe work and great progress on all the other bits your getting done. Going at some pace now you have more time on your hands Jamie.

Rob

[jrlx]

Thanks for your interest and support, Rob! Much appreciated

Cheers

Jaime

[rob85]

Thanks for your interest and support, Rob! Much appreciated

Cheers

Jaime

Well I am modelling by proxy at the moment so no need to thank we, however I have now bought my Luftwaffe paint which I how will give me a kick up the backside!

Rob

[mcdonnell]

Hello,Jaime - You've made a superb job of preparing all those parts in readiness for painting.i also admire your expertise with the photo-etch items.Great input and results as always. All the very best,Paul.

[PlaStix]

Hi Jaime. Good to see this is progressing despite the wing tip issues - they should be okay after you have worked your magic on them! There's a lot of PE involved and it should really add to the appearance. Lovely stuff.

Hope you have a good weekend.

Kind regards,

Stix

[jrlx]

Well I am modelling by proxy at the moment so no need to thank we, however I have now bought my Luftwaffe paint which I how will give me a kick up the backside!

Rob

I hope you find time for modelling Rob and the new paints provide some added motivation! I'm an avid paint collector, so I now the feeling of buying new paints

Hello,Jaime - You've made a superb job of preparing all those parts in readiness for painting.i also admire your expertise with the photo-etch items.Great input and results as always. All the very best,Paul.

Thank you very much, Paul! You're being too kind, as always. Your interest and support are much appreciated!

Hi Jaime. Good to see this is progressing despite the wing tip issues - they should be okay after you have worked your magic on them! There's a lot of PE involved and it should really add to the appearance. Lovely stuff.

Hope you have a good weekend.

Kind regards,

Stix

Hi Stix, thank you for your kind words! There's still a lot of PE to apply. I had to plan the application taking into account what can or can't be painted and in which step of the build. With three large sets of PE (interior, exterior and surface panels) it's a bit complicated but I think I'm getting the hang of it

Wish you all a great week-end

Jaime

[DaveyGair]

Jaime, can you not just pretend this is a 1/48th scale kit, use a bit of photo-shop to make items smaller for scale? give us 48th scale modellers a bit of hope ?

Nice work.

Davey

Edited June 24, 2016 by DaveyGair

[jrlx]

Thanks Davey!

I've only ever built two 1/48 models, both when I was a kid, in the early 1980s: ESCI's Mirage F1 and Mig-23.

At the time I was amazed with the level of detail provided by both kits, nothing that could be found on the 1/72 models I had previously built. The remains of both still exist, in my parents' home.

When I returned to modelling, two years ago, I was again amazed with all the AM stuff that now exists

Presently I only have two 1/48 kits: Eduard's Royal Class Spit Mk IX and Bf 109G (the original one, now replaced by a more accurate tooling). I don't know when I will be able to build them...

Cheers

Jaime

[TonyTiger66]

I'm really enjoying this build Jaime; no need to apologise for the wing tip photos it's the sort of thing we really like to see. It's nice to see someone with a natural talent for the photo-etch

Great stuff!

Tony

[jrlx]

Thanks for your interest and support, Tony! You're being way too kind

Cheers

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hi again,

Here's an update of work done this Saturday. I thought I could do some more PE work before taking care of the wing and control surface seams.

This picture shows the PE instructions, the tail of the aircraft and the small PE part that must be bent before replacing part of the tail painted red in the instructions:

Here's the PE part already bent to shape:

It looked a bit smaller than the area the instructions mark to be removed, so I did a dry fit of the rear fuselage and tail fin to check the dimensions. In the picture the PE part is just lying inside the fuselage. As can be seen, the area to be removed will be quite small and I'll have to use a piece of styrene sheet to block the view inside the rear fuselage:

Since I've applied the unpainted PE parts to the cockpit walls, I've been thinking about parts 41 and 42 in the pre-painted PE fret. Are they pre-painted as well or not? Should they be left as natural metal?

After seeing a few pictures of real cockpits, where everything was RLM 66, I decided I should apply these parts before painting the interior walls.

Here's part 41 already glued in place:

Part 42 had to be bent in a semi-circular section:

And, then, glued in place:

Next, I moved to the transparent parts which will have PE applied.

Here's the access hatch to the cockpit and the two PE parts to be applied on it:

The external part was glued in place:

and the internal part as well:

The next set of transparent parts with PE accessories are the ones forming the rear canopy.

There were two rotating windows through which the barrels of the rear facing machine guns passed. Here we see one of the rear canopy parts with the corresponding rotating window already glued in place. The other one and its rotating window are still unglued. The PE parts to be applied represent the armour plates that existed behind the canopy in the rear:

Here's a better detailed view of the transparent parts:

The following picture shows the inside of the rear canopy in a real aircraft, where the armour can be seen:

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/254920-1517101-ju-88-a-4-missing-realism-bug/?p=4898017

This picture shows the outside of the rear canopy. The armour inside the rear windows is perfectly visible:

https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/254920-1517101-ju-88-a-4-missing-realism-bug/?p=4910579

I test fitted the circular PE parts. They don't fit well. I'll have to remove part of the plastic on the inside of the lateral frames. I'll also have to check if the machine guns can be installed easily through the PE part (Note: the barrels of the machine guns will also be replaced by PE):

The lateral armour is represented by two of these PE parts:

This is a test fit before bending the PE part:

The test fits showed that I'll have to mask the transparent parts inside and out, and paint them separately from the PE parts. I'll leave this for later.

Moving on, there's an ammo box to be installed in front of the front gunner. It's done with a PE part, shown here before bending:

The part was bent to shape:

and glued in place:

Finally, the engine cowlings have some PE detail to be applied from the inside and 2,7 mm holes must be drilled to show them:

I started by drilling holes with the largest drill bit I have: 1,8 mm:

The holes were slowly enlarged up to the required size by scrapping plastic with a nº 11 x-acto blade and a round section file. I used the metal template in the picture during the process, to make sure the size was right:

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Jaime

[CedB]

Lovely work Jaime - your patience and attention to detail is, as usual, admirable; I'm sure I would have got glue all over the place!

Good job

[rob85]

Meticulous Jamie, very nice to watch

Rob

[Mottlemaster]

If you had said that this was the new Zoukei- Mura 1/32 88 my response would be that it has good detail .

Didnt realize that the Luftwaffe had an environmental policy requiring aircraft to be equipped with solitary Bee nests (the p/e part you put in the tail )

Seriously ....WOW

[Ozzy]

Nice etch work Jaime.

[jrlx]

Ced, Alistair, Rob, Ozzy, thanks for your interest and kind words, Gents! They're really much appreciated!

Didnt realize that the Luftwaffe had an environmental policy requiring aircraft to be equipped with solitary Bee nests (the p/e part you put in the tail )

So it was a Bee's nest. I was wondering what that was for

Now seriously, does anyone know what was the purpose of that part? Any kind of exhaust? And should that part of the tail be open, allowing the interior of the fuselage to be seen?

Cheers

Jaime