Spanish Civil War GB.

Not sure how I'm going to tackle this one.  I finally gave up last night and watched some TV with my wife.  I may try to soak just the very front in some hot water, then figure out a way to clamp it square.  I've never had to do that so I have no idea if that will help. 

Otherwise, I may have to detach the wing, attach the cowling and then re-attach the wing. 

One way or another I am going to win this battle! 

Ha!  Lemony fresh victory is mine!!!!  I got the cowling on!  Muwahahahahaaaaaaa! 

I took a couple of pics, but the camera battery died as I was walking over to plug it into my PC.  I'll upload pics in a little bit. 

Anyone (Rick maybe?) what color the inside of the lower cowling should be?  I painted the radiator flat aluminum, but don't have a clue what the inner cowling should be.  RLM02?

Scott, I can't swear it's accurate, but I painted the radiator grill flat aluminum with a flat black wash & the inside of the cowl RLM02.

Regards,  Rick

Finally the battery is charged.  I've painted the inside of the lower cowling RLM02 and the radiator flat aluminum.  I'll do a black oil wash on the radiator in the morning then attach the two lower cowling pieces. 

Ignore the gap at the wing roots wings, that will be fixed. 

Scott, the fit of the cowl looks very good.  The gaps at the wing root are pretty major.  Mine fit much tighter.

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

Scott, the fit of the cowl looks very good.  The gaps at the wing root are pretty major.  Mine fit much tighter. Regards,  Rick

Ya, I was a bit perplexed by that myself. 

I've never had wing root gaps even remotely as big as those before.  And with the way the upper and lower wings are designed, that was as close to the fuselage as I could get them. 

The only other way I could have gotten them closer would have been to shave about a milimeter or two from the end of the lower wings so as to be able to mount the uppers close to the fuselage.  The lower wing is shorter and the upper wing locks onto the end of the lower so if the ends are locked in, then you can't slide the upper any closer to the fuselage.  Odd eh?  

I wonder if that is a problem that is just unique to my kit or maybe it's somehow related to the fuselage warp issue.  

From every build article I've read on the A and D kits nothing was mentioned about having any issues with the wings.  I hope I don't have the same problem with my other CA Bf109D and my CA Bf109A.

Did you have to shorten the lower wing at all when you were test fitting Rick?

Scott, It's been a while since I built mine, but I don't recall needing to take down the lower wings. The fit of the wing/wing root was fairly tight on mine, only requiring a little filler at the leading edge area.

Regards,  Rick

Doh!  I think I have the wing root gap issue resolved...... rookie mistake. 

Dihedral!  I took some wide masking tape, and used it to raise the dihedral of the wings, and then loaded up the wing root with some liquid Tamiya cement.  It looks like the issue is taken care of now. 

Ah yes, the beauty of super strong masking tape and liberal application of Tamiya liquid cement.  The gaps are much smaller, so just a bit of CA and accelerator and a bit of light sanding should do the trick. 

Now to install the two lower cowling bits. 

Cowling is on nice and tidy, most of the seam work is finished as well.  I have just a bit more polishing to do in the sanded areas, and will need to do just a tad of rescribing.  The seams look better in person than the do in the pics, most because the differences between the resin and plastic tends to exaggerate the way the seams look. 

Looks great Scott, nice work.  looking forward to the warpaint .

Regards,  Rick

I'm just about at the point where I can devote most of my attention to this 109 as my P-40E just needs the final flat coat and the lights put in. 

I noticed I need to do just a bit more seam work on the nose of this Bf109D where the upper and lower cowling meet at the front.  In fact, I wish I had payed just a little closer attention and had put a spreader in the upper cowling to widen it at the bottom by about a half a millimeter.  It's not much, in fact you can barely notice it, but I know I can be a bit anal when it comes to those things... at least with my own work.   

I don't know about you guys, but when I take a zoomed in photo with the macro setting I can see the mistakes much easier than in person.  Funny how that works, must be the getting old thing. 

The P-40E is finished, so now the Bf109D is in the hot seat on my bench. 

I am booked solid until tomorrow evening (teach all day today, daughter has guitar from 5:30 to 6:00, IMPS High Roller Meeting from 7-8:15ish, my brother's band has their first public performance tonight from 8:45 until 11ish, then I teach all day tomorrow...   I hate when I have to work on a Saturday, only happens 4 or 5 times a year, but it still sucks).

Anyway, I hope to get back to work on it as early as Saturday evening, but probably won't make serious progress until Sunday.  My goal is to have the primer coat on before the weekend is over.  Then things will really start moving fast.

