Axis Aces Sep 2006 - Jun 2007

TryintoModel wrote:

espins1 - what happened?  the previous pictures looked fine.  Your next pictures seem to have been taken well after you originally put the decals on.

I was only about halfway done with the decals, then finished them up last night.  I put some micro set on the fuselage band to get it to settle down a bit, and noticed the balkenkreuzes needed a bit of settling as well.... well, the very thin Hasegawa decals didn't react well.

No biggie, as long as I can get them off I have replacements, or I'll just mask and spray.  I could use the practice anyway with spraying markings. 

I'm going to take a look at the decals again tonight after work.  I'll probably have to strip the decals that have the issues and will just mask and spray them.  It appears that only the Balkenkreuz markings on the upper wings and fuselage sides, along with the yellow band around the rear fuselage are affected.  Should be no big deal to paint, it just irritates me that it's going to add a few more days to the build when I thought I was sliding into home plate..... 

Do any of you have any suggestions as to the easiest way to strip those decals?  Should I just get them really wet, let them soak for a minute then and try to peel/rub them off?

p.s. note to self, don't use Micro Set on very thin Hasegawa decals...... 

Well, the final bits and pieces have been installed (except the propeller assembly, I'm waiting to stick that on last after the landing gear are nice and solidly attached) and all the decals are on. 

I may end up having to strip some of the decals and painting some of the markings as the Micro Set didn't agree with the Hasegawa decals and a few of them wrinkled up something fierce....  

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words. 

Your cockpit looks great Dave! 

Another GB needing to be brought back to the front page.    I think I'm a bit late getting moving on these GBs I guess, lol.  Nice work on that 109, espins!!  Your doing Hartmann's winter camo justice. 

Here is my cockpit progress on my 109.  I'm still trying to decide what ace I'm going to do.  I want to do a desert camo scheme.  The kit comes with decals for a desert camo ace, but it requires you to simulate a painted over aircraft number.  I'm not sure I want that.  However, finding AM decals for a desert camo ace in a Bf-109G-4 hasn't been easy and I'm not sure I want to spend the extra $ for them.  We shall see.

Thanks Darren.  I need to get them to hunker down a little bit over a couple of the vents but I'm afraid to even attempt to put any Microset on them. 

Scott IMHO decaling can be one of the most stressful activities that you can undertake period.  Glad to hear that you made it and by the way you could never tell you had a problem with any of the decals as 109 looks great.

Major progress today.  It's amazing how much time I can get at my workbench when my wife is at a friends house helping her paint! 

The landing gear are finished, the exhausts have been sprayed and about half of the decals are on.  Decal #15, the one with three of the black tulip triangles that goes on the left cowling was brutal!  It ended up splitting up on me while I was holding the model positioning another decal.  Three random sized pieces got on my fingers, the rest were majorly tweaked.  I spent close to thirty minutes trying to get that mess straightened out. But at least now it's fixed.... mostly.  Whew!  

All that's left now is to spray the props black green, install the landing gear sub-assemblies, prop assembly, put on the last remain decals and flat coat. 

Figures I'm the last one...   Those three weeks of no building really set back all my projects.  Oh wait, did Jboutin finish his?  I know he was close to being done recently.

Scott the 109 is looking great so please keep the progress pics coming as I'm really enjoying seeing the build come together.

As far as active builders go I think you might be it.

Cheers 

The gloss coat (Future) has been sprayed, decals are next! 

darson wrote:

Also, how do you mask the wings if paint the wheel wells after the rest of the aircraft is painted?  I'm looking forward to checking out those pics once they are posted. Cheers

Piece of cake. 

This was the first time I did my wheel wells this way and I think I'm going to use this technique from now one. 

1. I used some wide masking tape.  I put the tape on my shirt and removed it a few times to get shirt lint on the sticky side.  This will help minimize the danger of the masking tape pulling up some paint when you remove it. 
2. I placed the strip over the wheel well making sure it was firmly and completely flat on the surface of the lower wing, nice and tight. 
3. I then gently rubbed the wheel well area with my finger so I could easily see the edges of the wheel well from the slight creases that outlined the wheel well. 
4. Using a sharp #11 X-acto blade I sliced the tape right along the edge of the wheel well.  You'll want the knife at a sharp angle, almost parallel to the edge with the point almost straight down and into the wheel well (thus making the handle/blade perpendicular to the surface being cut).  Slice along the edge with a downward slicing motion, pressing firmly along the edge of the wheel well, this will give you a nice, crisp edge.
5. Mixed up the RLM02 and voila!  Nicely painted wheel wells.   

Thanks for the feedback Al, I appreciate it.

Scott thanks for the info on the early 109 color schemes, I'm still a little up in the air about which scheme I go for, but one thing I have decided against is BMF.  The reference photos that I have of Spanish service 109s don't show any panel lines on the fuselage, which means they been puttied over and this putty should show up clearly on a bare metal aircraft.

Also, how do you mask the wings if paint the wheel wells after the rest of the aircraft is painted?  I'm looking forward to checking out those pics once they are posted.

Cheers

Here is a quick photo of the lower cowling after I removed all the masking material.

