**** DONE: 1/48 Ju88G-6 NJG6 - Night War of WWII

Night Fighter Nut · Jan 18, 2016

Just amazing work John. How are you able to find the time?

JKim · Jan 19, 2016

Crimea_River said:
Making great progress John. My weekdays are pretty much shot with other stuff.

Where did you get your brass sheet?

Sorry I didn't see this question earlier Andy. I picked up an assortment (4 small sheets) of brass sheet from EBay. The company name is K&S and the product number is 0258. It comes in .001", 0.002", .003" and .004" thicknesses and should be available from your normal hobby sources. I find that the middle two sizes are the ones that I've been using the most of.

Airframes said:
Nice work John, and good recovery on the damaged antenna mount.
When I've had to bend delicate, thin parts in the past, such as prop blades for a belly-landed diorama, or helicopter rotor blade 'droop', I've immersed them in very hot (not boiling) water for a couple of minutes, then, wearing gloves to protect my hands from the heat, made the very pronounced bends in stages, repeating the immersion if, or as, required.

Hot water sounds like the prudent way to do it. I don't know what I was thinking but boy, you should've seen how quick that little piece crumpled up! Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Crimea_River said:
Very tidy John. Yes, the antennae are a pain and I'm anticipating spending plenty of time in that area. By the way, in your wheel well opening, the back edge of the opening is actually the edge of the main doors. You might want to consider filing down the extra plastic that our Dragon friends generously provided there.

I have the Master brass antenna but have cut the kit antenna array parts off the sprues as back up. A number of the antenna elements broke while cutting so be advised. Scale-wise the kit parts are very good but they are tricky to clean up due to the weakness of the cross joints.

I don't have a good angle into the wheel wells to remove that excess plastic now that the wing halves are together. The best I can do is to "hide" it by painting it black.

Night Fighter Nut said:
Just amazing work John. How are you able to find the time?

Thank you! I HAVE been spending lots of time at the modeling desk lately. It's easy... just ignore all of your other commitments and lock yourself in like a hermit.

T Bolt · Jan 19, 2016

Very nice John. I'm lucky to get more than a half hour at the bench at a time these days. I miss the days when I had time to go nuts with scratch building but if I started something like that now I'd never finish it

Crimea_River · Jan 19, 2016

Having a day job doesn't help either, though it does help with the finances.

Thanks for the info on the sheet John.

JKim · Jan 19, 2016

Thanks for the comments guys! Onwards with this one. The fit between the cockpit and fuselage was decent and after some touch-up sanding, I sprayed the joint with primer to check it out. Just a little more touch-up required and I can move on.

The tail components have been glued on minus the separate rudder and tailerons. The fit was good and the tiny resultant gap was addressed with White Milliput.

The engine nacelles have been glued onto the wings.

I redid the gunsight reflector glass since they both got knocked off. Rearmost glass got a tint of green.

The front half of the canopy was masked using Montex masks and then glued into place. I'll shoot this with interior grey and fill in any gaps between the fuselage and canopy frames with... yes, White Milliput. White Milliput has been my go-to filler when I want to avoid sanding. Just shape after application with a moistened piece of paper towel... repeat as necessary to get a clean fill without losing any surrounding surface detail.

Before I attach the rear half of the canopy, I have to figure how the rear gun is mounted. I have doubts that I'll get the ammo belt to end at the ammo can but we'll give it a try. FYI... the gun barrel is a spare brass AM piece that I found and the ammo belt is from the Eduard interior set, not from the kit.

I also painted the props and the spinners following the concepts I found in the AK FAQ book. The spinners were painted with Tamiya Black Green with the tips getting a dose of a slightly blackened shade of green. The spinners were dry brushed with a lighter green to simulate wear. This was given a gloss coat and I gave it a dark wash to accentuate the panel line. A flat coat after that and then some additional wear using different colored pencils. I dry brushed some sandy pastel on different parts of the spinner to break up uniformity. The blades were painted in a similar fashion but I skipped the gloss/wash step. I purposefully skipped metallic chipping on the prop blades because the VS111 were of wooden construction. The picture really doesn't show the effects clearly but you can kind of make out the different aspects.