Because I'm doing the single color scheme on the upper surfaces of Werner Molders Bf109D I'm going to attempt to break it up the monotony a bit.  I'll preshade with black, lightly spray the green basecoat, lighten up the color a bit, spray it randomly to make it a little splotchy and do that several times slightly varying the color as I go.  I've read about that technique and I like the way it looks, so hopefully I can pull it off. 

Still slogging away at the seamwork.  The seam on the right rear rudder has been dealt with.  Now I just have a little more work at the very front of the cowling, where the upper and lower meet.  I had to apply a bit more CA to fill them in and will have them sanded shortly.  It's taking a bit of work, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.  I'll have to deepen just a few of the panel lines that were worn down a tad from the sanding.

Looks good from here Scott.

Regards,  Rick

I think I all the seams filled and sanded so I'm going to do some rescribing tonight after work and see if maybe I can get the primer on tonight. 

Is there a quick way I can "highlight" my seams to see if I have all the scratches removed and the seams filled?  I have some Mr. Surfacer, will a quick swipe and some drying time reveal if there are any issues?  (I'm still kinda new to seam work )

I usually spray a light coat of grey primer for checking seams & scratches.  Never used Mr. Surfacer, so not sure about that.

Regards,  Rick

Happiness is watching "Wings of the Luftwaffe" while working on two Bf109 aircraft 

I'm am finally happy with the state of the seams, now... where the heck is my scribing tool?  Right where I left it, no doubt. 

Made a lot of progress tonight.  I almost had a complete disaster though.  There is a part that attaches at the front of the cowling which the spinner attaches to that somehow I neglected to notice needed to be installed at the time you glue all the cowling components together. 

Fortunately, with a lot of care and patience I was able to pop it in without any issues.  Whew!

So, tonight I did a lot of rescribing, attached the nose pieces, oil cooler, aelerons, rudder and put together the elevator assemblies.  I also lightly tacked the spinner to it's back plate for painting, which can be easily pried apart when it comes time in get the propellor in there.

All that's left at this point before painting is just a bit more seam work at the front leading edge of the left wing (which I just noticed, must have somehow separated a bit from all the handling while sanding and scribing ), attach the front slats and the tail planes.  I'm really enjoying this kit, but man it requires a lot of craftsmanship to put together! 

Good progress Scott.  Yes, the CA kits take some skill & patience.  I've built several & I hate to tell you this, but the 109 is the easiest I've built so far .

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

Good progress Scott.  Yes, the CA kits take some skill & patience.  I've built several & I hate to tell you this, but the 109 is the easiest I've built so far . Regards,  Rick

Zoinks!    Some of the issues I'm running into are due mostly to this being my first multi-media kit.  Now that I'm aware of some of the issues I can be a bit more pro-active when I build my other D and two A kits.    Oh, and I've finally realized that the directions are rather basic, there is a lot you have to just kinda figure out, especially regarding fit and placement.

Soon as I get these slats cleaned up and attached along with the little balancer thingys (that's the technical term ) that go on the aelerons it's spray time!  Theoretically that will take place tonight. 

The slats were "interesting".  It took some careful sanding to remove the casting block from the front of the slats.  I had to drill out the holes in the wings so the slats would sit right, but it wasn't too difficult. 

I lost one of the aeleron balancer thingys to the carpet monster though .  I was doing one final check to make sure the right one would fit, when it shot off like a rocket from my tweazers.  I've been looking for over 15 minutes... no luck.  damnit....

Other than that it's ready for primer. I'm debating whether to paint the tail planes separately or attached 

I'd suggest adding the tail planes before painting.  Unless your's is better than mine, some filler will likely be required.

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

I'd suggest adding the tail planes before painting.  Unless your's is better than mine, some filler will likely be required. Regards,  Rick

Agreed, after dry fitting the tail planes I realized that would be the way to go.  I've got to remember... this isn't Tamiya..... this isn't Hasegawa....

Thanks Rick

Glad to be of help Scott .

Regards,  Rick

whoa, almost missed drilling out the area on the rudder at the front of the tail planes after reviewing some reference photos.  The instructions make no mention of it.  I'm also thinking there should be a small rod that goes through that opening that should be attached to the tailplanes.  I have some very small brass rod which I got for gun barrels on another kit that might do the trick.  I need to see if I can find a close up shot of that area.

Once I get the tailplanes situated, it really will be ready for priming and painting... honest!