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1/48 Hasegawa Ju-87G with extras


MeneMene

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I've started working on the venerable Hasegawa Ju-87 along with lots of aftermarket extras. I'll be using the resin cockpit and radiators from Aires, Brassin MG-81Z, elements from Eduard's zoom PE set, and brass 37mm cannon barrels from Master. I've heard mixed reports about if it's possible to display the canopy open or not, so just in case I have sourced a vacuform canopy if I need it for the pilot's sliding section..

 

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The first step is separating the resin cockpit components from their casting blocks and getting them to fit into the fuselage sidewalls. After a lot of sanding material off of the cockpit floor I think I've achieved a good fit. In the blurry background of the image you can see that I also went ahead and assembled the cannon pods before sawing off the plastic gun barrels.

 

7LbTbGK.jpg

 

The kit comes with no rudder pedals, so I'm using the resin and photoetch that comes with the Aires set to recreate them. As I was working the photoetch parts for the one of the pedals was lost to the carpet monster, so I raided an Eduard Bf-109 kit to steal some plastic pedals to use in their place.

 

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Here the cockpit floor is ready to paint. I've added elements like the control column and various levers. The gunner's seat is a combination of the kit seat basket together with resin replacements for the legs and mounting supports.

 

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Cockpit is primed and ready to paint. I prefer to use a lighter primer for interior spaces on aircraft, especially if the cockpit will be dark as in this aircraft, to give some better visual contrast. I've also sanded off some areas which will be represented with photoetch from the zoom set.

 

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Base coat done with MRP RLM66 and Tamiya German Grey.

 

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Edited by MeneMene
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Be warned that the "seat" where the rear machinguns go, if placed as told in the instructions, won't allow the fuselage to close properly and will leave a gap.

The wing to fuselage join will also have a gap unless you add a piece of sprue under the fuselage. That will level the wings and will give you a flush joint.

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  • Mike changed the title to 1/48 Hasegawa Ju-87G with extras

I do like a nice Kanonevogel ^_^

 

From what I remember the Hasegawa kit is a decent piece of plastic, just a little light on detail for us pampered modellers of today.  That cockpit set and other goodies should do the trick :yes:

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3 hours ago, Sturmovik said:

Be warned that the "seat" where the rear machinguns go, if placed as told in the instructions, won't allow the fuselage to close properly and will leave a gap.

 

You mean as depicted in the Aires instructions? It seems to fit fine now, but I'll keep my eye on it when it's time to close.

 

3 hours ago, Sturmovik said:

The wing to fuselage join will also have a gap unless you add a piece of sprue under the fuselage. That will level the wings and will give you a flush joint.

Good to know, thanks

 

Also, is there any way to edit the thread title? I have 1/488 instead of 1/48, typo.

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Initial paintwork, still plenty to do:

 

budTnqs.jpg

 

Other cockpit components. One area I'm a little confused by is the bulkhead behind the pilot. Based on the resin parts I'm fairly sure that the cutouts are indeed supposed to be filled, probably as extra armor, but I can't find any clear reference of this being done on the real aircraft. There are a bunch of boxes and cables on the back going over the plates so it wouldn't make much sense to cut them out. Speeking of additional armor, I think I'm going to err on the side of no extra fuselage armor, as in the photograph of Rudel's aircraft I've been able to find you can see the fuel/oil stenciling where the armor would have gone, suggesting it was not there.

 

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Planning future work, I'll need to replace these crude triangular slabs with actuator rods. I'll probably make them out of brass rod; the vertical part that connects to the flap/aileron might be a little simplified in shape, but I'm not sure of a better way to represent it. I also need to figure out the neatest/cleanest way to cut them off before replacing them without making a mess.

 

5nvnHPL.jpg

Edited by MeneMene
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Finished painting the cockpit, test-fitting the components here. The fit was a very tight squeeze, and I needed to put the instrument panel in place before closing everything up instead of dropping it in from above afterwards like the instructions suggested. Sorry for the picture quality, it was hard to get light balance with the dark grey.

 

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Tight squeeze, lots of CA glue and tension, but it's all together now. I need to sand down the ledges by the cockpit front, I think they're for a different Stuka version. The pilot seat was quite difficult to get into place after everything was together as well.

 

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I got the Aires radiator set to give some depth/detail to those areas. The kit representation is just the radiator shape stuck over the flat wing surface with no detail beneath. The first step is to measure out where they will go with the provided PE template and then remove the wing surface at these spots.

 

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I used tape to provide a guide to straighten the edges where necessary and dropped some CA glue mixed with talc to fill the gap.

 

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Perfect fit, and a large improvement over the kit representation.

 

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Both radiators in place.

 

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Also of note, the kit decals seem to be from the time when Hasegawa didn't use any white ink and instead left all the white areas as this off cream color. I can make my own stencils for most of them, but the serial number on the tail seems like it might be too small for the Cricut to handle it. Not sure what to do- I haven't been successful in locating any alternate Ju-87G aftermarket decals available for purchase.

Edited by MeneMene
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One option, though not ideal, is to print the Werkenummer onto clear decal paper. You'll need to create the number in a graphics software like Photoshop either from a scanned profile or using a font that is close to what you are looking for. Profiles of Rudel's rig shouldn't be hard to find online.

 

Great work you are doing so far. Will watch with interest.