After I check the engine/wing fit, I'll be ready to attach the wings!

rochie · Jan 20, 2016

Great job John, that Mg looks very nice indeed

Wildcat · Jan 20, 2016

Seriously impressive work John!

Wurger · Jan 20, 2016

Airframes · Jan 20, 2016

Very nice work John.

fubar57 · Jan 20, 2016

Some very nice work going on John.

Geo

Gnomey · Jan 20, 2016

Lovely work so far John!

Crimea_River · Jan 20, 2016

With all.

John, take a close look at the fit of the rear canopy. I have found it necessary to file down the bottom edges so that the transition with the fuselage along the back edge lines up nicely.

vikingBerserker · Jan 20, 2016

That MG is well done!

JKim · Jan 21, 2016

Thanks guys! The gun looks nice but it'll be quite hidden behind the canopy glazing I'm afraid.

Crimea_River said:
With all.

John, take a close look at the fit of the rear canopy. I have found it necessary to file down the bottom edges so that the transition with the fuselage along the back edge lines up nicely.

Too late! I glued the rear canopy on last night. After grappling with figuring out how to squeeze the machine gun, ammo belt and ammo chute through the rear canopy opening, I decided to break off the brass barrel and mount the gun in the cockpit first. This required cutting the ammo chute down significantly since it was putting the gun too high. The rear canopy was masked with the gunner's window in place and then glued in place, catching the machine gun body into the gunner's window opening and then securing the gun in place with a drop of CA glue. I didn't get any issues with that back edge... fortunately it lined up nicely.

After spraying the canopy area with dark grey, I noticed a little gap between the front and rear canopy. I could try and fill it with White Milliput but I'm worried that I'll be able to see the white from the other side of the canopy. Maybe I can dye the Milliput with acrylic paint? It's pretty small... I could maybe just leave it alone.

The engine nacelle and wing joint was cleaned up as much as I could. It's still not perfect due to the differences in cross section but I've rescribed the joint as a panel line to help hide those differences.

With that done, I can attach the wings. I've done some careful sanding with a sanding stick to even out the mating surfaces as much as possible. First I do the port wing... good fit!

And then the starboard wing... good too!

Bottom fit looks ok!

That's a big turning point in this build and I can start thinking about painting.

I'm not sure when to attach the ventral gun tray. It's a very good fit and I'm tempted to add it after painting so that the long gun barrels don't get mussed up.

Thanks for checking in guys!

Wurger · Jan 21, 2016

Jeff Hunt · Jan 21, 2016

I wonder if the real ones took as long to build with as much care and skill to boot?

Another masterpiece in the making.

Cheers,

Jeff

Airframes · Jan 21, 2016

Nicely done John.
That small gap between the canopy sections can be easily filled using a bead of PVA (white glue). It may need more than one application, but just run the glue into the gap, using a cocktail stick.
Any excess can be wiped off with a wet finger tip, or damp paint brush.
Once set, it can be painted. Works extremely well, and can also be used for blending canopies / windscreens into the fuselage where needed.

T Bolt · Jan 21, 2016

Very nice work John

JKim · Jan 21, 2016

Thanks for comments guys!

Airframes said:
Nicely done John.
That small gap between the canopy sections can be easily filled using a bead of PVA (white glue). It may need more than one application, but just run the glue into the gap, using a cocktail stick.
Any excess can be wiped off with a wet finger tip, or damp paint brush.
Once set, it can be painted. Works extremely well, and can also be used for blending canopies / windscreens into the fuselage where needed.

OMG... great idea Terry! Sounds like the perfect solution... I'll give er a go later today!

Airframes · Jan 21, 2016

You're welcome John.

**** DONE: 1/48 Ju88G-6 NJG6 - Night War of WWII

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