F202 Messerschmitt Bf 110G ***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

Once my build of the Shackleton is making progress I will hopefully make a start on my next kit, the Bf or if you prefer Me 110G (both the 109 and 110 were “Me” builds though their designs date back to the “Bf” period). Frog as usual provide 2 options – a radar equipped 110G4 of NJG4 and a G2 of NJG200 which they say was used for day ops in Russia. Having built the former years ago I will build a slightly different version of the G2 as a fighter used against the USAAF daylight raids.

 

 

A few words about the kit first. The Frog Cocardes site says it is fairy accurate in shape although the rear horizontal stabs are too short and the prop blades are not quite right but I won't be bothering correcting that. What they do not mention is that to build the day version involves cutting the individual stacks off the exhaust shrouds and gluing them in place one by one – more on that later! There are also problems with the small canopy mounted DF loop which is only correct for the later G4 model I believe as most if not all other versions had a large loop under the fuselage so I guess I will be bending wire to make one. Also Frog have moulded the optional ETC 500 bomb racks as part of the lower wing. This rack was a standard fit on the 110G, and clearly would be used when in ground attack mode which is perhaps what Frog were thinking of for their G2, but curiously also seems to have been left on the G4 night fighters – I would have thought they could have done without the extra weight and drag for that mission. I am building the G2 with the underwing pairs of Wfr,Gr.21 rocket tubes and the few pics I have show no ETC rack, but to cut it off and fill the hole left, although relatively simple, is a pain so I may not bother. I think I will be doing enough detailing on my Shackleton for this GB.

 

A further minor problem is the gaping hole in the port wing.leading edge – initially I thought this was a landing light but Frog have not provided a transparent part to fit in it. Later I realised it was probably the supercharger air intake for the port engine – the starboard one has a scoop on the cowling but not the port for some reason. I may try and fit a small etched grille in the hole from my spares box.

 

The final problem is the nose armament. Most if not all earlier models had the standard nose gun layout of 4 MG17 in the upper nose and a pair of 20mm cannon (initially MGFF and later MG151) in the lower nose. Frog have modelled the final variant the G4d with rather nice low drag antenna for the SN-2 radar and with the Rüstatz 3 that replaced the MG17 with a pair of MK 108 30mm cannon so rather than having to rework it a bit I decided to model a G2/R3 of II/ZG76. Curiously they mould the upper nose separately as if they were intending to provide an alternative, but like the larger DF loop it is not included. Other than that I will be building pretty much OOB as the saying goes, though I may do a little work on the cockpit and landing gear.

 

That's all for now folks, but hopefully I should start the build in 2 or 3 weeks, depending on how things go with the Me 410 and the Shackleton. Fingers crossed!

[JOCKNEY]

Hi Peter

 

The Me 110 will make a great addition, I started one of these, made a complete horlicks of the canopy and put it in the spares box. Good luck with your build and I look forward to a happier ending !

 

cheers Pat

[PeterB]

Hi Pat,

 

Having built the G4 night fighter when it came out I suppose I should have an idea about building it - I also have I think a spare canopy in one of the Falcon boxed sets - must check just in case! After over 60 years modelling I should be "older and wiser" but am still more than capable of making a monumental mess as I will no doubt prove! Still, I have had plenty of practice at bodging together fixes should the need arise. I am beginning to wonder why I chose the 2 Me's as "mottling" is not my strongest point. Oh well, we can but try. As my late Father-in-Law used to say "a blind man would be glad to see it"!

 

Roll on June 1st.

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

Yet another great example of one of Frog's finest. Like your 410 Pete, I no nothing about his kit so will watch on and see how you get along with it. 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

 

[PeterB]

Hi,

 

Now I am all fired up, this wait is boring. Having recently had an interesting exchange with Troy Smith on Pat (Jockney)'s thread on the Ta152H, I thought I would fill some time by seeing if I could start a brief discussion on one of my favourite subjects – Luftwaffe colours used on kits. This is my interpretation on this but how do you paint yours?

