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

got the two halves together and the guns and made a start on the tail.oneof the tail struts broke as I was getting it off the sprue,making me decide to call it a night. Ive glued the strut back together, because the moulded piece has these feet has these little feet

Had problems getting the two halves together with a large gap in front of the cockpit .I spent a lot of time filling and sanding I managed to save most, but not all the dorsal panel lines but as you can see the paint work is ruined.i will need to do some rescribing and respraying.

ive repaired the cowl, and fitted the guns. Guns are....okay I guess. certainly better than lumps of plastic. I spent a lot of time fitting the MG151 (I know they are not correct but at this scale I don't think that is noticeable. I mounted some extra detqils around the guns including some things based on a photo andy provided fort erry's build. I was happy with the way it turned out actually. the engine looks quite presentable , but unfortunately I think I will have to button up the cowl and cover all this detail up. The cowl is just sitting too high and needs to cemented into place Very disappointed with that.i had wanted to keep the cowlas a detacheable element, Anyway, that happens.

Here are the shots using (mostly0 an increased focal length.....


kit instruction want me to fit the prop as I put the two halves together. So that the prop can spin basically. Far too much risk of breaking the prop, so I will fit it later as a fixed element, same with the tail wheel and tail rudder







some of the engine details I was looking to replicate



External MG17 barrels fitted.Needs some further touching up



This is the engine mounted MG 151 barrels as I used them. it was difficult to get everything to sit together properly





Cowl dry fitted and clearly showing the problem .it wasn't the engine detail asi removed all of it and still the cowl was sitting off the base. I can press it into place and its fine......
Exhausts are fitted incidentally



A wider shot of the model as it currently stands.I will have to remove the air intake and remount it as its clearly not sitting square

Good progress.

I agree, well done Micahel. The colurs on top of the main engine cowling look a touch dark, but that could be the lighting.
BTW, the MG151 designation is for the 20mm wing cannons - the machine guns on top of the engine were the MG17.

It's coming together!

wings are on. Some small gaps to fill, general tidy up. not too bad, photos to follow soon.

Airframes said:

I agree, well done Micahel. The colurs on top of the main engine cowling look a touch dark, but that could be the lighting.
BTW, the MG151 designation is for the 20mm wing cannons - the machine guns on top of the engine were the MG17.

Click to expand...

I did know that the MG 151 was a cannon, but I used them to depict the MG 17 barrels under the bonnet so to speak. The scale thickness is wrong, but at this scale it is virtually impossible to pick up on.

I tend to agree terry about the engine colours. ive added the MG151 barrels to that area along with the cylinder thingys that are visible at the back end of the gun at the rear that you can see in Andy's photo., and tried to replicate some of the shapes at least that you see between the gun barrels in the real thing. Ive painted all these elements with a base coat of Duralumin (alclad) and a top coat of Tamiya gunmetal. ive applied the gunmetal rather too thickly. The scale effect is now making that whole area too black looking. I probably should have used something like a dark grey..... Anyway its a bit academic now....given that I will have to button up the cowl and completely hide all that work ive done on the engine and under bonnet gun barrels . as I said previously, I am very disappointed about that, but I just cannot find the reason why the cowl is sitting so far up. I might try one more thing by trimming ba ck the barrels in the hope that will engine bonnet to sit flat as it should.

The other issue is that green on the area in front of the cockpit, now affected partly by the fill Ive applied. I'm using straight Tamiya XF61 as per the conversion sheet. It seems a tad dark, but I think close enough to be passable. Please do let me know your opinions on that if you disagree.

My aim for tonight is to get the air intakes (located under the wing) fitted and then start masking for the painting of the main fuselage and wings. I'm going to leave the other do-dads off for the time being ive already attached the tail and the air filter on the side. I have pre-painted the cowl because ive fitted the MG barrels to the cowl, pre-painted. This is different to the methodology youve applied in your build. I hope these changes in sequencing will not cause insurmountable difficulties......

