I made a user-error while reading the paint guide and came out with a “reversed pattern” scheme… I really dig it. This thing is huge and is going to take a long time to weather and detail paint. A man could plank a ship with the wing crosses alone, they’re that big. I took the liberty of fading the topside paint into the underside because the splinter camo is hard-edged and I wanted some to see some variation in the paint.
Trumpeter Bf 109 F-4
Had I known that the engine cowling was going to cause fit issues, I would have either glued the cowling panels into place before sealing up the fuselage, or I would have spent far more time working on the engine… as it is, i can either force the cowling and panels to play nice and fit or I can display it with the nose opened up for maintenance. I’ll most likely go for a “popped open” panel as opposed to a fully open for work look. I have no idea, yet, as to how I’m going paint this thing- any suggestions for an F-4 with underwing gun pods?
Just a taste of current projects that are getting my attention these days, please feel free to compliment, criticize or complain about them.
Looks ok to me , even if you did reverse the pattern… I wouldn’t have noticed it had you not said anything, lol…
I m’self would have waited on fading the paint until after I decaled it though… National insignia is applied almost the same day as the camo-paint, so it’ll fade as well…
Regarding the '109… The cowl’s got a “piano hinge” and opens as a “gull-wing” type affir… Is that what you’re gonna do with it? If so, that’ll take care of half your “Engine” problems, if you opt to open just the one side…
Is that the G-2 with the markings for Rudels aircraft. I have that one in the stash and could tell its a big build just looking at it in the box. having not built any 32nd kits yet, not sure if this will be my first one, but will look forward to seeing how yours comes along. Is this OOB or have you added an extras.
Hans, thanks for the nod. In researching things, I’ve run across a few photos of Luftwaffe planes that have reversed patterns, so i think that I’m ok on that front… as long as I don’t decal it up as a specific unit.
The issue with the 109 cowling is that it has a decided ‘droop’ from the firewall forwards that causes the entire nose to be off in alignment… nothing serious, just annoying.
Haven’t really faded the paints as such so far, everything has been preshaded thus far with a little modulation… I needed to get some basic touchups before the Future and decals go on. The colors ought to darken down quite a bit after that…
Bish- almost entirely OOB except for the seatbelts that I added to the driver’s seat- that kit has none whatsoever. Beware of the wings- there were a few warped edges around the center spar section that were a nightmare to join up. Milliput to the rescue. It’s a fun kit, stock up on paint though.
Well, if you look closely at 109 cowls, they didn’t all fit all that well anyway, especially the “Rund-nasiger” (Round-nosed) 109s, partially due to the slave-labor used by the N azis… Main thing is the gun-muzzle / gun-trough alignment…
Oh, I wish it were the troughs that were outta whack… I dunno if mounting the engine assembly caused this misalignment, or what did, but I have to bend the entire nose section down about 1/8" to begin to have the panel lines straighten out and behave. And that’s just to show it opened up… closed up would require a little more applied force (which would probably cause the front to fall off). I’m going to scratch a piano hinge support brace-thingy to run across the top of the engine bay as the kit’s brace wasn’t going to work out with the flexing that i need to use.
Talking about the fit of the real cowlings, i was watching the Battle of Britain movie (blame them for my flood of 109’s) the other night and was amazed at the condition of cowlings on the Spanish 109’s. It looked as if they had been formed on a bed of gravel and then beaten into final shape by a meth-addled chimp using a sledgehammer. They were rough, but then again, at close to 30 years of age, they ought to be.
LOL… Yeah, those Buchons were beat up… I worked on the restortation of one of the BoB Buchons for the CAF years back, and we did a LOT of sheet-metal work on it… When I got to it, it was almost fifty years old… (The cowls were indeed hammered out by hand… That’s when I was first called “Von Hammer”, BTW…
No, but I DID stumble across a site that carried the 1/48th scale kit of a Spanish Buchon ( EspañolasEjército del Aire Spanish Army of the Air)) a few days ago… I’ll see if I can re-stumble across it… I almost bought it, but then found a solid gun-nosed 1/48 Monogram B-25J on sale and had to have that instead…
Well I’ll be dipped in it! I wondered why those 109’s in the BoB movie didn’t look like the Emil variant (which would have been in production at that time… I think). I read the Buchon was produced in Spain in 44-45ish (which would have made it a little difficult to fly in the summer of 40. [:|]
Roger that, the Emil 7s would have been the main variant during the Battle, IIRC… The Buchons were basically Bf 109G-models with Rolls-Royce Merlins installed, after a breif time with the miserable Hispano-Suiza mill out front, which had so many bumps, scoops and other drag-inducing protruberances that a pilot would need to add power to go DOWN, lol…
When the CAF aquired the Buchon I worked on, it was “costumed” (having served in Hollywood longer than the Spainsh AF) as “Red 13”. Here she is After “Make-up” leaving the main hangar in Harlingen, in 1984:
Currently, she’s dressed as Hans-Joachim Marseille’s “Yellow 14” Bf 109F from JG 27… She doesn’t fly (though she is ready to do so), as the cockpit is so small, that none of the rated fighter-pilots from any of the squadrons can fit in her right now, lol… Anyone over about 190 lbs and 5’10" is gonna be a tight fit and have to get shoe-horned in & out…
I don’t know where & when this one below was done (other than it’s a British resgistration number), but she and her two sister ships have had a really good make-up job done to make them look like P-51Bs… I don’t know if they were ever airworthy…
I’ve gotten the cannons mounted and the decals are now all on, time to fix the slight silvering and wrinkling on some. If anyone is curious, I’m going to leave the markings as is, to depict a generic Ostfront G2 rather than anyone specific’s aircraft. Anyone building one these- I’d recommend that you attach the cannon mounts to the wing before adding the cannon to the mounts, leave the cannon bodies off for painting though. It’ll make life easier for you.
That’s an 18" ruler for scale… I used the smaller crosses on the bottom, there’s an additional set of much larger ones. Still a lot of work and weathering to do…
Another update… I think that despite all of the nasty errors I made washing this thing that it still looks menacing… I need to do a Nightfighter version now.
