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

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Well, I've removed the canopy and dicked around with it to make it fit. This was accomplished mostly by tactical sanding and filing in selected spots and I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out. These brutal close-ups reveal some imperfections but these are invisible to the naked eye, even with my magnifier visor on so, it will pass inspection as far as I'm concerned.

The step at the windscreen was also removed by the use of a scalpel followed by filing and that little bit of a hollow you can see there will be hidden once I add a scratch built de-icer tube, the fairing of which I removed as it was in the way of my rework efforts. I will add it back later. Note also that I removed the little air scoop at the foot of the quarter panel as the close-up of the real aircraft posted earlier shows this to be missing. The area was also re-scribed after all this was done.

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Moving on to the flaps, I removed the large step that Hasegawa moulded in as reference photos confirm that no such step exists on the real flap. The one at the top of the photo has been modified, the other not.


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The lower radiator exit flaps need a couple of ribs added as these will be visible with the flaps deployed. I'm hoping that the upper flaps will hide the ejector in marks.


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The elevators were cleaned up and re-installed. Note that I've done some pre-shading using the left-over grey that I used around the cockpit framing. The underside is also done but I didn't take a pic of that.


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The leading edge slats are thankfully moulded separately. However, there are no supports to allow the slats to stand proud of the surface so I cut some strips form plastic card to accomplish this.


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Here are the flaps installed. The seam on the vertical surface at the wing root was filled before adding the radiator flaps. This is important as this surface is visible and it would be difficult to do this later.


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So obviously, I'm back at it and moving quickly - for me. Hopefully I'll be squirting finish colours before the week is out. Thanks for stopping by friends.
 
Well OK then...

I added the de-icer tube and fairing then squirted on some 02 for contrast. The tube is 0.2mm lead wire and the fairing is stretched sprue cut on an acute slant. I will ditch the fairing and replace it with a new one as it pokes out a little too much.

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Thanks guys. First colours on, starting with the yellow portion of the JG 5 identifier band:


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The Kagero Topcolours booklet I am basing this model on has the early type trim tab on the rudder, the one that resembles a streamlined dorsal fin on a fish whereas the model has the twin staggered tabs moulded. I wonder if Kagero based their profile on another picture as they also say that the spinner carries a very wide white spiral. None of this can be seen in the 3 pics I've found on the net. Unless something pops up, I will stick with the twin tab so as to avoid all the extra work to switch to the other type.

Any know-how on that topic would be appreciated.
 
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The yellow was masked off and the black portion of the band applied. With the left over black in the cup, I went on a preshaded the entire upper side.

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The black band was then masked off and the RLM 76 was applied to the sides and underside. Hard to see but the little fairing for the de-icer tube has been changed to a slightly shallower one.




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Thanks Terry and Wojtek.

Today I got the camo colours on and am happy with the results except for a few areas that the close-ups reveal that I will need to fix.

First to go on was my Heinz 57 mix of Tamiya colours for the RLM 75. I've tweaked this mix so much that I've lost track of the ratios but as far as I'm concerned it looks about right. Note that there is none on the wings and you'll see why in a sec.

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The few pics of this rig reveal that the wing splinters use a much lighter grey and the conventional wisdom is that it's RLM77. For this I used straight Tamiya XF-19.


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Finally, the RLM 74 went on. I started with a mix of 3XF-24 and 2XF-27 over which went a second pass with a lightened version of the same mix. Note the heavy mottling that I tried to replicate from the photos. I also noticed that I messed up on the width of the black band. I'll need to remask the edge with the yellow and reshoot it though I doubt I'll get the exact same colour as I lighted the black a bit with some white or grey.


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This close-up reveals that I need to go over the 74 again with the lightened version to get closer to the feathered edge with the 77.


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I hope to make the noted fixes tomorrow and will update if that happens. Thanks again for checking in.
 

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