Jump to content

Ju 88 A-1 (sort of)***FINISHED***


Recommended Posts

I decided it would be easier to get in and paint the underside of the wings before I glued them on to the fuselage.

DSC03569-crop

I have used Xtracrylic RLM 65, together with Mr Hobby RLM 70 and 71. As you can see I have also put on the crosses as they have to be cut to go round the dive brakes. In his book on Luftwaffe camo and markings Ullmann has an instruction dated from 1943 stating that on twin engined planes the centre of the underwing crosses should be at the mid point between the outer edge of the engine nacelle and the wing tip, but Hannants decal instructions, together with photographic evidence suggest that they were much closer to the engines at this date. I will apply the black letter "B" decs outboard of the crosses later in the build. Once the decs have had a couple of coats of varnish and are dry I will think about closing the dive brakes and maybe filling the holes their hinges go into.

 

As you can see on the Xtradecal instruction sheet under the wings, Hannants have put the formation recognition bars on the tail and wings of all 3 bombers - Ju 88A-1, He 111H-2, and over the page the Do 17Z-1. Now I know that they did exist  but how common they were is subject to debate. However, all the evidence I have seen says they were mainly white, though I have seen yellow mentioned. Hannants however have decided to print them in pink! When I first got this set of decs I seem to remember that they said they were not sure about the colour but had gone with the pink shown in a certain reference , but unfortunately I have mislaid the page in question. As they admit to the uncertainlty, it would have perhaps made sense to include both pink and white stripes - they may be correct as the plane in question was shot down over England so may have been subject to a crash report, however, I think I will omit them as I don't like them! 

DSC03570-crop

 So a bit later and I am starting to get there - no more alterations to make. The wing joints look reasonable but will need a touch of filler, and then I can press on with the painting. Incidentally I believe there is a mistake on the painting instructions for the Xtradecals - they show a white circle at the top of the fuselage behind the wing, which I presume is intended to be the aerial for the Peilgerät "suppressed" radio D/F system , but the A-1 the decals are for did not have it  according to the Kagero book on the Ju 88 - the A-4 introduced it I believe. I am going to have to use a bit of artistic licence with the splinter pattern as neither the Decal sheet pics nor those in any of my references show the sides of the fuselage from the wing trailing edge to the nose - the wing and engines get in the way!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Main painting done though a bit of tidying up to do.

DSC03578-crop

In real life the greens are a bit more yellow. As far as I can work out the 88 had its navigation lights in little blisters at the end of the wings so as with my Emils I have created them using some very old and rather constipated Krystal Kleer. Should be able to start putting the rest of the decs on soon. Not much left to go on now.

 

Pete

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks good Peter B) 

 

If your Kristal Kleer is getting too gloopy to use you can thin it with tap water :)  I've diluted mine with an eye-dropper-full of water several times over the years, as you never use much of it in one go, and I'm too tight to buy a new bottle every couple of years :D 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys,

 

Stew - I have a newer bottle I use for glazing but I found the old one useful for making knobs on the end of levers, lights etc where I need it thick so it does not settle back.

 

Greg. As I mentioned in another build thread, most of the paint I have seen/used for RLM 65 seems to be the later and darker shade, not the 1938 version used during the BoB which is closer to Humbrol Hu 65 - often wondered if somebody was being clever when they chose that number for their "aircraft blue"?

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Touching up nearly finished so I should get the decs on tomorrow.

DSC03584-crop

This gives a better impression of the colours as they really are, though it needs to be shot in daylight for full accuracy as they now look a little light. Looking at it from this angle, my first reaction was that something is wrong - the ground angle looks very steep so I thought maybe Airfix got the u/c legs too long. However, comparing it with the Do-217E I built a couple of months back in another GB, the cockpit is at about the same height. The difference is that whereas the 217 has a shoulder wing with a deep forward fuselage, the 88 has a very slim fuselage and low wing. Also, it has a somewhat shorter fuselage so that also contributes to the angle on the ground. I think is is probably about right, and the legs will look a bit less "stalky" once the forward wheel doors go on. As predicted the exhausts are still not quite right but do look better in camo than when in primer. The props are painted as are the bombs, so other than sorting the glazing and guns there is not much left to do.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I managed to get the decs on, except for the gruppe badge on the nose - I still have some work to do there first.

DSC03594-crop

When I was a kid I always painted the transparent parts on the kit, but for many years I tried to paint them on the sprue, and more recently supported on a piece of blue or white tac - the latter is supposedly non greasy so better to use. Unfortunately the Airfix nose glazing had such indistinct frame lines that I decided to revert to painting it on the model. I have also fitted the landing light cover and the bottom gunners glazing cum entry hatch. I have fett;led the vac form canopy, and once I added a couple of support pieces to the front of the cockpit it fits pretty well - I should be able to paint that before fitting. And yes, the orange looking streak on the Port wing is a reflection off the gloss finish! The ruddy Swastika is big enough!

 

With luck I should get the sway braces/clamps, bombs, wheel doors, Loran towel rail  and rear wheel mudguard on before long and then it is almost done. I will leave the antenna on the port side of the lower fuselage off until I am ready to spray as it will almost certainly get broken otherwise - ditto the radio mast and pitot tube.

 

Nearly there!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have completed the underside.

DSC03596-crop

The bomb racks are designed for the kit bombs so they are not a perfect fit for the ones I borrowed from my Revell Condor, but will have to do. As mentioned earlier I apparently had a choice of light grey, light olive and perhaps Hellblau for the bombs and as you can see I went for grey, rightly or wrongly. I also managed to get the frames painted and the vac form canopy is now on as well, though it might need just a little filling round the edges - it is meant for a C but looks close enough to the early A version to me.

