Reich Defence Gustav By Tamiya

[Retired Bob]

I have had this kit in the stash for a couple of years and picked up some additional bits for it during that time, a Yahu instrument panel made for this kit, some Eduard resin exhausts with p/e shields. Eduard steel seatbelts and a Quickboost resin propeller spinner and blades.  I will have a look through my AM decal sheets to see which markings I will use.

I have several Reich Defence decal sheets to choose a set of markings from including the scheme on the Tamiya box art.

Thanks for looking, any comments or questions are always welcome,

[Col.]

Welcome to the GB Bob. The Tamiya kit is bound to be a good one and your extras will add some nice finishing detail to it.

[Retired Bob]

I have made my decision on a scheme for my Gustav, yellow 1, flown by Staffelkapitan Lt. Alfred Hammer of 6./JG 53.  Operating from Wien-Seyring, February 1944.  The aircraft was camouflaged in standard day colours of RLM 74/75/76 with a red Reich Defence band, white rudder, black and white spiral spinner and the JG 53 ace of spades badge either side of the engine cowling.

I have the Sqadron/Signal Bf 109G walk around book to help with painting and detailing the cockpit and other areas.  Time to fire up the airbrush!

 

[Retired Bob]

It took me a bit longer than I thought to get the cockpit parts sprayed up with RLM 66 as the usual Tamiya bug bear had to be sorted first...ejector pin marks, just in the fuselage halves there were 50 ejector pin circles, most were in places that will never be seen again and ignored but a few were in plain sight so some filling and scraping were carried out and then paint could be splashed about.  The cockpit floor, seat and other components are a drop fit into the fuselage after everything is painted.

As you can see the cockpit rear deck is a separate part, as are lots of other panels so that a G-10 can be made with the basic kit parts but when Tamiya, when?

As usual for Tamiya every thing fits together without any gaps or need for filler.  The instrument panel shown is the Yahu one

I added the small clear section of the fuel line, now the cockpit rear decking is in place I can fit the shoulder straps to the seat.  The instrument panel is fitted at the same time as the windscreen, quite late in the build but ignore Tamiya's instruction to cut out the holes for the open canopy on the cockpit decking, they have the canopy pivoting on the left sill, we all know that the 109 canopy pivots on the right sill.   Thanks for looking, any questions or comments are always welcome. 

[Steve 1602]

Fab work on the cockpit!

[Mottlemaster]

Wow that cockpit looks so good .  I Will use it as a reference to aim for  for my Eduard g6

[Longbow]

Very clean paint job !!

looking forward to updates !!

[modelling minion]

Cracking cockpit Bob, some fantastic painting and weathering.

Very interested to see how this turns out as it is a kit that I don't have, yet.

[Retired Bob]

30 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

Very interested to see how this turns out as it is a kit that I don't have, yet.

I thought long and hard before buying this kit, (mainly because I have so many Eduard and Hasegawa 109s in this scale) after reading a review I decided it was worth a try, I would have preferred a G-10 but that might be years before it's released, if ever.  It's just the usual Tamiya kit, clean, well fitting but lots of ejector pin marks.

There doesn't seem to be a Hasegawa 1/48th109 kit being built, I may have to change that. 

[Walter]

Agree super clean 

[Longbow]

Come on Bob !!

Pull your finger out !! This should be finished by now 🤣

 

I may have to send you my Trumpeter G2 to work on

 

 

[Ray_W]

Gorgeous cockpit Bob. Well done.

 

Ray

[Retired Bob]

22 hours ago, Longbow said:

Pull your finger out !! This should be finished by now 🤣

I may be retired but today was spent digging my sons garden so not much done on the 109, the fuselage has been glued together and the tail planes added, the rudder has just been pushed into place as it will be sprayed white.  The engine block has to be added so the exhausts can be fitted.  The wings went together without any problems and the wheel wells have been painted RLM 02, the gun pods have also just been pushed on as I intend to replace the solid plastic barrels with some brass tube.  The wing and radiator flaps can positioned either up or down, I will be fitting them lowered, after I have cleaned up the ejector pin marks. 

 

22 hours ago, Longbow said:

I may have to send you my Trumpeter G2 to work on

I've learned the hard way so I don't make Trumpeter kits anymore. 🤣

[Johnson]

That looks great Bob, superb cockpit and your build progressing really well.

