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BF 109E-3/E-4 - Battle of Britain Aces


nimrod54

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After a chat with @Hockeyboy76 yesterday, I decided that I would have a crack at my first Blitzenbuild. A hunt in the stash brought this 1/144 Armoury boxing of 109's out as candidates. I had originally bought this boxing as possible builds for the Battle of Britain GB, but in the end decided that I couldn't squeeze them in. The only work that I did at the time, was to prime the etch fret with some Halfords Etch Primer which should help to bind the topcoats to the metal parts.

 

Mrs N is out on a hack for a couple of hours on Boxing day, so I should be able to make some good progress. 🤞

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

 

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On 25/12/2020 at 10:04, JOCKNEY said:

That's an amazing number of decals and clear parts for just 2 kits, looks like a really good kit.

Best of luck.

 

Cheers Pat 

 

There are plenty of options Pat. In addition to the colour profiles above, there are another two pages to choose from along with three canopy choices - listed as reinforced windscreen, late and early with open or closed options for each.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

Whilst the box states that these are 'Battle of Britain Aces' some of the subject dates given are a bit loose, so more checks would be needed to confirm things depending on the subject choice. I will be picking a couple of options and won't be bothering about accuracy this time around, which will probably have the rivet counters squirming :winkgrin: - if anyone looking in falls into that category, then perhaps it is best to look away now. :lol:

 

Just off to wash the sprues before making a start.

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Just before midday, I had the sprues washed and I was ready for the off.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

And just after 1:00pm I had one of the fuselages cleaned up and glued and a set of wings prepared and ready for assembly.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

With a short break for lunch (Turkey Sandwich 🥱), it was on to the next stage of assembling and fitting the cockpit and fixing the wings in place. By 06:45 I had both kits built to the same stage, and it was time for a Boxing Day buffet for two. It is strange not having the rest Mrs N's family to join us this year, and preparations have certainly been more relaxed, no curry for me to prepare this year. But that has meant that I have been able to join in the Blitzenbuild.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

After a bite to eat, I managed to get a first coat of blue on the undersides and fuselage sides and then decided to call it a day for today.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

 

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1 minute ago, Adam Poultney said:

These kits are soon to be obsolete with Beacon Models' brand new 1/144 tooling of the Emil coming, which I am thoroughly looking forward to getting my hands on.

 

That is good to hear Adam, I hope that there are some better decals. There are plenty of options in the Armoury boxing, but they are very fragile. I tried to fix the instrument decals in place earlier but they disintegrated. I will have a go at brushing some Liquid Decal Film across a couple tomorrow to see if that helps.

 

John

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7 minutes ago, nimrod54 said:

 

That is good to hear Adam, I hope that there are some better decals. There are plenty of options in the Armoury boxing, but they are very fragile. I tried to fix the instrument decals in place earlier but they disintegrated. I will have a go at brushing some Liquid Decal Film across a couple tomorrow to see if that helps.

 

John

I believe they are going to Cartograph for decals, so good quality and many many schemes. If you have an Instagram account it's worth following on there as they often post and engage with modellers on there  

Edited by Adam Poultney
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the day got off to a good start this morning with our usual breakfast for a Sunday of porridge with banana and some berries left over from last night, and honey. Once again I apologise to our 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿modelling friends for desecrating one of their national dishes, but this is how I like my porridge. :)

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

Then after sorting a few jobs out for Mrs N and with the BEA clock flying towards 01:00pm it was time to start todays 'The Great Escape' session, this was how I left things last night.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

I have brushed on a second coat blue and that is drying, and after having a set of the kits instrument panel decals break up on me yesterday, I brushed a couple of coats of Liquid Decal Film over them, hopefully that will have helped sort things out. I will check to see if it has worked later. 

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

OK! Tea Break is over! Time to get back to it.

 

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2 hours ago, Hockeyboy76 said:

There coming along nicely dude. Boxing Day buffet looks nice. We had “leftovers” curry today. 

 

Cheers buddy. I think that I will be making a curry with the leftovers tomorrow. This was our meal tonight, and I should say a quick thank you to Mrs. N for preparing food, so that I can continue building.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

Painting continued after the earlier update. and having got as far as I wanted I decided to call it a day for today, leaving around 7hrs for my final stint tomorrow.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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I started todays session around midday and this is how I left things last night. About 15mins later I had removed the masking and was ready to start paint touch ups and more detail part painting.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

By mid afternoon I had completed most of the work, including the addition of the undercarriage legs - and it was time for a late lunch break.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

Thirty minutes later it was time for me to push on with the decaling which would prove to be quite tedious. After having a decal break up earlier in the build I coated the sheet with some Liquid Decal film. This now meant that the decals were no longer susceptible to breaking up, but one disadvantage is that the decal is coated in a continuous film. This means that each decal must be trimmed as close as possible to the image to remove excess film. This was as far as I had got after a couple of hours, and it was time for our evening meal... the last of the turkey in a curry tonight.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

I had finished adding the decals by around 08:45pm, and having exceeded the 24 hours allowed by some distance I decided to call it a day.

 

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by John L, on Flickr 

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

Yet another blitzbuild miss, but I will get these finished off tomorrow.

 

 

 

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On 29/12/2020 at 09:39, Hockeyboy76 said:

Another close one. Great work again dude. 

 

Cheers buddy, I have finished them off tonight, adding the etch aileron mass balances and pitot, the aerial mast and a wire.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

First up is this Bf 109E-3, < + -, of II/JG 3 flown by Franz von Werra, shot down over Kent on 10.05.1940.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

The second one I finished as a Bf 109E-7 White 8+ of 1/JG 26 piloted by Josef 'Pips' Priller, late 1940.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

 

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