Spanish Civil War GB.

Looks good from here Scott.

Regards,  Rick

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.

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. 

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. 

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

Regards,  Rick

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. 

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. 

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. 

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

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

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, 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

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?

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! 

OUCH !!  It's tricky enough without dealing with a warped part as well.

Regards,  Rick

I think I'll skip the PE part as well.  The detail on the resin part is about as good as the PE part so what's the point eh? 

I was all ready to attach the cowling parts last night when I noticed the front end of the fuselage is warped!    I'm thinking now that I should have not followed the instructions and put the cowling parts on first, or at least the upper cowling before attaching the wing.

Not sure how to approach the problem at this point.  I could always sand everything square, but then the parts won't be the right size etc.  I may have to rip the wings out and try again.  I wish I had caught that when I was putting the wings on.  The fit was very tight and must have happened when I popped the back of the wings in, which must have put to much pressure up front.  It's weird though how the front lower fuselage has a twist in it.  hmmm 

Scott, I found the PE radiator grill to be oversize as well.  I trimmed the PE part, but if I do another one I'd just go with the detail in the resin.

Regards,  Rick

hmmm... does the photo-etch radiator belong to this kit as well?    It's a bit too big to fit inside the lower cowling.  Thank goodness there is already detail molded in there.  I'm either going to have to trim the PE part, or just go with the resin detail. 

Or maybe just go relax before I start beating my head against the wall. 

zoinks!  Does this cowling belong to this kit? 

Either one or both the fuselage and the cowling are not square.  The filling, sanding and rescribing won't be too difficult..... I'm just hoping I can get all the parts lined up ok.  It's gonna be tricky! 

And on another note.  I can't find the replacement CR.32 nose anywhere.  I swear, I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to my shoulders. 

You know it's funny, this build and all the research I did has totally fired up my interest in the early Bf109 series.  I'm actually going to be building 4 Condor Legion Bf109 aircraft for my collection. 

1. Bf109V-4 just before it was sent to Spain for combat evaluation (in civilian markings, Classic Airframes 1/48 Bf109A kit)
2. Bf109B-late with Staege's markings (two tone camo, looks way cool, Hobbycraft 1/48 Bf109B)
3. Bf109D-1 flown by Gotthard Handrick (1936 Olympic gold medalist, commander of J/88 before Galland assumed command, Classic Airframes 1/48 Bf109D)
4. Bf109D-1 flown by Werner Molders (single tone green scheme upper, Classic Airframes 1/48 Bf109D) 

Molder's plane is the one I'm doing first which is my official submission for this build.  If all goes according to plan I should be laying down primer and pre-shading this weekend. 

I received the replacement nose to my CR.32 last Friday and forgot to mention it here.  The replacement nose has a bit of a problem though with part of the circular framing around the radiator below the spinner being malformed.  I'm debating whether or not to attempt to build up that lip myself or get another replacement.  I know if I'm careful I can slowly build it up a bit with some CA.  I'll post a pic tonight to get some input from you all as to whether or not it's fixable.

Scott, great progress on the 109.

Looking forward to seeing the Cr32 as well.

I picked up the Jagdwaffe volume on Jet & Rocket Interceptors, stunning read. 

Jay, don't worry about end dates, this one can run and run. 

Apologies for not being around much over the last few weeks, work has got somewhat hectic, though at least it has earned me a promotion and a pay rise.

No progress on the I-15, I've been building darkside objects....

Karl 

I just received an excellent reference book in the mail "Jagdwaffe The Spanish Civil War, Luftwaffe Colours Volume One, Section 2" by Eric Mombeek.  It's awesome!  Just in time too, as I hope to be spraying camo this weekend.

I'm either going to do Werner Molders Scheme, or Gotthard Handrick.  Probably Molders though, his would be a great scheme to do for the first of my Bf109 series for the ultimate 109 collection. 

uh oh, maybe I better go get some before it's all gone!  I'd be willing to bet my wife has some stashed somewhere.  Wives, they really come in handy! 

Dymo tape was one of God's gifts to modelers.  Unfortunately, the Dymo is going the way of the Buggy Whip in this computer age.  The local Office Depot put all of their Dymo stuff on close-out last year & no longer stock it.  I bought a case of the tape (24 rolls), so I should be OK for this lifetime & maybe the next .

Regards,  Rick

Scott, I don't recall using any spacers, but I did have some seams that needed filling.  I used CA & then rescribed lost panel lines.

Regards,  Rick

jboutin wrote:

Scott! did I hear that your next one will be a snap tight?  wow, the glue got to you, or maybe it was the resin dust!  Seriously though Scott your progress looks great!, wish I could say the same.

Actually, a snap-tite is sounding pretty good right about now. 

Next in the queue is Hasegawa's 1/32 Bf109G-14..... which relatively speaking will be a "snap" to put together compared to the Classic Airframes 1/48 Bf109D

Rick, did you end up having to put in any spacers between any of the cowling bits?  What fit issues did you run into?