Battle of Britain GB 2008 - 21 June to 31 Oct 08

Well you could have fooled me there Stan. You E-1 looks pretty darn good to me. Frank is there anything that can slow you down. you are cranking out some awesome stuff so fast! have you been missing your plastaicholic's meeting agiant cause you were to busy modeling?! I made some more progress today. Fuselage halves together the wing is assembled and cleaned up and wheel well pained and washed. had to use some streched sprue to fill in a slight gap at the top of the fuelage waitning for the glue to dry. I'm still peddling to try and catch up with you guys. i got smoked right out of the box!

                                                                                             Soulcrusher

Hiya fellas!  Just thought I'd give a lil' update on my progress.  The Spitfire has all of her markings applied (thanks again Greg for the decals! ) and the '109 is in the paintshop.  I painted the spot on the cowl then masked it and sprayed the yellow.  A few days to cure then onward with more paint!

Stan I am still amazed at the awesome airbrush job. I am extremly jelious! I hope i can come close to the great job you did on the fuselage camo when i build my F series. is your "Freidrick" a Hasegawa?

                                                                                  Soulcrusher

Mike, missed your pics early.

The Dornier looks to be coming along very nicely. 

To tone down the constrast between the 70/71 you could apply a very dilute coat of 71 to bring the two closer together.

Karl

Rick- The 70/71 is my old stand-by, Aeromaster Acrylic

Stan- As a rule I usually don't do a bomber unless there's an Eduard pre-cut mask available for it, sometimes you gotta break the rules though.

There is definitely a lot of contrast between my 70 and 71.  Probably border line too much, MM 70 and 71 get a lot of flak for coming out the same way.  I'm hoping to blend them a little closer together with some weathering.

sfcmac wrote:

The  109 camo makes me feel all squrimy inside. The Do-17 makes me jealous! I want to paint to..... almost there..... now I have to compete with those spectacular finishes.  I have a question since I haven't been up to snuff on the gossip. I notice the Black Green/ Dark Green  German camo colors vary by brand. Example would be how the Tamiya doesn't contrast as much as say Model Master. Has there been a discussion on this ? Or is it just a matter of preference? My wife told me to paint it pink and white.

The luftwaffe paint standereds were pretty strict early on, but there still was varation. The differences you see is mostly due to operational condidtions. The reich paint was better then most for the time but all paint back then weathered and collected dirt like crazy. They didn't have the tech back then to make paint fad resistent or repell dirt like modern day stuff. What you are seeing would be considered exterme color fad and weathering by modern standereds.

Pink is a spitfire color. white ok

here are a few examples. The first is fractory spiliter camo. the other 2 pics are operation pics of front line inservice aircraft with splinter camo. It faded and collected dirt in a matter of a few weeks or months, not years.

As long as the colors are close, work with one another and the contrast is now too stark you should be fine. Lighter is always better then darker. scales effect and fade will kill the contrast between camo colors making them blend.

sfcmac wrote:

..my wife told me to paint it pink and white.

PLEEEASE tell me you're not considering it!

Mike- Great progress on the DO!  Fading looks excellent, and she's gonna be done before you know it!

Photos of Luftwaffe aircraft in the 70/71 camo scheme show varying levels of contrast between the two shades depending upon the lighting and the condition of the paintwork.

Therefore I wouldn't worry about it.

Having said the pink and white might be stretching it somewhat.

Karl

 The  109 camo makes me feel all squrimy inside. The Do-17 makes me jealous! I want to paint to..... almost there..... now I have to compete with those spectacular finishes.

 I have a question since I haven't been up to snuff on the gossip. I notice the Black Green/ Dark Green  German camo colors vary by brand. Example would be how the Tamiya doesn't contrast as much as say Model Master. Has there been a discussion on this ? Or is it just a matter of preference? My wife told me to paint it pink and white.

Looks great Mike.  Nice work on the splinter camo.  May I ask what paints you used ?  Don't usually see that much contrast between RLM 70/71.

Regards,  Rick

And we've got her painted.  I'm a 1/72 guy and don't do a whole lot of bombers, not used to that much painting!  After the initial 70/71 application I went back with some lightened, thinned down 70/71 to simulate paint fading.  I'll be working on washing it out even more, a lot of the aircraft I've researched were looking pretty rough by September, the "Schwarze Men" were busy just keeping them flying and niceties like fresh paint often took a back seat.

The canopy isn't glued down yet, just thought it looked a little more photogenic with it on.

Stan, just fantastic work!   Your weathering is always just spot on, amazing!

I'm going to try to do two 109's for this GB, I've already decided on Illner's "White 2" from JG 51, I may do a JG 54 bird as well, they were never afraid to put out of the ordinary schemes on their aircraft.

Thanks guys for the comments. I figured since it was a tamiya kit and this one in particular had a reputation of falling together I give myself a challange with the camo. When viewed It looks like it would be very difficult. After I though about it's really only 65 as a base, with 71 lines filled in with 02. Well it turned out that it's not as hard as it looks but not as easily executed as I thought. Getting all those lines to look good was the biggest problem. I wanted it to look like the real deal with the cross hatch line not of even size or drakness, but not look like it wasn't scribbled on by an 3 year old.

Since the aircraft I modeled was a fresh repainted (fuselage) and remarked I did nothing to the decals, no dusting or weathering like I usually do even the radio hatch was left alone only the outline was bought out.  The wings seem to retain the original paint so they got a moderate amount of weathering. Even the underside got lightly weathered. Not as nice looking as the latter F camo but still an difficult and usuaual camo.

artist impression of brown 2.