 

Until about the mid 1960's, possibly later, most kit and model paint manufacturers (including Frog) thought that all Luftwaffe planes were painted in two shades of green on the top and a light blue on the bottom – what we now know as RLM70/71 and 65 (Troy blames this on a book by Karl Ries and may well be right). Certainly that was the case in the early stages of the war, but by the time of the Battle of Britain changes were afoot, and one of the greens was increasingly replaced by RLM02 grey on fighters and mottling was introduced on the fuselage sides. Then, after experimentation, a more general change to two shades of grey on top (RLM 74/75) was introduced together with a light grey/blue shade (RLM76) underneath. Initially it was thought this happened in late 1941 but there is now some evidence it started as early as late 1940. Finally, new shades of green and brown (81/82/83) were supposed to be used on top from 1944 onwards, apparently to make the planes less visible when on the ground – a consequence of the allied air raids. The above applies mainly to fighters as some bombers were still to be seen in 70/71/65 late in the war. A point to bear in mind is that the camo had to strike a balance between reducing visibility in the air when in combat and also on the ground when being bombed/strafed – and the two were clearly not entirely compatible.

 

Of course as with any air force orders were sometimes ignored, paint varied not only from manufacturer to manufacturer but from batch to batch (same with model paints I find), colours changed as required pigments became unavailable, and ground crew mixed and applied the paints in different ways. Add to that weathering and frankly you have a very confused subject. Fortunately it is now covered by loads of books and articles on the internet (on which I have based the above comments) so I will say no more (do I hear a collective sigh of relief). Incidentally the Cybermodeler site is rather good for RLM colour variations and paints.

 

As to model paints, Humbrol issued a Lufwaffe set of paints in their “authentic” range in the mid 60's, which included 70, 71, 65,74 02, but no 75 and instead of 76 they included “Hellgrau”, which I think was 77 and mainly for use on night fighters. From then things have improved steadily, though the late war colours only started appearing with mainstream manufacturers at the start of this century.

 

Clearly this is my view and others may not agree – there is lots of conflicting information out there and colours can be a very complicated and contentious subject so I am looking forward to lots of feedback and hearing other modellers views. Suffice it to say I will be using variations on 74/75/76 on both my 410 and 110, and the late colours on my He 162 and Ar 234 in the unlikely event that I have time to include them in this GB. Having got that out of the way I will stick to talking about the build as it goes along.

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by PeterB

[jean]

Hi Peter,

 

I built this kits decades ago, as a G-2. Cutting the exhaust pipes was tedious and I could have done a hell of a lot better! That was disappointing for me at the time.

I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed the build, which I painted using the Humbrol Authentic paints (I still have the tinlets, and the paint is still OK!).

It will be a trip down memory lane to see you build this 110!

Enjoy!

 

JR

 

[PeterB]

Thanks Jean, beginning to think nobody would talk to me about how they painted Luftwaffe planes as I would really like to know - what paint, and how they mottled in particular as I am no artist - as will shortly become apparent. On the basis of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours", I started in the early 60's with a mix of Airfix, Joy and Humbrol paints, graduated to Humbrol Authentic, and when that was withdrawn switched back to Humbrol coupled with Precision Paints and Compucolour. About 25 years ago I started using Xtracolour and also White Ensign Colourcoats as they were then. Lately, after justifiable complaints about the smell of the bucket loads of White Spirits needed to clean my airbrush I started experimenting with Tamiya and then Gunze acrylics and also Xtracrylic. I have an awful lot of paint in my stock, some dating back over 40 years! RAF and US paints are relatively easy but accurate French, Russian, Italian, German and Japanese are still the subject of much debate and I am never sure I am using the correct shade, if there is such a thing, which is debatable.

 

Pete

Edited May 31, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Well it looks like my estimate of 2 to 3 weeks before making a start was a bit optimistic, but the way things are going with the 410, I should be able to start by the end of June. This will, unlike the 410, be more or less out of the box, but then I have said that before so we shall see. At least the instrument panels and spinners should be relatively simple - no ruddy spirals! Hope it will be worth the wait.

[PeterB]

Well, here we go again! Looking at the cockpit of the Frog kit, it is clear I am going to have to do some work.

