Henschel Hs 129 B2 im Afrika 1/48

[Kalakan]

Greetings my fellow modelers:

It´s been a while since we haven´t seen. As you can imagine, a lot happens in almost two years. But taking advantage of this Coronavirus period at home, I decided to get back to my favourite Hobby.

One recent experience I want to share with everyone in this forum is that whenever you decide to share your life with a new girlfriend, be true to your ideals and remember to be VERY CLEAR to comment her that you have a serious hobby regarding plastic modeling. My ex GF didn't understood why in this world I had a complete room full of stuff (regarding to my paints, my unopened boxes of new plastic models, etc (you get the idea).....

Just when we broke up, she finally opened herself and told me that she couldn´t understand why in the world I hided so much trash in my special room!!! The thing is, choose well my friends .

For this model, I decided that I wanted to manufacture a diorama of this desert tankbuster with the background in movement.

But first things first. The model is manufactured from AMT Erlt (guess that this model belongs to the 80´s!) and so far it looks like no parts are missing except from the pilot.

Thank God I preserve a lot of old plastic pieces from several models hidden in bins and boxes, and finally an old WWII german pilot was redeployed for action and will have to play his part in this new project. Don´t know why the pilots no longer are listed in several 1/48 plastic models? Does anyone have a clue the reason of this merchandising, or lack of it?

The fuselage and wing joints had to be addressed with a lot of putty.... and some metallic plates had to be placed in several surfaces in order to enhance the other sterile surfaces in this kite....

I'll be posting more photos of this kite advance during these days.

Stay healthy my dear modeler colleagues....

Greetings from Monterrey

Kalakan

 

[Snautzer01]

Henschell Hs129

Information and insperation.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Nice to see you back and hopefully your new girlfriend understands. I will watch with interest but am looking at that decal sheet. I don't hold much hope that those decals will work for you so you may want to prepare.

 

[Kalakan]

Hello again my fellow model builders.

Thanks for your kind words and links (Snautzer 01), and based on the different information that you have kindly sent me and also all the info found in the web regarding the camo to be applied to this kite, it was decided to apply a mix of colors and technique that quite frankly I haven't seen yet in any photo (at least in this kite model).

But based on the fact of all the different types and varieties of camo applied to several Hs 129 in the african campaign, I decided to use the RLM 81 lines of the Wellenmuster camo for the entire upper surfaces, with the RLM 79 sandgelb as base. RLM 78 Licht blau for the under surfaces.

Also, based on the fact that this kites were constantly on the move in the harsh african desert, it was decided that the surfaces had to present a really abused and weathered surfaces.

Here's the update images of the week advance:

First the final assembly of the sanded parts along with the metallic extra pieces as well for the Mk 101 cannon bulge....

More detail to the nose of the kite, due that some rivets and panel lines were lost in the sanding works. Also it was applied a metallic strip in the fuselage/wing attachment joint (where the service doors to the MG´s are located).....

First, the Licht Blau 78 undersurfaces paint works.....

To end with the Sand Gelbe in the upper surfaces.... and where some darker areas were applied where the gas panels are located. The armoured canopy is way to translucent and will have to be applied more paint from the interior in order to make it look solid.....

Here's my advance so far until this day my friends. There's a lot of work ahead and I'm exited of how this kite is behaving so far....

Tomorrow is the day of applying some decals as well as beginning the Wellenmuster camo works and I have to practice elsewhere.....

Greetings from Monterrey

Kalakan

 

[fubar57]

Very nice. Which paint brand are you using?

 

[Kalakan]

Very nice. Which paint brand are you using?

The brand is Ronin, and are acrylics. Guess they can be found only in Mexico City so far.

And to be honest, compared to other brands, they are way cheaper and so far has presented a good quality my dear friend Fubar.

Greetings

Kalakan

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Looking good. Note that RLM 81 is unlikely to be the colour of the Wellenmuster. 81 was only introduced in 1944 along with 82 as a replacement for the up to then standard RLM 70 and 71, long after the desert campaign. Maybe it was a typo but the colour was more likely 71.

 

[Kalakan]

Looking good. Note that RLM 81 is unlikely to be the colour of the Wellenmuster. 81 was only introduced in 1944 along with 82 as a replacement for the up to then standard RLM 70 and 71, long after the desert campaign. Maybe it was a typo but the colour was more likely 71.

