AZ Model Bf109 F - weekend quick build ***Finished 24/12/20***

[SimonL]

It’s been a long time since I have done an aircraft build thread, but with the start of the summer vacation, and making progress on some vehicles this last week I felt like getting back to aircraft. My local hobby shop has just had a big restock, and in amongst the new kits was this.

 

The box top scheme really tickled my fancy, so I grabbed one.

 

Looks reasonably straightforward:

 

 

Plan is to do a straightforward quick build over the weekend before the Christmas shenanigans starts. I’m going to make due with the paints I have in stock, so it may be that the colours will be a bit off.

 

So, making a start at 10 am after the Saturday morning chores, first job is to glue all the parts of the cockpit using Tamiya extra thin cement. After a quick check with the exhausts, it looks like they can be added later from the outside. Just in case, I glued some plastic card on the inside so when I do add them I don’t push them all the way through by accident.

 

 

Then on with some paint with brushes, using Tamiya XF-24 for the inside of the cockpit. The propeller hub received a coat of Tamiya X-7. That’s the state of play at 12 noon.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by SimonL

[Jochen Barett]

Let me try to help ... slow you down.

 

Here

is a link to a nice web site containing several albums. Some of these do show the real thing

https://saafww2pilots3.yolasite.com/robbie-robinson-photographs.php

http://saafww2photographs.yolasite.com/peter-metelerkamp-1.php

(and maybe more from members of the 1 sqdn)

[SimonL]

Oh thanks Jochen 🙂 plenty to look through! Progress wa a bit slower than intended this afternoon - but warm here in Perth. Christmas Eve is looking a bit gruesome, but Christmas Day should be perfect!

 

 

 

Glued the wings together and painted the wheel wells Tamiya XF-22. Got some minor detail painting in the cockpit done - not overdoing it as it won’t be very visible once the fuselage is closed up. A gloss coat with floor polish and then a wash with diluted oils (a mix of Payne’s grey and burnt umber). And that’s it at 7 pm. Time for dinner.

 

 

 

note to self - must trim my nails.

[tonyot]

Very Nice Simon,..... I have this one to build myself,...... looking forward to seeing how you get on. 

[fishplanebeer]

By coincidence I'm currently building the AZ Bf109-F4 along with the Zvezda F-2 for comparison and having some issues with the AZ kit.

 

It might just be my rustiness as I've been away from the hobby for 25 years but I found the AZ kit has a poor parts fit with a distinct step at the wing/fuselage joint plus the cowling top piece is not a particularly good fit either. In addition you have to be very careful with the wing trailing edges at the points where they mate with the fuselage as the plastic is quite thin and it's not too difficult to damage it leaving an awkward repair job using slivers of plastic card and liquid putty. And finally my example lacked the pitot tube so had to source an aftermarket example although stretched sprue would also suffice.

 

By comparison the Zvezda kit has no real issues and fits pretty well so the AZ kit has now been parked pending my urge to have another Friedrich some time in the future. That said on the positive side the AZ kit is well molded with fine detail and my issues may be more of my own making possibly.

 

Regards

Colin.

 

Ps. the AZ decals in my 'Marseilles' version have a very thick carrier film making them unusable but yours seem to be far better quality

[SimonL]

12 hours ago, tonyot said:

Very Nice Simon,..... I have this one to build myself,...... looking forward to seeing how you get on. 

Thanks Tony! So far, so good.

 

4 hours ago, fishplanebeer said:

By coincidence I'm currently building the AZ Bf109-F4 along with the Zvezda F-2 for comparison and having some issues with the AZ kit.

 

It might just be my rustiness as I've been away from the hobby for 25 years but I found the AZ kit has a poor parts fit with a distinct step at the wing/fuselage joint plus the cowling top piece is not a particularly good fit either. In addition you have to be very careful with the wing trailing edges at the points where they mate with the fuselage as the plastic is quite thin and it's not too difficult to damage it leaving an awkward repair job using slivers of plastic card and liquid putty. And finally my example lacked the pitot tube so had to source an aftermarket example although stretched sprue would also suffice.

