**** DONE: GB-36 1/32 Bf109G-10 Erla - Axis Manufactured Aircraft of WWII

Nice work so far John!

John the GB goes til March 4, 2018 so lots of time still. Thanks for joining in.

As to the tires, if one of your three is a larger diameter then I think you can rule it out as I think that wheel needed the larger wing bulge. That leaves the smaller smooth or treaded tire and I'd agree that the treaded one was more likely.

Holy crap, my head hurts just thinking about what I just read through. I need a rum and coke.

Jeff

Crimea_River said:

John the GB goes til March 4, 2018 so lots of time still. Thanks for joining in.

As to the tires, if one of your three is a larger diameter then I think you can rule it out as I think that wheel needed the larger wing bulge. That leaves the smaller smooth or treaded tire and I'd agree that the treaded one was more likely.

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Glad to participate! This theme is right up my alley.

I think it's the tire width that forced the larger wing bulge but I'll check the dimensions. To the naked eye, they look the same size.

Jeff Hunt said:

Holy crap, my head hurts just thinking about what I just read through. I need a rum and coke.

Jeff

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LOL... sorry for the informational overload, Jeff! Just trying to catch everyone up on a build that I started a few weeks earlier. Must be the longest Page 1 of a forum post in all of recorded time.

Sorry for Matrix Data Download! Just a few more posts and we'll be up to speed!

The clear aerial port on the rear fuselage has been cleaned up. I've drilled a hole in the middle to accept the future aerial.


I like to re-scribe all of the panel lines and hatches. Not necessarily to make them deeper but to make them more uniform. It also gets me familiar with the model in preparation for the rivet stage. When scribing the wings, I noticed these depictions of taped seams by Revell. Like the little discs on the fabric control surfaces, this tape effect is a bit too heavy for my tastes and I'll be shaving them down. You can also make the slightly pebbly grain of this molding. I don't care for it much but it will be addressed after riveting.


At this point I thought I'd scratch up a deflector plate for the port exhaust stack. Presumably, this was to direct the exhaust flow away from the supercharger intake. I used a business card as the template medium... nice and stiff but easily cut to shape.


The card template is used to draw the deflector on a piece of brass sheet. The brass is thin enough to cut with scissors.


I used a PE bending tool to put a 90 degree bend in the deflector plate. This also helps give the plate some stiffness and keep it from bending. I made a final trim after testing the fit.



Here is what the deflector plate looks like over the exhaust stack.






I had the choice of using the photoetched harnesses/buckles from the Aires cockpit set, cutting my own harnesses from foil and using the Aires buckles or utilize the leftover HGW harness from my Black 1 build. I decided on the HGW. But instead of using the pre-printed side, I flipped it over and used the backing, which as a very fine woven finish, which I thought looked pretty good for 1/32 scale. I'll paint the harness material before sticking them on the seat.



All the while, I have been pre-fitting, pulling apart, trimming parts here and there and repeating to try and dial in the resin cowling fit. I think I've gotten to a point where I can move on.




I'm really digging the look of the Reaver cowling.


From above, you can really get a sense of the added girth that the Revell kit lacks. I am thinking about adding some tabs to help align the outer surfaces of the resin and kit join.

John looking like she will be a fine crate when finished but I need to ask how heavy will the resin make the kit?I have a 1/24 109 done with kit gear and wish I would of gone metal.The way the 109's legs are splayed they like to spread maybe metal tubing through the middle if I saw correctly that legs are hollow ? Kevin

always marvelous to watch your work john

Some good work going on here John.

I agree. John, the tires that drove the larger fairing on the wing were 660mm in diameter so 20.6 mm in 1/32 scale.

Thanks guys! Build is progressing but I'm still worried about the fit of the resin cowling. We shall just have to see...

javlin said:

John looking like she will be a fine crate when finished but I need to ask how heavy will the resin make the kit?I have a 1/24 109 done with kit gear and wish I would of gone metal.The way the 109's legs are splayed they like to spread maybe metal tubing through the middle if I saw correctly that legs are hollow ? Kevin

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Good call, Kevin! If you notice on my add-on list, I do have the Eduard metal legs, which I had recently ordered.



I was pointed out to some very specific information regarding the Erla G-10's. See the informative photo below.




