**** DONE: GB-36 1:48 BF109G-14 - Axis Manufactured Aircraft of WWII

[Crimea_River]

Username: Crimea River
First name: Andy
Category: Judge – Non competing
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Model Type: Bf109G-14
Aftermarket addons: Kagero Decals

I hope to make this a quick build so that I can fit at least one more project into this GB. The model will depict a Bf109G-14 Blue 11 of 16/JG 5 flown by Karl-Heinz Erler at Rygge, April 1945.

I have located three photos of this aircraft and would welcome more if anyone has them:

The pictures do reveal a couple of interesting features of this aircraft. Note the antenna wire that is loosely draped and that runs through the D/F loop up to the post on the canopy. Also, the light colour on top of the wings indicates a light grey tone, possibly RLM 77. Wear on the back of the propeller blade tips can also be seen.

 

[Airframes]

Good one Andy.

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Looking forward to this Andy. Start night-shift tonight but I'll look around when I can. There might be some info here...
Homepage-Titel - Uffz. Karl-Heinz Erler

 

[Crimea_River]

That's where I got some of those pics but thanks Geo.

 

[Jeff Hunt]

Should be a pretty sweet bird when done. Good choice Andy.

Cheers
Jeff

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for looking in Jeff.

With my Ar196 curing in the paint shop and snow blowing outside, I sat down and made a big dent in this build. The cockpit parts were sprayed a dark grey while on the sprue to serve as a base for the RLM 66 to come.

The cockpit tub on the Hasegawa kit is placed into the fuselage from below after the halves are glued together so this allows one to progress on multiple fronts. Here, the tub has received a thin coat of RLM 66 over the dark grey and the high edges of the parts received a brushed application of RAF Ocean Grey to make them stand out. The cover for the cannon butt was glued in as were the pedals and all areas got some chipping treatment using a silver pencil. I'm going to pose the canopy in the closed position on this build so am not going to go to infinite detail in the pit, though the prominent yellow fuel line on the starboard side will be added as this was highly visible.

Hasegawa's 109's are fairly generic and modifications are needed depending on which variant is being built. The circular wheel wells, typical of the F models, need to be squared off but this is not a problem as the walls provided serve as a guide. The overhangs were simply removed with a sharp scalpel.

The G-14 also has an extra panel line that needs to be scribed in and this is noted in the instructions. I verified the location of the line against drawings that John sent me and scribed it in. Here you see the location marked with a pen and the line after I finished scribing it. The scribing was accomplished by laying a flexible straight edge on the surface and holding it there whilst making a couple of passes with a scalpel, sanding down the plastic that got pushed up, then going over it again with a photo-etched saw to clean out the plastic. Once the line was equivalent in size to the adjacent ones, I sanded once again, cleaned with a wetted tooth brush, and then ran some Tamiya Extra Thin Cement down the line to dull the edges a bit.

The radiators were installed and painted with Alclad Steel and the various holes need for the antenna spike, wheel recess bulges and the ETC rack were drilled out. The bulges were then glued in place and the wings were glued together before I called it a night.

The fuselage and wings come together beautifully and are held together easily with firm hand pressure for maybe 10 seconds after the Extra Thin is applied. What appears to be some separation between the wing uppers and lowers at the starboard wing root is actually just the way the light is catching a small step that will be sanded out.

At this point, I will look closely at other panel lines and hatch covers that might need to be added or filled before going further. Of course, I should have done this before the fuselage was glued together but it didn't occur to me at the time.

I expect that I will be able to spend some quality time with this kit before Saturday as we're supposed to get non-stop snow today and tomorrow. Thanks for looking in and for your interest guys.

 

[Wurger]

 

[T Bolt]

Fantastic start Andy.

 

[fubar57]

Great start

 

[Wayne Little]

Good stuff Andy, the hasegawa 109's are good straight forward build.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Checked for other potential panel mods to be made and everything seems to be per drawings with the exception of the moulded-in umbrella attachment points that will need to be removed. More later.

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for looking in Terry.

As mentioned above, the little nubs below the cockpit sill in the below pic represent the attachment points for the umbrella and these have since been removed and the area smoothed over. Another issue to address is the absence of the boxed-in hatch on the bulkhead behind the pilot which on the G-14 housed the relocated battery. I searched through my spares and confirmed my suspicion that there is no piece that I could use here so I resolved to build one from scratch.

Here we have the scratch built box. Also seen is the minor filling and sanding that was done with Tamiya primer along the seams.

Another issue I've run into before on these Hasegawa 109's is that the separate piece for the gun troughs is slightly too wide for the fuselage. I've lined up the port side as best as I could, preferring to deal with one side only. The overhang was filed down and then Tamiya primer was applied to the area. I didn't bother with the area that will be hidden by the bulges.

Here we see the above area sanded smooth and rescribed, thought he latter is not so obvious.

This pic shows the results better. With the bulges added and primer sprayed on, the rescribing can be more easily seen. There are some very slight gaps where the bulges don't quite mate with the fuselage surface but that's an easy fix.

The primer was also sprayed over the battery box and reveals just a bit of smoothing that I need to do. Note also that I added a very thin scribe line along the fuselage spine.

Back to the pit for a minute, here's what it looks like so far with belts yet to be added.

That's it for today. See you soon.

 

[JonCOlsen]

Looks great! I'll be following this one...

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Nice.

 

[T Bolt]

Very nice Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Appreciate you watching my build.

Today was cockpit day so first on the list was to make some seatbelts. I've long run out of the Eduard PE Luftwaffe belts so have been trying to perfect making my own. My raw materials are plain masking tape and stainless steel wire, the tape being close to the right colour anyway. Here we have a close up of the lap belts ready to install as well as a shot of them in place.

The shoulder belts are a little more involved with more buckles that need to be fabricated. These are done by wrapping the stainless steel wire around a square file. The triangular ones were formed around a toothpick that I carved to shape.

Here are the belts in place. I'm pretty stoked about how they turned out and will certainly do the job with a closed canopy.

The instrument panel was painted by hand. First the faces of the dials were dabbed with a Black Sharpy pen. When dry, the white dials were picked out using a toothpick and a fine brush. Before installing in the fuselage, the instrument faces got a drop of clear parts cement, not seen here.

The cockpit and instrument panel have now been slipped into the fuselage and the fuel line, made of solder, was painted and glued in place.

Taking a look at the Erla canopy reveals an annoying scratch that needs to be dealt with. There's a smaller one on the other side too.

The scratch has been repaired by using fine sand paper and micromesh pads and the canopy has been dipped in Future and is now curing. I'll start my next post with how that turned out.....or not.

 

[Airframes]

Very nicely done Andy.