 

By comparison the Zvezda kit has no real issues and fits pretty well so the AZ kit has now been parked pending my urge to have another Friedrich some time in the future. That said on the positive side the AZ kit is well molded with fine detail and my issues may be more of my own making possibly.

 

Regards

Colin.

 

Ps. the AZ decals in my 'Marseilles' version have a very thick carrier film making them unusable but yours seem to be far better quality

 

thanks for the heads up Colin. So far no issues, but I haven’t got to those tricky bits yet. The decals are very thin, and strong - which was very helpful when manipulating the seatbelts into place (so far the trickiest part of the build).

 

Started early this morning, which is a beautiful one here in Perth. Here is the view from my breakfast seat in the front yard.

 

First task was a little dry brushing in the cockpit with Tamiya XF-20 (I’d flat coated it last thing last night with some Italeri Acryl flat clear). Then glueing the cockpit parts into one fuselage half before mating that to the other fuselage side. Went together pretty well.
 

 

 

Gave the propeller hub another coat of X-7 and painted the propeller XF-59 (NATO black) and the wheels XF-85 (Rubber black).

 

 

and that’s the state of play at 8 am Sunday morning.

[SimonL]

Midday update. After tidying up the seams, on goes the cowling top piece and supercharger inlet and filter. Needed a little smidgen of filler for the inlet, easily fixed with some Mr Surfacer 500, with the excess wiped away with a cotton bud soaked in Mr Color Thinner. Spinner and propeller put together as well.

 

 

Wings on, and held in place with some tape while the cement cures.

 

 

Seams need a bit of extra work, but looking pretty good

Edited December 20, 2020 by SimonL

[SimonL]

3:45 pm That’s it for today - the annual Christmas street party this evening. Usually kind of take it for granted, but not this year.

Main construction done, just some cleaning up of seams to do. Slightest step between the wing and fuselage - hopefully a bit of Mr Surfacer 500 will deal with that. Painting starts tomorrow!

 

 

[SimonL]

Spent to today painting on and off. Here is where I am at this evening. The only light blue I had was an Italeri Acryl RLM 76, which brushed on nicely over an undercoat of Tamiya XF-20 as a primer (the Italeri paints have a nasty habit of “fish-eyeing” without a primer). For the topsides I used Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow - and was nearly undone! Some point in the past I must have thinned this for some reason and I needed three coats to get any coverage. It left the edge between the desert yellow and light blue a bit indistinct, but that’s ok as from the photos of the real aircraft it does appear that there was a “soft” edge between the two colours. Pretty happy in the end how it turned out, although doing the canopy with such thinned paint will be a drag.

 

 

[fishplanebeer]

Simon,

 

Clearly your build skills are somewhat better than mine as yours has gone together really well and I'm now more than mildly annoyed with my lack of dexterity as the kit looks really good, (perhaps I'll now invest in another one for the New Year and have another bash). I think my issue with the wing root join was that I increased the dihedral perhaps a little too much as it seemed too flat when taken out of the box so I proceeded to bend the lower wing part some more under warm water.

 

I really like the brush worked paint job as well as I have to resort to an airbrush which I'm no expert at using, especially when it comes to the lighter colours such as white and yellow which seem to take multiple coats to obtain coverage and then leave a ridge when I remove the masking tape.

 

Any way I'm looking forward to seeing the final results of your labours so that I can see what can be done with a bit more patience and skill.

 

Have a great Xmas and New Year!

 

Regards

Colin.