[Retired Bob]

Todays update, I added the flaps and coolant radiators with their flaps, all lowered, chopped off the barrels on the gun pods and drilled them out ready to fit some brass ones, I also have Master barrels for the 13mm cowling guns.  Next was the engine cowlings and supercharger scoop, Tamiya has made the kit with 2 sets of engine covers so that you can swop between the engine closed up or have it open for display using nylon bushes and a couple of small magnets, seems like a throwback to the 60s to me, they will be putting in a small electric motor to turn the propeller next.  

 

As can be seen, there are some access panels that are not for this variant and need filling, some more on the fuselage as well.  Turning it over, it's starting to look like a G6 with its bumps, the panels at the front of the cockpit are attached to the windscreen, then just clip into position.  Once I have cleaned up the resin exhausts I'm just going to glue all the engine covers together.

Now where are those Eduard exhausts

 

[Longbow]

Nice update Bob !!

 

(Its about time)

[Retired Bob]

8 minutes ago, Longbow said:

(Its about time)

WHAT!....You want more than 1 update a day, you were not this needy when we were building tanks. 

[Mottlemaster]

Excellent progress Bob . Im around 4 months away from retirement so i hope i can look forward to makeing faster progress on my kits . First thing i will do is give both of my Sons lessons in double digging so for ever after they can dig their own gardens and when they have done theirs they can dig mine so i can sit at my bench trimming plastic while i can watch them work ............perfect day .

 

Cheers Alistair

[Retired Bob]

On 05/06/2021 at 08:19, Mottlemaster said:

Excellent progress Bob . Im around 4 months away from retirement so i hope i can look forward to makeing faster progress on my kits . First thing i will do is give both of my Sons lessons in double digging so for ever after they can dig their own gardens and when they have done theirs they can dig mine so i can sit at my bench trimming plastic while i can watch them work ............perfect day .

Nice idea Alistair, but you know that when they need your help it's difficult to say no.  My son, having bought a new build house, I suggested he just lays some gravel over it so as he didn't have to do any gardening.  I have done this before, on a smaller area so I offered to help, it' heavy clay, like digging through plasticine, another week and it will be done. (or I will be) 

[Mottlemaster]

1 hour ago, Retired Bob said:

Nice idea Alistair, but you know that when they need your help it's difficult to say no.  My son, having bought a new build house, I suggested he just lays some gravel over it so as he didn't have to do any gardening.  I have done this before, on a smaller area so I offered to help, it' heavy clay, like digging through plasticine, another week and it will be done. (or I will be) 

I expect that being a new build the construction company stripped all the top soil off and sold it to the people who brought their previous development .

If you apply agricultural lime to the soil it will help it break up (i think its called flockulation). Any way better get a move on otherwise ,like Milliput it will set hard

[Retired Bob]

2 hours ago, Mottlemaster said:

 Any way better get a move on otherwise ,like Milliput it will set hard

Too late, after a very wet May, the recent hot weather has set the turned over clay as hard as rock. 

[sampanzer]

10 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

Too late, after a very wet May, the recent hot weather has set the turned over clay as hard as rock. 

 

 

13 hours ago, Mottlemaster said:

I expect that being a new build the construction company stripped all the top soil off and sold it to the people who brought their previous development .

If you apply agricultural lime to the soil it will help it break up (i think its called flockulation). Any way better get a move on otherwise ,like Milliput it will set hard

 

I have the same problem in my garden... Very interested in the lime idea, does that really help the clay soil??

We used slaked lime in the army to treat dirty water, lime formed a flock on top of the water tank and sank taking all the dirt with it..

[Retired Bob]

1 minute ago, sampanzer said:

lime formed a flock on top of the water tank

Language! 🤣  Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Not sure about adding the lime to break up the clay, I always thought it was adding sharp sand that helped with that.  To be honest, once we have levelled the whole back garden we are just covering it with weed suppression mesh and a layer of slate chippings.

[sampanzer]

11 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

Language! 🤣  Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Not sure about adding the lime to break up the clay, I always thought it was adding sharp sand that helped with that.  To be honest, once we have levelled the whole back garden we are just covering it with weed suppression mesh and a layer of slate chippings.

I had heard of the sharp sand too... my garden won't be covered, apart from new turf when I get that far!! My other half is a keen gardener, but I have the heavy work to do so she can be keen!!

 

[Retired Bob]

A quick update on my progress with the Tamiya Bf 109.  I am getting all the time consuming parts done now so they don't hold me up at the end.  I have experimented with different spirals to match the photo of the real aircraft, applied the red defence band and the white rudder.  I just have to add the brake pipes to the undercarriage legs and mask the canopy then I will be ready to apply the camouflage paint.  Any comments or questions are welcome.