 

 

No seats, stick or instrument panel, just a small shelf/bulkhead to glue in to the front. The pic is not as clear as I would like, but the parts are laid on the instructions for the fairly recent Airfix Bf 110E which I will use as a template. Also, the undercarriage is just one leg, so that will need a few struts adding together with a roof/and bulkheads. I have some replacement resin wheels for it as well. The good news is that whilst I am cutting plasticard I can finish off the interior of the He 162 as well. As this is not the Night Fighter version I think there would only be 2 crew positions. I might see if I can cast some of the fittings such as the seats in resin using the Airfix parts as masters. It has taken me around 6 years or more to get the hang of it, but providing I restrict myself to fairly simple shapes it can be quite effective - wheels and that sort of thing mould quite well, and after the initial outlay on a mould making material, it is quite cheap.

 

More as and when.

Edited July 3, 2019 by PeterB

[stevej60]

Good luck with this one Pete,those pilots look ill!

[TonyW]

Another one I built back in the day. I thought the kit was a huge improvement to the then current Airfix offering. The radar array on the nose lasted a day or two as I recall, it took longer to line it all up in the first place.

[PeterB]

Here is my ancient Bf 110 G4d - I did not use a varnish finishing coat in those days so not only has it faded but some of the decs have come off - you can see the original blue underneath, which I would now consider far too bright.

 

Given its age, I have always though Frog did a pretty good job on the SN-2 Radar aerials - even got them slanting instead of straight up and down, but then they may have seen the one in the RAF Museum collection, which I believe is the only one left. Like I said in the Me 410 build, my hands were steadier then and I could paint canopy frames pretty well.

Edited July 4, 2019 by PeterB

[Greg Law]

That looks like a good restoring project.

[PeterB]

It's on my list Greg. Basically it just needs stripping, and an undercarriage being made, and repainting, just like my Hornet though I doubt I will have time to do it in parallel with this build (unlike the Hornet which is already stripped and repainted). We will see. At least I have spare decs and radar aerials from the new kit, as they are not likely to survive the stripping.

Edited July 4, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Ok, so I am a lazy modeller sometimes. I could easily have made the cockpit floor and seats from plasticard, but I cast them in resin instead. The seats were a bit risky as the plastic is very thin, but I got away with it - the Composi-Mold I use needs to be heated to around 60ºC to make it runny, and it has been known to melt the plastic “masters” before now, but this time I put them in my freezer for a couple of hours before pouring in the mould material. On the down side the cooking oil I used as a release agent seems to have coagulated in the freezer so the floor is a bit bumpy so in future I will only put it on the masters just before use. I will still have to make a couple of card bulkheads and an instrument panel. The pic below shows them with a bit of cleaning up still to do.

 

 

I know you can buy moulding kits with silicone rubber for the mould and thin pouring resin (as seen in modelling mags) but they are quite expensive, and although the rubber moulds can be used quite a few times with care, they will only produce the one thing, whereas Composi -Mold can be re-melted and used for a new mould. The makers say you can use it up to 50 times, and as I seldom use more than 1/3 of a tub, I am good for quite a few more castings for an initial outlay of around £17. Also I use cheap car resin from Halfords, which sets in 30 minutes, unlike the “clear” moulding resin I paid £16 for a couple of years ago which took up to a week to set no matter how carefully I mixed it. I was hoping to use it to make canopies but it dried a milky white, and it only had a shelf life of a year, so I eventually chucked it. The only real advantage it had was that it was thinner and runnier than the car resin so it was easier to make thin items like undercarriage struts, but they were so fragile it was not worth the effort.

 

Anyway, back to more "normal" modelling methods now and I will see what I can do with the cockpit interior. I will remove the various ledges Frog moulded in the fuselage for their idea of a floor and see if my replacement can be made to fit – if not I have wasted 15 minutes if you don't count the waiting time. The only thing I am not sure about is whether or not to add a third seat. The G was a 3 seater when used for night fighting, but can't confirm definitely if only a 2 seater for day fighting. May have to add a seat in the middle.

 

Thanks for watching.

 

Edited July 6, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

As you will see I removed the ledges Frog moulded in the cockpit and persuaded my cast resin floor to fit. I have added a couple of bulkheads, an instrument panel, a control column and the 2 rear seats. All previous models except the radar equipped F4 were normally 2 seaters with the gunner doubling up as radio operator and presumably navigator, but towards the end of the war Allied fighters were prowling the skies of Germany and the gunner had to concentrate on his defensive weapons, so a third crew member seems to have been added in the F4 and G series, to navigate and operate the radio, and also radar when fitted.