[Jochen Barett]

4 hours ago, SimonL said:

Spent to today painting on and off. Here is where I am at this evening. The only light blue I had was an Italeri Acryl RLM 76, which brushed on nicely over an undercoat of Tamiya XF-20 as a primer (the Italeri paints have a nasty habit of “fish-eyeing” without a primer). For the topsides I used Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow - ---

 

You made the call for a quick build, so there is not time to (scientifically) argue wether the South Africans used looted RLM 79 or Italian paint found at Martuba or Sky or Azure or a mix of insgnia blue (or special Maltese Spitfire-blue) and white when painting over the old tactical markings. But quite a few people would like to talk about that 😉

 

(it looks good, but for proper RLM 76 it is not grey enough)

[fishplanebeer]

Simon,

 

As a quick build I don't think the actual shade of RLM79 is crucial as your paint job so far certainly creates the right effect, which is what it's all about. If folks wish to debate the intricacies of exact colour shades for historical accuracy then so be it but for me at least if it looks right then that's what I'm after.

 

My first model for 25+ years, a SH P-40 Kittyhawk, was finished recently and there were varying opinions about the precise colour to use for the Mid Stone and Dark earth camouflage but in the end I went with what I had in my paint stash and it ended up looking typical of what it looked like in the desert in 1941-42, so happy days.

 

Regards

Colin.

[SimonL]

10 hours ago, fishplanebeer said:

Simon,

 

Clearly your build skills are somewhat better than mine as yours has gone together really well and I'm now more than mildly annoyed with my lack of dexterity as the kit looks really good, (perhaps I'll now invest in another one for the New Year and have another bash). I think my issue with the wing root join was that I increased the dihedral perhaps a little too much as it seemed too flat when taken out of the box so I proceeded to bend the lower wing part some more under warm water.

 

I really like the brush worked paint job as well as I have to resort to an airbrush which I'm no expert at using, especially when it comes to the lighter colours such as white and yellow which seem to take multiple coats to obtain coverage and then leave a ridge when I remove the masking tape.

 

Any way I'm looking forward to seeing the final results of your labours so that I can see what can be done with a bit more patience and skill.

 

Have a great Xmas and New Year!

 

Regards

Colin.

Thanks for the kind comments. We all get those kits that just don’t seem to work. Don’t have the space for airbrushing, so I am a dedicated brush painter. The only exception is if I have large areas of white or silver to do - and then it’s Tamiya rattle cans (very dependent on the weather). Have a great Christmas as well.

 

7 hours ago, Jochen Barett said:

You made the call for a quick build, so there is not time to (scientifically) argue wether the South Africans used looted RLM 79 or Italian paint found at Martuba or Sky or Azure or a mix of insgnia blue (or special Maltese Spitfire-blue) and white when painting over the old tactical markings. But quite a few people would like to talk about that 😉

 

(it looks good, but for proper RLM 76 it is not grey enough)

 

All very valid points 😜 but as you note - it’s a quick build using only what I have available. But hey - the paint is Italian! 

[SimonL]

After a couple of brushed on coats of floor polish it was time to get the decals on. On the whole they behaved very well, although had some issues with the question marks as they broke. Once left for a few hours they have settled down extremely well into the surface detail.

 

From the photos of the actual aircraft I can’t see any stencils, and as it was repainted on capture I am going to assume that they didn’t reinstate the stencils. So that’s my excuse for not putting them on 😆

 

 

[SimonL]

Time for a little weathering. Some oils diluted in white spirit was slapped. Always has me a little worried as to what the end result is.

 

 

Excess was wiped off with a tissue. I also used an oil wash on the undercarriage and inside the wheel wells. I was intending to spray a flat coat using a Tamiya rattle can - but it’s was a balmy 40 degrees Celsius outside so instead I brushed on a couple of coats of Italeri Acryl Clear Flat. Looks pretty good to me. Just the little bits left to add on. I’ve used a diluted mix of Italeri Acryl sand and dark earth to make the wheels look a bit dusty.

 

 

 

Canopy isn’t the greatest, but best I could do with the overthinned Tamiya Desert Yellow. Should be done tomorrow.

 

 

[neil5208]

Looks good, I haven't got any late model Bf109's as yet will look at the az kit.

[SimonL]

And its finished. Last bits glued on. From the photos of the actual aircraft it looks like the reverse of the propeller blades have the top part stripped (by the effects of sand?) back to what I assume is bare metal, so I tried to simulate this with some Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminium. More photos later in RFI.