DSC03598-crop

 

When the Ju 88 was originally designed, it was meant to be a "Schnellbomber" which, like the nearly contemporary but slightly smaller Blenheim would be faster than the fighters of the day and it was probably assumed it would be virtually immune from interception, which idea seemed mistakenly confirmed by experience during the Spanish Civil War, The V3 prototype actually acheived a top speed of 323mph in 1937, but by the time the designers had incorporated a massive number of modifications, mostly requested by the Technische Amt, it finally entered service in late 1939 with a top speed of around 280mph at 18000ft. Unfortunately, fighters had developed over the same period, and in terms of the RAF that meant that instead of facing 250mph Gladiators, it would now find itself pitted against much faster Hurricanes and Spitfires, each armed with twice as many guns.

 

As a result, and as I mentioned at the start of this built, it was seriously under-armed. In fact its defensive armament originally was just 3x7.9mm MG15 machine guns, though field modifications doubled that by the end of the Battle of Britain in some examples. In this case I am modelling the original armament with one MG15 mounted in the right hand side of the windscreen – this was originally fixed and fired by the pilot though some seem to have been made flexible and fired by the navigator/bomb aimer presumably as he sat on that side of the cockpit. The other two MG15 were mounted in rotating unarmoured circular glass panels as shown in the nose of the He 111 in the BoB film, one in the rear of the cockpit and manned by the radio operator, and one in the rear of the underside gondola with its own gunner. I have therefore filled in the hole for another gun in the nose glazing from the kit of the A-4 using Krystal Kleer. I have use the kit guns as they are in fact not too bad, having the bag for spent cases underneath, and as my resin MG15 are a mess with the barrels well and truly bent, but I have fitted their saddle type drum magazines!

 

So all that remains is to fit the radio mast, pitot tube and the aerial on the port side of the lower fuselage, and put on the badge of I/KG77 below the cockpit.

 

So now I have to decide what to do next - Ju 87B-1 or Do 17Z. One is the newish Airfix kit with all the detail already there but lots of parts, whilst the other is the Revell rebox of the old Frog kit which will probably need qiute a bit of work on the cockpit interior. Before Enzo chips in, I might manage both but I am also building for the Vietnam GB in parallel with this and the Heller Classic is beginning to loom on the horizon so I might have to limit myself to just 6 builds here. As ever, we will see!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All the bits and pieces are now on and the painting is finished.

DSC03604-crop

Now all I need to do is mask it up and spray a coat of mattish varnish. Given that the start point was a 40+ year old Airfix kit with errors on the engines and props, I have no idea how accurate it is but at least the length and span are about right. Other than that, all I can say is that it approximates to a Ju 88 A-1.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am calling that finished and will post in the Gallery shortly.

DSC03608-crop

The markings come from the Xtradecal BoB sheet and it is said to be an aircraft of Stab I/KG77 based at Laon-Athies in France which was shot down at Hertingfordbury in Hertfordshire on October 3rd 1940. It may not be very accurate, but it looks a darned sight better than the one I did back when the kit was originally released, so perhaps my painting skills have improved a little, and modern paints help.

 

If Airfix had not rather fortuitously got the engines and props wrong, I probably would not have bothered doing this build, but as it turns out it was quite fun. I hope the new fangled Stuka is a bit less fiddly.

 

Thanks for watching.

 

Pete

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • PeterB changed the title to Ju 88 A-1 (sort of)***FINISHED***

Hi Greg,

 

I mentioned the "formation" bands that were in the Xtradecal set in pink, but decided not to use them. I could have done white ones easily enough but didn't bother.

 

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fair enough Pete.  My decals show them as white. However,  I have heard some of then were pink. I'm going to do them white. 

Well I have painted them. I added a tiny bit of red to the flat white. It has turned out white until you catch the light just right and 

then you see a very soft pink. So mine are pink without that nasty colour.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys,

 

As I said I know they did exist but as Graham says the evidence as to exactly what markings were applied is rather thin on the ground. Whatever colour they were I would imagine they were painted in paint that could be washed off easily, and that they would be a bit "crude" so I think decals are too solid a colour and too regular in shape. That is one of the reasons I did not either use the ones Hannants supplied or some white decal strip of my own. I did consider painting them in but frankly could not be bothered. All a matter of personal taste I guess.

 

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Hi,

Can I ask why you used Mr Hobby RLM 70 and 71 as opposed to another brand such as Hannants or Sovereign (matched to Luft charts Merrick/Kiroff) ? 70/71 being a low contrast almost same colour pairing of greens until seen in bright sunlight, where magically they increase in contrast.

 

Cheers

 

Merlin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Merlin

 

Probably because they were the only acrylic paints supposedly of that colour that I had at the time, and I like Mr Hobby/Mr Colour acrylics. Some of their colours might be a bit off but the subject of "accurate paint colours" is a minefield and everybody has their own opinions - I just use whatever I happen to prefer (and have to hand).😁 If Jamie ever gets round to producing Colourcoats in acrylic I may well buy some, but only when I have exhausted my existing large stock - paint is getting expensive! Over 65 or so years of modelling I have built up  stock of over 200 tins of Humbrol, 100 tins of Xtracolour, 50 tins of Colourcoats and a couple of dozen each of Precision and Compucolour - all enamel. Since I switched to Acrylics for drying speed and lack of smell. I have about another 50 or so bottles/pots of Humbrol, Tamiya and Mr Hobby/Colour, call it what you will and that does not include the paint for trains! I can't really justify the expense of buying any more until I really need it.

 

I suspect these were the last kits I used Xtracolour RLM70/71 on about 3 years ago.

DSC00960

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...