Achtung Anfanger!!! 1/48 Bf109E-4B

[Sturmovik]

It´s looking great!

[tango98]

Good job Andy which moves me to quote from Monty Pythons pet store owner in Bolton, “Lovely bird Squire, beautiful plumage!” 

She’s going to look really good when you cross the finish line.

Cheers

Dave

[Crimea River]

Thanks everyone. Pining for the fjords I am!

 

Today I did some filtering with artist oils. I mixed up some black and burnt umber for the underside streaks and some yellow, blue, and burnt sienna for the uppers in varying shades. Oil streaks on the undersides were simply applied with a fine brush in a linear fashion whereas the uppers were dabbed and smudged with a brush, Q-tip, tissue and the odd finger. I didn't want to overdo this as I hate when things look too contrived. I'm happy with how it looks in the real world but find that the effect becomes more muted on the pictures despite mucking about with the contrast a bit. Anyway, here's how it looks:

 
  

Note also that I added the cannon barrels to the wings but that I've not painted them yet. I'm allowing the oils to dry completely before applying the matte coat and will follow this up with a bit of chipping, the exhaust stains and some dust.

I also progressed on the gear legs by adding the flexible brake hoses. A matte coat was then applied and this took the sheen off the oleos which I may redo. Funny how the majority of kit manufacturers tend to mould these without the boots. I'm not convinced that this is realistic but adding the boots seems like a lot of trouble so I will leave these alone.

 

The prop blades and spinner have been addressed in stages but I didn't stop to take pictures. Here is the assembly more or less complete. In addition to the RLM 70 blades and spinner and the aluminum bits, the finish has also seen some lighter green filtering with oils and some chipping on the back of the blades which was done with a silver Prismacolor pencil. Eduard have moulded the prop blades rather thick and these have already been thinned somewhat, though they could have used some more. Surprising, really.

  

That's another day done. I may get the matte coat on tomorrow but more likely the day after. Thanks for giving it a peek.

[Crimea River]

Thanks all.

 

The matte coat is applied, landing gear stuck on, masks removed, and prop pressed on without glue for the pics:

  

It seems my target of getting this project done by the end of this weekend ain't gonna happen as I need to add a bunch of fiddly bits yet. This will have to wait til after May 5 as I'm doing a long road trip across the country to up my son from University.

 

Thanks for your continued interest.

[Crimea River]

Back again after having logged over 7000km on the road. However, my next life project quickly became priority 1 and I'm now deeply into a major bathroom reno which is allowing me only sporadic bench time on my Emil.

 

Since returning on May 5 I've only been able to flatten the tires and install the bomb. The bomb stabilizer arms appear to be gloss black in all the pics I've seen so that's what I made 'em. There's a very small gap between the bomb and the stabilizers and I'm mulling over whether or not to stick short lengths of stretched sprue in there to represent the screws. Probably will. Thanks for looking in.

 

 

[Azgaron]

Excellent work! Looks very nice!

 

Håkan

 

[Oberleutnant]

On 4/7/2018 at 4:50 AM, Crimea River said:

Finished off the cockpit by highlighting details: throttle handle yellow, T-levers silver, oxygen tubing blue and the trim and radiator cables in steel. The trim wheels have partial wood rims and were painted accordingly. The floor was scuffed up with a silver pencil but it's not easily seen in these pics. Stuck some paper in the map holder as well. The breaker panel is a PE part supplied with the kit as is the small placard behind the throttle.

 

 

The seat was also painted and I decided to have a go at making a back cushion out of Milliput. This pic was taken when the slab was still wet and before tweaking he details.

 

 

The Milliput seat cushion was painted and drybrushed to represent scuffed leather and the kit PE seatbelts were then installed. Straps for the cushion are fashioned of painted Tamiya tape.

 

 

One needs to decide early whether to pose the aircraft with the cowl removed or closed as the number of bits to install on the gun deck and engine depend on that decision. I've decided to close the cowl so painting and detailing of the gun deck are not an issue. The instrument panel is PE and supplied with the kit. The dials are on a separate sheet and are sandwiched between the flat plastic backing and the outer PE panel with the bezels. Various PE levers and T pulls have also been added and the instrument faces got dabs of white glue to represent the glass but this is not really visible in the pics. 