 

 

I will add the pilot's seat when the fuselage is closed up as I need to add a fairing over the bulkhead behind the pilot's compartment. I have drilled out the blast troughs for the MG151 cannon under the nose, and will do the same for the 30mm MK 108 cannon in the top section before I fit it. I will then add some short lengths of brass tube to represent the barrels.  The only major work to be done now is on the wheel wells and undercarriage legs.

 

See you later and thanks for watching.

[Greg Law]

Doing well with this one Pete. 

[AdrianMF]

I like the castings! Like you, I’ve dabbled with the real thing but now I use Oyumaru, a rubbery plastic that softens in hot water, as a mould material and fill the moulds with leftover Milliput. The cockpit looks great.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

Never heard of that Adrian - sounds like a good idea. The stuff I use was apparently intended as a mould for making things like cake ornaments but then expanded to jewellery and kits. The only downside is the temperature, but most things are OK at 50-60C. They do make a mould material for use with sculptors clay so that might work with milliput. I must look this Oyumaru up.

 

Later - looks good and a lot cheaper than the stuff I am using. When I first started moulding I tried Play Doh and Plasticine but they sprang back a little when the master was taken out - this Oyumaru stuff looks a lot better. How good is it for small things, for example could it be used to mould props?

 

Incidentally, is that how you made the seats for your Masters?

Edited July 9, 2019 by PeterB

[AdrianMF]

3 hours ago, PeterB said:

is that how you made the seats for your Masters?

Nah, that was all strips of plastic card - much quicker!

 

Here it is in raw form (the blocks) and making some Milliput wheel hubs and mouldings for a mirror restoration job I had recently:

 

So it's better for big bits and I don't think I would be able to get it to work for a propeller, for example.

 

I think it's aimed at some Japanese hobby market for moulding key ring items or similar, so you get it in crazy colours, including glitter (my favourite, obvs).

 

There will be an attempt at copying a Frog Blenheim Mercury engine on my Miles Masters thread shortly, but only after I've finished work for the day and then done some 1:1 scale Tetrion moulding work for Mrs MF!

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

 

[mike romeo]

Looking forward to this.  The Bf110G was one of my earliest FROG builds, although in a Revell box.

 

There's just something about radar aerials and DB605s that looks so 'meant'.

 

Regards

 

Martin

[mike romeo]

I also 'liked' that the main gear legs have a hook that slots in on the upper side of the gear well fronts.

 

Methinks it was a Friday afternoon when that feature was designed.

 

Regards

 

Martin

[PeterB]

Martin - the gear struts are OK as far as they go but will need several extra struts adding and the scissors drilling out, none of which should prove too difficult (I hope). I think I will treat it to one of my bought sets of resin wheels which should look somewhat better than the kit offerings.

[mike romeo]

2 hours ago, PeterB said:

Martin - the gear struts are OK as far as they go but will need several extra struts adding and the scissors drilling out, none of which should prove too difficult (I hope). I think I will treat it to one of my bought sets of resin wheels which should look somewhat better than the kit offerings.

I'm sure it will look great with your mods, Peter.  It was how it attached to the nacelle that gave me fits way back when.

 

Regards

 

Martin

 

 

[PeterB]

As you can see the fuselage is now together and the upper nose, pilots seat and fairing added. There has been a slight change of plan as when I checked the nose, Frog have actually hollowed out the MK108 ballels slightly so I won't bother replacing them.

 

 

Next up is the wings which need work in the wheel bays - currently they are see through so I will have to put in a bulkhead behind the underside air intake, and also possibly at the rear, and fit a roof.

 

 

You can see the "socket" for the gear leg at the front of the cut out, and also the shrouded exhausts at the top left of the sprue. Frog would have you cut off the individual exhaust stacks and glue them in place when building a day fighter! I don't think that is a very good idea so I am going to use resin replacements. I may have to do some adjustments to the fit of the lower wing after butchering the fuselage to get my resin floor in - time will tell.

 

More in a day or two.