**** DONE: GB-37 1/48 Bf109E-4B - Helicopters / Military a/c of BoB 1940 (1 Viewer)

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Thanks gents.....and Victor.

The cowl is once again undergoing a makeover and whilst the new primed surface dries in preparation for what will hopefully be the last scribe job, I attended to the tail wheel paint. These white walls are a PITA but the pics show the steps of painting the bub, masking, painting the white wall, masking, then painting the tire black followed by a brush touch up as I never seem to be able to get this perfect. It still is not perfect enough for a close up but anyone judging this will need a jewellers loupe to see it.

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Good stuff Andy.
I've never had much luck trying to mask the tail wheels, even on larger aircraft. If I manage to cut a mask, then it mostly distorts when I try to position it, due to my knackered hands, so I just paint them freehand, and hope for the best !
Those bl**dy whitewalls are another Luftwaffe revenge weapon, like their canopy framing, designed to **** up modellers for generations to come !
 
Thanks gentlemen.

So I'm at the point where I will need to decide what colour to paint the gun cowl. As we've been unable to surface a period pic of this aircraft, the only thing I have to go on is the profile in Kagero's topcolours as shown in post 1 which indicates a cowl that is finished in RLM65. Assuming that they have pics to back up the fact that the cowl differs from the surrounding camouflage, here are what I would suggest as possibilities:

1) The cowl is painted RLM 65 as Kagero says.
2) The cowl is natural metal
3) The cowl is a different, light colour

Discussion

Option 1 - under what circumstances would an entire gun cowl be painted 65? If the cowl was damaged and repaired in the field, would the maintenance crew have painted it 65? or 02? Maybe they painted it 65 intending to finish the top portion in 71 but were pressed into getting the aircraft into service. 02 would make sense from a maintenance standpoint but this would make the colour the same as the darkened areas on the fuselage.

Option 2 - would a new cowl from the factory have been unpainted? Was a repaired cowl stripped of paint and reinstalled prior to an intended repaint? The glare would have been a nuisance....

Option 3 - a different, lighter colour would presumably have had to be lighter than the yellow nose and pure 65. To me that would leave a light grey such as 77 or white. Not sure 77 would have appeared lighter than yellow though. And why would it be white?

So, for those interested in discussion and helping me decide, what would you do if this were your model and why?
 
Hmm, tricky.
My first reaction is that it would more likely be RLM 02, applied as a primer, or similar, light grey primer colour, as seen on some period colour pics of factory production lines.
The use of RLM 65 would make sense if the cowl had been painted ready for installation, with the 65 acting as a base for the yet to be applied upper surface colour(s).
In the profile, it looks more like a representation of bare metal, which I suppose is possible, but would not be popular with the pilot.
The latter finish would certainly make for an interesting model, but I think I would tend to go with either RLM 65 or a light grey 'primer type' shade, as has sometimes been seen around the edges of the gun troughs.
 
Thanks Terry. I'm ruling out 02 as I assume that the cowl would have appeared as the same shade as the 02 on the spine and lighter than the original fuselage which would have by then received mottling of 02 and 71. Kagero have interpreted from their reference that the colour was lighter than that.

Geo, I crossed posts with you but thanks for looking. My understanding is that German factories did not use primers as the paints used were designed to be applied directly to bare metal without the use of primers. If they used a light grey primer then that would be my logical choice.
 

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