 

 

The other side with the halves glued together:

 

 

Thanks for looking in! Bye for now.

 

Andy

That is amazing!

 

Well done.

 

A million miles ahead of me.

[tango98]

Nearly at the finish line now Andy; she’s looking good.

7000 km road trip - just a short one then eh! 😄

Good luck with the bathroom reno.

 

Cheers

Dave

[Crimea River]

Thanks Dave et al. I do hope to get some decent bench time over the next few weeks to put this project to bed. I think that the next step will be to add the bomb fuse panel to the bottom of the instrument panel, a detail that I forgot about and that should have been done at the beginning. This isn't included in the Eduard kit so I'll need to scratch build it which shouldn't be too hard. The hard part will be getting it in at this stage - some arthroscopic surgery skills would come in handy!

[Crimea River]

Got a few items ticked off the punch list this evening. First task was to create a bomb fuse panel and this I did using plastic card and stretched sprue. The unit was painted RLM 66, dry-brushed silver, then buttons were added with a fine black felt tip pen and lettering was scratched in using a pin. Apologies for the poor pics but the battery on my camera died so I reverted to the one on my phone.

 

Now, how to get this tiny part into the pit? The stick was in the way and I tried to break it off but found that it bent nicely out of the way anyway. I then rolled a blob of plasticine and squashed it against the cannon ejection chute and then squeezed the panel against it, making small adjustments before dabbing some CA on the joint. Below you can see the panel with the blob of plasticine behind it.

 

The plasticine was then removed with a scalpel, mostly, as some is still in behind the panel and not retrievable! It will probably dry and fall out some day. The stick bent back into place with no harm done.

 

Next on the list was to make a tiny flare pistol to stick on the back of the tube that protrudes from the quarter window. A small length of rod was cut on a slant and plastic card was stuck on the back to represent the grip.

 

Hard to see but the gun is now painted black and stuck onto the window, right above the white knob of the landing gear lever.

 

Next came the fiddley bits on the wing underside. The pitot tube is very fragile and broke when I removed it from the sprue using a microsaw but I managed to get it together again. This and the mass balances have yet to be painted.

 

In the midst of all this, one of the landing gear legs decided to part company with the wing so I had to glue this back on. The detail provided by Eduard at this location is rather spindly and doesn't provide a very strong joint.

That's it for tonight. Not much left to do now so I should be done within a week or so. Thanks for giving this a peek.

[Howard Moon]

Some incredible work there Andy, I certainly wouldn’t have the nerve to start adding parts to the cockpit at this stage. Looking forward to the next update. 

[Crimea River]

Thanks Howard. No risk really as the worst that could happen would be that I could not get the part into place. Hopefully more to come soon.

 

Andy

[Crimea River]

A final push to the finish line got me over. The only thing left to do was to add the antenna wire and this I did using invisible mending thread. Dabs of CA painted white represent the insulators and pieces of stretched sprue glued to the ends represent the springs. Though these are a bit off center, I think the effect outweighs the slight asymmetry. The lead to the fuselage also ends in a white insulator and this was made by CA gluing a short length of cut rod.

   

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

Thanks to all for the constructive comments and feedback and especially to Dave (tango98) for his assistance. Please let me know of any faults or ideas for improvement that you see. Thanks!

 

Andy

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

 Beautiful work.

[amblypygid]

Looks terrific, great work Andy.

[Crimea River]

Thank-you gentlemen!

[tango98]

You've turned out a fine looking Jabo there Andy; great job all round!

 

Cheers

Dave

[Azgaron]

Very nice work! Looks excellent!

 

Håkan

 

[Crimea River]

Thanks guys. Appreciate the comments.

[tank152]

I think you'd have an hard job to improve on this build. Nice attention to detail been shown throughout. Its been a pleasure to follow.

[Crimea River]

Thanks again. Actually there were some hiccups and 2 are visible. I discovered some fogging of the right quarter window that resulted from an unnoticed blob of CA used to glue in the flare gun. I had to sand and polish the clear part in place and brush on some Future. It's now better but not as clear as it could be. Second, there is a crack in the hinged canopy which I only noticed after I removed the masks after painting both the inside and outside frames. I do have a spare canopy and will replace it some day when I can spend more time at the work bench. Too many other projects on the go right now!