 

Andy

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11 minutes ago, Crimea River said:

One option, though not ideal, is to print the Werkenummer onto clear decal paper. You'll need to create the number in a graphics software like Photoshop either from a scanned profile or using a font that is close to what you are looking for. Profiles of Rudel's rig shouldn't be hard to find online.

Thanks, I'll keep that option in mind.

 

One thing I'm struggling with at the moment is deciding on if I should or should not add on the applique armor to the fuselage sides. For reference of what I'm talking about, look at Brett Green's build here, where he added armor on either side of the pilot's cockpit:

 

http://hsfeatures.com/features04/ju87g2bg_2.htm

 

Here are some pics of Rudel's aircraft:

 

ju87g_rudel_4.jpg

 

ju87g_rudel_1.jpg

 

ju87g_rudel_2_by_argentinianspotter2-dcr

 

And supposedly the same aircraft after whitewash:

 

ju87_2.jpg

 

In the first two pictures, you can clearly see one of the triangular filling stencils right where the armor should be, which seems to suggest it was absent. However, here, we can see a different Ju-87G that to my eyes has the applique armor, with what looks like the stencil repainted on top of it:

 

Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-655-5976-04,_Russ

Again here:

Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-646-5184-26,_Russ

 

And here is another different Ju-87G with what looks like the applique armor in place, so it seems like we can confirm at least some aircraft had it:

 

d498e7500f64c208f324c6db4ff8b327.jpg

 

Anyways, does anyone else have an opinion/guidance on this? The bottom set of pictures definitely show aircraft with the extra armor and even some with stencils over the armor, so we can't say for sure that Rudel's aircraft did not carry it based on the fact that we see stencils on the picture. On the other hand, the pictures of Rudel's aircraft don't really show anything that clearly looks like the additional armor, but they are also more blurry as well.

 

I'm still leaning towards no, mainly based on how clearly you can see the shadow from the armor in the bottom pictures and how I think I would see a bit more defined shape there in the blurrier Rudel photographs if it was indeed attached, especially on the whitewashed aircraft.

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Got all the crude actuator rods removed without causing too much collateral damage. Some primer will show me if I need more work before I add the new brass actuators.

 

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I also scraped and sanded off the incorrect, rectangular anti-slip areas on the upper wing....

 

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....and replaced them with more accurate anti-slip bars made from thin plastic sheet.

 

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Resin gunsight installed:

 

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Dive handles attached to the inside of the front canopy:

 

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Cockpit is now done after the rear gunner got his back rest:

 

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Here is the current state of the build: I still need to check a few more seams, I suspect the underside still needs a bit more work, primer will tell. After that and once I finish up the radiators and add the flight control actuator rods, we can begin painting.

 

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Replaced the wing and flap actuators with brass rod bent to shape. Not a perfect representation, but the best I can do without fully reconstructing the hinge mount and a lot better than what comes with the kit.

 

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I also glued a length of clear sprue in place to represent the landing light.

 

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Many of the vertical frames of the Ju-87 canopy were inside the plexiglas and remained the interior cockpit color. After giving the canopies a coat of RLM 66, I've now masked off those vertical panel lines so they will remain that color after I paint the camouflage on top.

 

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The rear of the chin radiator had absolutely no detail or internal structure, and I couldn't find any clear photographs or diagrams of what should be back there. So instead of having the entire inside of the nose structure visible through the radiator opening I covered the inside with some black styrene sheet.

 

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All subassemblies in place, ready to paint.

 

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After some black primer:

 

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I also assembled the Master brass 37mm cannons. Next step is to add all the plumbing and cables on the cannon mounts, then paint those.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I added some plumbing and wiring to the cannon pods, and painted them.

 

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Painting started with Gunze RLM 70

 

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LOTS of masking

 

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Basic camouflage done, now to make stencils and paint on the markings

 

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Stumble on your thread just now and I must say you’re going very well with this kit. The details you added from scratch are really nice. I started building this kit (2 years ago I guess), also with Aires cockpit and guns and got stuck when I tried to get the resin inside the fuselage. Later on I purchased the G-1 version Hasegawa also has, so your build is valuable reference for that future build.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok, some progress to report:

 

The kit decals were all yellowed, and that's on top of the weird cream color that Hasegawa decals of this era use to represent white. So instead I made my own masks for the markings. Here are the results:

 

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After a gloss coat in preparation for a wash and stencil decals:

 

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I painted and installed the finely detailed brass 37 mm gun barrels from Master:

 

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I also added a wash and did some weathering/oil stains/exhaust stains with the airbrush. Did not take any pictures of that part, but here is the end result after a flat coat:

 

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One of the final steps is the assembly and installation of the rear-facing MG81z. I'm replacing the kit representation with an Eduard Brassin example, and will attach it to the mount provided by the Aires cockpit set.

 

Here is the assembled gun attached on the aires mount:

 

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And then attached in the cockpit. The hardest part was bending and attaching the photo-etch representing the ammunition feeds, but it's all in place now and somewhat symmetric.

 

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After final paint and a wash:

 

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Final steps will be installation of the rear canopy around the gun barrels, then attaching the ring sights to their mounts on the canopy, and then the antenna and antenna wire. Should be done after that.

Edited by MeneMene
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  • 3 weeks later...

Added pitot made from different sections of aluminum tubing

 

Bk0PE5g.jpg

 

Finished rear gun installation, with opened canopy. Also added the antenna and its wire.

 

CCQYK1f.jpg

 

Build is pretty much done, I'll make a RFI post when I get the change to take some pictures.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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