**** DONE: GB-36 1/72 BF 109E-4 - Axis Manufactured Aircraft of WWII

[Jeff Hunt]

Interesting detective work with a theory or two being bandied about.
Michael, if you are using lancets for your blood sugar readings, are the lancets a heavier gauge than your needles?

Jeff

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff so far Michael.
If you can't find any tube, then there are a set of cannon and MG17 barrels available in 1/72nd scale, in brass, from Master. The UK price is £2.40 for the set. There are also resin MG17 barrels only, at the same price, from Aires.
The Master brass set is shown below.

 

[Wurger]

 

[parsifal]

Interesting detective work with a theory or two being bandied about.
Michael, if you are using lancets for your blood sugar readings, are the lancets a heavier gauge than your needles?

Jeff

I hadn't thought of that. But I don't think they would work either. The jabbers (as I call them are mostly set in a plastic casing, not easy to get out.

 

[parsifal]

Good stuff so far Michael.
If you can't find any tube, then there are a set of cannon and MG17 barrels available in 1/72nd scale, in brass, from Master. The UK price is £2.40 for the set. There are also resin MG17 barrels only, at the same price, from Aires.
The Master brass set is shown below.


View attachment 478262

That might be the way to go. I found a supplier in the following link;;;;


Aber - Armament for 1/72 German Fighter Messerschmitt Bf-109 E-3 to G-4

 

[Wurger]

IMHO.. usefull items , Michael. Good find.

 

[Crimea_River]

Michael, I ordered a couple of packs of precision slide fit brass tubes form these guys:

Slide Fit Tubes - Albion Hobbies | Precision Products for Hobby

The stuff comes in very handy for gun barrels, German radar dipoles, and pitot tubes. Much softer than your hypodermic needles and so easier to work with.

 

[parsifal]

Ive ordered some gun barrels from aber models, but I really like the suggestion from andy as well. Had already placed my order before I received Andy's advice....

 

[Airframes]

The tubes etc from Albion Alloys are excellent, and extremely useful for many applications. I didn't mention them, as I'm not sure the sizes available would suit 1/72nd scale guns.although for 1/48th scale and up, there are plenty of varying gauges.

 

[parsifal]

I haven't checked the tube diameters from that site either Terry, but to be roughly in scale a gun barrel for a 7.62mm calibre weapon would need to be about 0.3mm diameter. I base that guesstimate on the diameter of the barrel plus about the same again for the meaty metal that surrounds it. I think the total width of the barrel to the outer edges of the casing should be in the region of 20-25mm at 1:1 scale. .

 

[Airframes]

With the cooling jacket of the 7.92mm MG17, it would be nearer 45 to 50mm I would think. Just going off memory from the MG34, which was a similar size.
So in 1/72nd scale that would be roughly 0.70mm.

 

[parsifal]

I think you are right.

here is an example of my rough science

It is an image of the MG17, with a segmented line adjacent to it. The length of each segment is approximately equal to the width of the barrel plus jacket.

There are 27 segments in my little sketch. The weapon is recorded in wiki as having an overall length of 1175mm. 1175/27 = 43mm width. Given the high level of approximation in all of this, I would be happy to accept 45mm as the overall width of the barrel component of the weapon.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, that sounds about right.
An interesting development - Airfix have just announced their new range for 2018, with one of the kits being a re-release of their 1/48th scale Bf109E1/E4, and one of the markings options is von Werra's machine, as shown in the Airfix profile below.
This seems to follow the 'old' interpretation of the colours etc, but I stand by what Wojtek and I have deduced from examination of the period photos and the crash report.

 

[Crimea_River]

Michael, here's a scale drawing of the MG 17:

Based on this drawing and using my vernier, I get a little over 39mm for the cooling jacket which scales to .54 mm. The particular tubing that I bought came in a assortment of sizes, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9mm so the .5mm would do the trick for you.

 

[parsifal]

just waiting for the weather to be less crazy, after my stint with heatstroke last week.....

 

[parsifal]

whilst I was sitting around waiting for the sun to not shine, I got bored and went a little crazy. Ive ordered some aftermarket parts, which should arrive in the next 10 days or so.

You already know about gun barrels ive ordered. Ive also ordered some resin exhausts, a new seat and control column.

I am considering getting hold of the 1/72 Eduard DB601 engine though that would require quite a bit of surgery on the model. For the moment Ive done some scratch building around the kit supplied engine, adding some oil pipes (cut 8A fuse wire, and some dry brushing of the detailing).

I think I will also get hold of some of that tubing. At the moment I'm finishing off the IP, which is scrubbing up pretty well


Some images of what ive purchased. I should say I have a preference for scratch building rather than purchasing lots of aftermarket goodies, but I don't have a great knowledge of this aircraft, no real possibility of seeing one in the flesh, so thought I might bring in some outside help so to speak.....

I'm going to have to pull apart the cockpit bath to use control levers and the seat. Painting that seat will be a real challenge as well. It will have to be brush painted I think.

the seat is sitting in a bath which means I will have to remove the moulded piece already forming part of the cockpit assembly. I don't envisage too much drama. I can simply remove the existing control arm which will give me a bit of space in which to work. I will need to remove most of the cockpit bath add ons to work these aftermarket parts into the kit.

I'm still unsure about what ive done. The work ive done so far is okay, and really I was more interested in what I could achieve with a little brought in assistance.

I will post some shots of the innards as they currently exist later today..

 

[Wurger]

All sounds good.

 

[Airframes]

I agree.
Michael, if you would like some books and detail on. the '109E, and other variants, PM your e-mail address, and I'll get it sorted.

 

[parsifal]

PM sent terry thanks very much for the offer.

 

[parsifal]

so here are the shots of the work so far, showing the problems as I see them:

A really poor shot of the cockpit and home made harness. The scaling is all wrong and as wotjek has pointed out the seat is just not the right profile. I re-attached the seat so that it sits more deeply into the cockpit bath, and that does help, but still it is obvious that the subassembly is below par.

This is a side view of the cockpit. The red arrow shows the awful results of my harness building. the blue arrow is the cockpit bath that will need to come out if I use the aftermarket pilots seat, whilst the black arrow is the control stisck that also will need to come out.

This is a major zoom in of the engine on the port side. The oil line I attempted to install is clearly visible and not in correct position and far too much out of scale. I will probably remove it. the dry brushing is not too bad, but as always extreme close ups like this are pitiless.

This is the starboard side engine detail, and in my opinion slightly better
. To give some idea of the extreme magnification, the cloth weave behind is that of a very fine calico or cotton sheet

This is a close up of the unfinished IP. I'm actually pretty happy with the results achieved with this element. still have to apply another decal to the lower part.

I cant paint or apply a PE IP that looks better than this. I know there is a lot of hostility by you guys to IPs that are decals, but I cannot fault the airfix version here. the presentation of the decals is just superb, and quite accurate as well.

Reflector sight is okay as well.

I included this shot to show the effects of the heat warping from last weeks stinking hot weather that nearly killed me, and the model. . Previously the tail was closing flush with the dry fits. This is not a huge issue, but shows just how hot things got in this part of the world......