I notice in your build that the area behind the pilots seat is a mix of RLM 02 and RLM 65 in you build. At least it looks that way. is that how I should be painting my kit? Kit instructions say I should not. it says that whole area should be a uniform Grey Green (RLM 65)

some photosof the kit with the wings on and filler started.


ive done some further work on that ill fitting engine cover, shortening the barrels,and removing some of the plastic from the inside of the cowling.It has improved the fit considerably, but still is sitting proud over where it should be


still sitting too high but getting there I think



fit problem of the cowling very apparent here.



same shot, cowling removed




underside. had some problemswith the intakes located behind the LG. They are not fitting as well as I'd thought

I can remove am and sand down some of the materialon the covered facing so that they sit more smotthly and flushto the underside of the wings.

Broken strut has been repaired and seems okay.

Getting shape.

Regarding the RLM 02 colour...

AirFix 1:72 Bf109 e-4 | iModeler


Modelarstwo z pasją • Zobacz wątek - Bf-109 E-3, 1:72 Airfix

Michael, here's a trick for the cowl: Paint the inside of it flat black, then press the cowl into place. Remove it again and see where the black paint has been scuffed. That would be the points that are binding.

Regarding the colours behind the pilot seat, I know of no areas that would be 65 within the confines of the cockpit.

I agree with Andy. It's very probably the inside of the cowling which is touching the guns, so it may need (the cowling) sanding down inside.

Nice pic.....good advice......getting there Michael. Many good coaches in your corner

Doin' good Michael....

Crimea_River said:

Michael, here's a trick for the cowl: Paint the inside of it flat black, then press the cowl into place. Remove it again and see where the black paint has been scuffed. That would be the points that are binding.

Regarding the colours behind the pilot seat, I know of no areas that would be 65 within the confines of the cockpit.

Click to expand...

i was going to use water to try and get an idea of where the obstruction.ive already removed a lot of material from the cowl, though I do still have quite a bit in reserve. I will do the test and see what comes up.if the water option doesn't work, I can always fall back to using paint.

There is another issue requiring work...... the last photo in my post number 127 shows the underside of the model with a join seam running down the centreline . I'm not even sure the raised panel detail in the fuselage part that forms the lower half of the wing should have that raised detail at all
either.

ive attached a clip taken of the Me109g that was on display at the AWM some years back. It shows most of the under fuselage finishes were relatively smo0th

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9570aQ7hMuo


Any thoughts guys?

Michael, the Bf109 in the Australian museum is a late 'G' model, which had a different wing and center section.
The Bf109E, like other '109 models, had the fuselage built in two halves, joined rather like a model, and there was a center-line joint on the upper and lower surfaces, although this was not always immediately obvious, depending on the colour scheme, and the cleanliness or otherwise of the airframe.
The '109E series had that stiffening rib in the middle of the underside center section, and the wing root joint plates either side, aft of this rib - see the pic of my model, below.

With Terry. .. I had to engraved the panel lines at the bottom while building the Airfix 1/24 Bf 109E...

Terry's on it. Good progress Michael

Yes, but I think it's easy to give these center seams too much emphasis as they can be barely seen. Here's Paul Allen's 109:

Wurgers 1/24 really highlights the point that is concerning me. in the area that ive circles in the following image, I cant see any evidence of a seam. Terry is saying that 109Es were somewhat different and that the fuselage was constructed by the joining of two shell halves top and bottom. At 1/72 scale should those seams be visible or prominent?




In comparison my smaller scaled 109 has a fairly prominent underside seam abaft the wings.....


The questions is should I do something about that? It doesn't look too bad in the flesh, but I'm tending to think I need to at least try and diminish its visibility by some filling....

The bottom panel line can't be noticed in the pic because it wasn't engraved when I was taking the pic. I did that later. Here is a shot of the fuselage bottom of a crashed Bf 109E. You may see that the line was there indeed. As Terry mentioned the fuselage was made as two halves and then joined together at the top and bottom. However the fitting of both halves was very tight and the lines aren't seen very often. Actually it is not seen if a plane sits on wheels. Additionally the dust or dirt gathered there just could fill the bottom line what could be the reason as well. But stains always cause the lines more emphasised. To answer your question.. you may engrave a very thin line or lines there if you want. Depending on how much the camo is worn out these can be more or less noticable. The von Werra's kite seems to be of quite "fresh uniform" and the lines there weren't too much prominent IMHO. Just won't go overboard with the weathering.

The next two images I found via the net. These can come in handy too.