The notch in the canopy, as pointed by Mr. Airfixer, was present on both canopy parts. In fact, the canopy parts looked identical to my eye... not even a hole for the aerial mast as alluded to in the kit instructions. As I am going to shut the canopy on my bird, I could either fix the notch now or fill it in after the fact and re-scribe. I decided to do it now. The fuselage fix is easy... just snip and sand.



To do the canopy right, I washed off the Future treatment first using Windex. I then shimmed pieces of sheet styrene into the notch with Tamiya Extra Thin and let this dry completely.



After the glue bond had hardened, it was a simple matter of trimming the excess plastic.



I can now proceed with real "start" of this build... the cockpit! Most of the Aires cockpit set is going to be used with the exception of the trim wheel and the fuel line from the kit. I've added a post on the left side of the seat for the trim wheels. I've also added a post to the Revi gun sight mount, which I left long so I can use as a hold during painting.



Finally, it is time for some painting! I put on a base of black over all of the cockpit parts.



The cockpit was then given a coat of RLM 66 Dark Grey (Gunze). This grey is sort of misted on to leave a bit of the black as a shadow contrast in the recessed areas.



Hard to see in the cruddy lighting but I've picked out each of the instrument bezels in black. One of the smaller dials is ringed in yellow and black.



I still need to paint the details on the main instrument panel piece but I wanted to see what the PE bezels and acetate instrument faces looked like. I'll get a better photo of this later.

After the notch fix, I re-dipped the canopy in Future. Here is a close-up of the filled-in notch.



The painting of the cockpit has been ongoing. I think I'm nearing the end of the detail brush painting stage.



Not sure how much weathering I'll do but I'll probably run a pastel wash on the interior.



Posing the cockpit parts after painting. The view into the cockpit gets very limited when both sidewalls are attached. The Bf109 was a very small aircraft and the pilots quarters were cramped.





Another view of the instrument panel after some detail painting.



The cockpit was given a gloss coat, dark pastel wash and then a flat coat to seal the wash.





Here's an idea of how closed off the cockpit will be once enclosed within the fuselage.

Not too shabby at all.....

Lovely detail on the pit there John - shaping up to be a great build. And welcome to the GB, I don't think I'll be finished by deadline either...

You do some nice steady handpainting John

Lots of fiddly work but it looks great

The Aires Revi gunsight has been painted. The reflector glass pieces are cut from the same acetate that the instrument panel dials came from. The outlines are pre-printed by Aires.



The loop antenna atop the fuselage needed a bit of work.



I started by cutting off the loop. I'll keep the loop handy to help me size the replacement loop.



I built up the antenna base, which looked a bit flat, with Milliput White putty.



I always have a hard time attaching the loop back onto the base so I had the idea of pressing little grooves into the soft putty to help secure the loop.



After drying, the antenna base was smoothed out.



The antenna loop is strip cut from a Coca Cola can and pressed around the handle of a paint brush.



I'm still figuring out Airfixer's nuggets of wisdom about the Erla G-10. His suggestion to use canopy part #59 instead of #58 didn't make much sense to me as the two parts LOOKED the same. I noticed that the Montex masks contained masks for BOTH canopies and upon closer inspection, I finally noticed that the difference is the joint between the bottom frame and rear frame: #58 has an straight angled joint while #59 has a curved junction. Photos of the Erla G-10 show the curved junction, so I am fixing canopy part #59 the same way as I had previously done with #58.



I've been trying to figure out which wheels and tires to use on the G-10 with the small wheel bulges. I had previously assumed to use the tire/wheel combination that was specified in the Revell G-6 instructions as it had the small wheel bulges on the wings. However, I did a bit of internet research and found a photo of this Erla G-10, W. Nr. 491353 in Italian service.



A close-up of the wheel shows me a likely configuration.



Of the Revell tire choices, one of them (top left) is wider than the other two so that's not the one. It's a choice between the treaded narrow and smooth narrow. Based on the pic above, I am going with the smooth. Like my previous build of this kit, there is some bad molding on this set of tires that will need some putty work.



Revell provides two wheel types. Again, based on the G-10 photo, I am choosing the wheel with the serrated edges. In the pic below, the tires have been puttied, primered and flattened to depict weight upon them.

Great work again John. I like that Erla canopy evolution link you posted - filed for future!

I'm curious how you manage to get the flattened tires to sit properly at the end as the 109's legs and tires were splayed. I always do this as a step after I've glued the wheels and legs on whereby I drag the whole model on sand paper fastened to my table.

I love the pit. Maybe some paint chipping on the seat pan?