I finally got the RLM02 sprayed in the wheel wells, and on the landing gear and inner sides of the landing gear doors.  I use Tamiya Acrylics, so my mix for RLM02 used equal quanties of the following = XF-49 Khaki + XF-22 RLM Grey + X-20A Thinner 1 part.

I'll post some pics of the RLM02 and the RLM04 on the cowling underside after I remove the masking tape in a little bit.  

Later today I'm going to tackle the issues around the wheel bulges on the upper wings.  I'll be ready for Future and decals as I finish up the issues around those bulges.

Wow Darren that 190 is VERY nice work!

Al 

crap... I noticed last night as I was checking out my paint job of the RLM04 that my seamwork around the bulges on the upper wing for the larger wheels of the G-14 left much to be desired.  The left one has some cracking in the CA that I used for the seamwork which... well, lets be honest, needs to be fixed.  I'll try and fill it in, and then do a similar patch job with the whitewash like I did on the canopy. 

I've put far too much effort with this build to ignore that seam problem.  Oh well, I think in the future I'm going to prime all my aircraft so I can catch those little glitches earlier.  I unfortunately didn't notice it when I did the gray green and gray violet camo pre-shade.  

Finally some progress to report!  I haven't spent any time at my work bench for at least two weeks, life has been very hectic.

I managed to mask off the lower cowling this and I sprayed the RLM04 on the lower underside of the cowling.  I use Tamiya Acrylics, so as usual I had to mix the color I needed.  I used 10 parts XF-3 Flat Yellow, 5 parts X-20A Thinner, 1 part XF-2 Flat White and 1 part X-6 Orange.  The color looks great! 

Tomorrow I plan on masking off the wheel wells, spraying the RLM02, then we can move forward with decaling and weathering (with layers of Future in between everything). 

Things have slowed down a bit so I should be able to get back on track now with all my builds. 

darson wrote:

Thanks a bunch for the heads up Scott .  Can you tell me what color you are painting your 109? I have read a lot of different stuff on the web from natural metal through to adding a couple of drops of RLM 02 into ALCLAD. At this stage I am thinking of just straight Gunze RLM 02 for the upper surfaces and  RLM 65 for the lower, what do you think? Cheers

I have some good information that I can scan for you.  The trouble is that there is still a lot of controversy over the initial camo schemes of the Bf109A (not an official designation, but often times the prototypes (with V designations) that were sent to Spain were labeled as A models.  Probably more of Goebbels propaganda as part of their scheme to deceive the West.

There are many sources that believe the initial batches of early Bf109 aircraft could be any of the following schemes......

Some authors believe they were bare aluminum.  Others believe they were painted in a metallic aluminum color.  Others believe that they were bare aluminum with a protective coating painted over them which had a slightly greenish tinge to it.  And there are others who swear they were light gray or RLM02.  I'll dig up what I have and either retype or scan so you can make the determination yourself.

I haven't decided yet on the schemes for both of my Bf109A kits, however one of them I'll probably be doing as the prototype V4 in a light gray civilian scheme as it looked while undergoing testing.  I'm inclined to do the other one in a bare metel scheme similar to what Bret Green did with his Bf109A, not necessary because it's "accurate" but because I like the scheme. 

Thanks a bunch for the heads up Scott .  Can you tell me what color you are painting your 109? I have read a lot of different stuff on the web from natural metal through to adding a couple of drops of RLM 02 into ALCLAD.

At this stage I am thinking of just straight Gunze RLM 02 for the upper surfaces and  RLM 65 for the lower, what do you think?

Cheers 

darson wrote:

Jay & Scott, I'm looking forward to seeing some more progress photos from both you guys. Also a small piece of good news for me, my Molders Bf 190D from Ca finally arrived after being on pre-order with GMW for about three months.  Oh well now that's it's here I can hardly wait to get started on it.

Grats on the kit!  All I can say is dry fit, dry fit, dry fit......... especially for the cowling, radiator scoup and wheel wells.  I'm almost done with my write up on that kit where I point out some of the trouble spots.  I've been so busy with my new job that I haven't had time to finish it, much less work on my models. 

Jay & Scott, I'm looking forward to seeing some more progress photos from both you guys.

Also a small piece of good news for me, my Molders Bf 190D from Ca finally arrived after being on pre-order with GMW for about three months.  Oh well now that's it's here I can hardly wait to get started on it.

Hey guys, sorry I haven't had any updates for the past week or so.  My new job (which I absolutely love by the way) has been keeping me very busy.  By the time I get home and take care of the daily routine stuff, I am beat and just don't have the energy to go downstairs and work.

However.... things are beginning to settle down a bit so I'm hoping to spray the yellow the yellow identification panel under the cowling tonight, as well as the RLM02 on the landing gear and wheel wells. 

Well, I began the slow, painful process of trying to strip the paint off the canopy frame.... then after about 20 seconds of that realized that it would take forever, not to mention that I'd probably have to remask the canopy etc.  So I pulled the plug on that little venture and decided to go with a suggestion that Marc (aka Wing_Nut) made to me. 

I mixed up some XF-2 Tamiya Flat White with a tiny bit of RLM75, and did a mottling/postshade type effect on the canopy framing.  Much easier and it blends right in!  What do you all think?