Yes, I’m a sucker for Eduard limited edition Luftwaffe kits. Since it’s the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, I figured it was finally time to do one of Adolf Galland’s BoB mounts. (I have some British subjects coming up.) The Adlerangriff 1/32 kit has some very interesting schemes, including the unique and snappy WNr. 4820 from late August 1940.
The charismatic “Dolfo” Galland needs no introduction, having been the leading Luftwaffe ace of the BoB and eventually becoming the general in charge of the Lufwaffe’s fighters. No collection is complete without one of his planes (at least mine isn’t).
I really like the schemes that Eduard included in this kit. Galland’s is particularly interesting because it’s non-standard and I hadn’t seen it before. I was able to track down a photo from before it received the yellow wingtips and tail feather tips.
I’d be interested is anyone has or knows of any photos of the plane after it got its yellow details. I couldn’t find any and don’t know where else to look.
That being said, Eduard’s 1/32 kit is pretty nice overall, with resin wheels, nice decals, and all the usual Profipack goodies. The downside is there’s quite a bit more flash on the parts than typical for an Eduard kit in my experience. The tooling came out in 2009 so it may be an artifact of the age of the kit. In any event, there will be some extra clean up required on the fuselage nose, wings and wing-fuse interface to deal with the molding issues.
The plan is to use Mr. Color paints and I’ll add Master barrels for the armament. I just finished the office using the usual approach and am happy with the details and Eduard PE additions.
Yep - I thought a 1/32 Emil would be nice for the shelf. Thanks for the comments.
I’ve been looking for 1/48 markings for a number of Steinhoff’s planes but can’t seem to find any decals or masks. Have you found some or are you cobbling them together?
The main build is now complete. It goes together just like the 1/48 kit but IMO the detail is a little more to scale as you’d expect. It’s all OOB except I used Master barrels for the guns and a Quickboost gunsight I had in my stash.
It took quite a bit longer than I expected because there are quite a few molding errors, sink marks and flash with this kit - much more than the Eduard kits I’m used to. Lots of repair work. CA glue mixed with dental acrylic was my filler of choice.
That being said, I’m very happy with the surface detail and overall look of the completed build. Painting is next.
Main camo painting is now complete. I primed using Mr. Surfacer 1200 and for the main color Mr. Color lacquers were flawless. I really like this interesting RLM 65/02/71 scheme. Decals and weathering next.
I’m having trouble adding quotes to my posts. Anybody else have this issue?
In any event, thanks for the comments Greg, Lawdog, Bish, John, and Mopar. Much appreciated. I’m almost done with this one - just finishing the rigging and canopy today.
This one is now complete - a unique scheme of one of Adlof Galland’s mounts from the Battle of Britain in August 1940.
Since the last update, I applied decals, gloss coat, usual weathering with black-brown mix, colored pencils, flat coat and some pastels for exhaust and gun smoke.
As a recap, this one was completely OOB with the exception of Master barrels for the guns and a quickboost gunsite that I had in my parts box. The gun barrels molded with the kit are actually not too bad but the gunsite is pretty weak compared to the quickboost.
Three new techniques were attempted. First, I applied the decals directly to the paint without a gloss coat. I was convinced that the paint surface was plenty smooth but many of the decals silvered, which required more recovery work. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even without the gloss coat, I was not happy with the decals, which were from Eduard (not Cartograph) and had shiny, thick film.
The second new technique was making the cones on the antenna wire. I heated cardstock over a candle then poked it with a needle to form the cone. After cutting to shape, they threaded pretty easily onto the EZline antenna wire.
The third new technique was that I masked the fabric surfaces and sprayed a very light postshade around the edges of the recessed areas. I used a heavily thinned red brown for the yellow areas and black for the rest. I’m very happy with how this turned out - subtle but very nice.
One last comment - massive props to the modelers that routinely work in 1/32 and superdetail the cockpits, engines, landing gear, etc. I’m not sure I have quite that much patience or craftmanship skill yet – still learning.