 Unlike the hard crosshatch work on the E, The smooth flowing lines of the JG 54 F camo is more like a work of art and field applied camo. you can tell the painters of this aircraft took there time. the work on the E look like it was done in a hurry by comparsion.  

Beautiful build Stan, but I would expect nothing less from your bench.  Well Done .

Regards,  Rick

Stan, that is a truly awesome lookinh Emil.

The camo looks great, and I really like the little touches like the yellow in the gun troughs.

Karl

That 109 is totally awsome. You really nailed the finish on it and it turned out great. Did you give this one a wash to blend it all together or some sort of mist coating ?. That 109 can escort my FW 200 any day.

Steve

Well done there Stan. I love the camo you selected. I want to try that pattern on a F series from the Russian front. How difficult was it to paint the cross pattern on the fuselage?  It came out awesome!

                                                                              Soulcrusher

Stan-

Absolutely stunning!  You really knocked this one out of the park, without skimping on any of the details.  I love the "used but not abused" look, very convincing.  You really nailed this one buddy, one of the finest Emils I have EVER seen.

Well I had a 3 day weekend and lot of time on my hands. That and these tamiya kits can be built in about 8 hours. The 109 is done. the only thing missing is the canopy prop becasue I need to find my wire.

The is a bf109E-1 "brown 2" of 6./JG 54. Work # and pilot is unknown at this time. This is a veteran of the french campain as well as bob. What drew me to this mechine is the early unusual JG 54 paint camo on a standered E-1. JG 54 was well kown for there non standered camo. many of you probable have seen the F-2's of JG 54 on the eastern front with a similer but more elaborate camo pattern. This earlier E has a more basic cross hatch pattern and lacks the flowing lines seen on the F-2's. I have never seen this done so I did it.

This E-1 was most likely taken from another unit and transfered to JG 54 to replace losses during the french invasion. The odd field applied camo, yellow still seen in the gun troughs, and fresh looking marking all indcate new or restored mechine. This would have been how it looked at the start of BOB.

As far as added goodies it's the typical stuff I add to all my 109's. PE cockpit detail, Scratch built detail in the wing radiators, brake lines and other such stuff, I'm sure those that know 109's will pick up on it. here a bunch of pics, you guys get the first look. I would post this to the aircraft forum untill tomorrow sometime.

Aaron- Thanks for the info on the blister, I don't have a picture of my actual aircraft so I may leave it on just to simplify things.

Stan- Sweet paint job!  Looks like that's going to be a JG 54 bird?

Stan & Frank...Nice work lads .

My bench time has been very limited recently, but I hope to get back into the swing next week.

Regards,  Rick

Glad to be of assitance Aaron!

                                                                         Soulcrusher

Looks good frank, Your almost ready for paint as well.

 Nice pic soulcrusher. I'm not a big bomber guy but i've heard that the 20MM cannon was very effective against unarmored single hull cargo ships and such. They would go into a shallow dive and aim or the waterline. Not sure how true it is, but I know stuka's equipted with 2X20MM could sink a military crusier or in one case even a battleship. A flight of 4 109's with there 1x20mm and 2x151 were able at take out a cargo ship and a defending destoryer.

Frank, great progress on the Emil.

You'll soon have that one finished!

Karl

I finished attaching the wing, and smoothing the seams.  This morning I sprayed some primer on to check everything, and it looks OK.  Just have to smooth down the primer and mask, and we're ready for paint!  I masked the spinner last night, in preparation for spraying the black.  When I mixed the black, I thought it looked a little thin but went with it anyway.  BIG mistake...

A lot of bleed-under, so I stripped all of it off and re-sprayed the RLM Grey.  A couple days then I can remask it and try it again. 

Here's how she looks today:

The Luftwaffe frequently installed 20mm cannon in the nose of anti-shipping aircraft to act as flak suppression.

I have seen pictures of all the key Luftwaffe bombers, He111, Do17/217, Ju88, with this set up.

Apparently the machine guns in the rear of the Dornier's cabin provided excellent beam defence, having a good field of fire up and over the wing.

Unfortunately the Dornier suffered from an almost complete absence of defensive firepower from dead astern, contributing significantly to the losses suffered by the type in the BoB.

The Dornier's one saving grace was it's ability to absorb huge amounts of damage and remain airborne, though this did have the effect on morale, with heavily shot up machines making it back to their home base with dead and injured on board.

No wonder the Germans developed Kanal Krank or Channel Sickness.

Karl 

 Thanks a bunch for the picure Soul Crusher! I have not seen that before and it is an excellent view of what I was looking for. Proof that the guns are really located there.  From what I have read some were armed with up to 8 machine guns or even a 20mmm cannon in the nose and used with good effect as a low level ground attacker much in the same way the US used the B-25 Air Apaches. The Luftwaffa seemed to ignore its success in this role wanting to follow a more traditional bomber role and suffered for it much to the relief of the British Airfields. I found a photo in my stuff although not as good as yours, it is an excellent example of a Battle of Britain Dornier 17Z with blacked out insignia and the worn out weathered heavily overused look. Guess I will stick to the armament config that the kit portrays although I have no idea how you could fight with the other guns in your way like that.

Hey Aaron here is a good shot of the gun position i had in my collection. I hope it helps. I'm still with you dremeling parts to achive a proper fit. Next up I have do grind the bottom of the cockpit down because it does not clear the resin whell wells installed the wheel wells are already so thin you can see through them and the cockpit bottom still hits so more time with the dremel. Good news is the wing to fuselage fix is almost Tamagawa quality. Anywho here a pic for you.

                                                                     Soulcrusher