My dear friend Crimea:

After reading last night found that you are completely right about the use of the 81 color in the 44. Then after searching it was found that there were several variations of the RLM 79 tones. Guess they were called "a" (the sand gelb specifically) and the "b" type called sand brown, which matches the tone of the desired color for this camo.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

And based in this information and after making some tests, the best option for applying this color was found in the soft pastels. This test was applied with fine cotton swabs over an old Junkers 87 that has been stored for over quite some time.

The adherence of the pastels over the acrylic is quite satisfactory....

And due to be locked down in home, I'll make some more tests before attempting to make the leap to the Henschel..... there's time to make more tests...

Stay safe my modeller colleagues!

Greetings from Monterrey

Kalakan

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very nice!

 

[fubar57]

Good stuff. The next time you are allowed to venture out, hit up the beauty section and look for these instead of Tamiya. You get more at a fraction of the cost and its basically the same product...

 

[Crimea_River]

A good technique that can look quite convincing.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[javlin]

Like it! and the room by the way looks alot cleaner and neater than what I have in the shop ....it was time for the GF to go bye bye! Kevin

 

[Kalakan]

Hello again my modeller friends:

I'm presenting you an update of the work done so far to the Henschel 129 alias the Dosenöffner (can opener).

Based in the next image, I tried to follow the suggested squiggle patterns applied to the new model.... Guess that in the final African period of the DAK, they tried to hide or camouflage their assets as well as they could against overwhelming odds.....

And then after several attempts, this is how the paint works looks until this day after applying the old decals....

And yes, as commented by my friend Crimea River, I was expecting the worse by using this old decals. Just in case, I had at hand another set of Luftwaffe markings shelved around somewhere.... (along with a good quantity of prayers!!).

After setting in place the original decals, then it was applied Humbrol Decal Cote 2, in order to avoid any future mishaps. And the kite looked like this after the first attempt:

And then, the paint works based of your kind recommendations. The installation of the soft pastels proceed as planned, always watching to avoid touching the already painted surfaces. If you touch the pastels without protection Oh boy, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble due that your fingerprints will be found exactly in the places where the paint doesn't belong!

The only mishap occur when both swastikas suddenly appeared between my fingers during the paint works.

I found another set of swastikas and to make a long story short, as they were soaked in warm water, after 5 minutes they completely disintegrated!....

So due that I couldn't found any other 1/48 Hakenkreuz around my decals, then it was decided to paint over the contours of the original Hakenkreuzes that were already in place and apply pastels over them in order to minimize the obvious imperfections performed along this works (imitating to my best abilities the original Dosenöffner presented in the first image above).

Guess that in the next kite I´ll have to produce my own Hakenkreuzes with more time.

After each session of paint works, some matt varnish was applied in order to protect the pastels in place.
Then it was decided to apply some brown (dark tones) with pastels in the undersufaces as well in order to improve the weathering effects. This were later removed with a humid clean cloth.

This is how the undersurfaces presents after the pastel paint works ended as well as with some color pencils to emphasize certain areas.

I really like how the stains of oil, petrol and rust sports in some war planes. And as commented earlier, the main idea is to present this kite weathered enough to make the idea that the operating conditions in north africa were harsh to everyone/everything involved.

And this is how the uppersurfaces presents with the engine cowlings in place. Guess that this cowlings had to look without the amount of the applied weathering in the other surfaces due that the

The engines also received some work applying some copper wiring in the Gnome-Rhone 14M/5 engines. To be honest, I did not wanted to apply a lot of work in there due to the fact that the propellers are going to be presented in motion and will very likely each detail end behind these still to be produced props....

Also the Revi gunsight was located without the translucent parts or any other details. They will likely end on the floor if installed at this moment.

Thank you for watching my fellow modellers and still some details have to be applied around the plane yet.

Now the propeller works will begin in parallel with the cabin and the pilot.... and yes I know, I have to improve my photographic skills. Guess that the blurred images did not came along with the price of the camera..

Best regards from Monterrey mis amigos.

Kalakan

 

[Crimea_River]

That's turned out quite nice. Now that you've posted a picture of the actual plane, however, I wish I could have seen it earlier so that I could suggest that the scheme is very different than what you are doing on the model. If you look closely at the picture, what you see is that the scheme is actually RLM 79 Wellen over the underlying green 70/71 splinter scheme. I encountered this scheme for my Tamiya Storch and it looks like this:

 

[Wurger]

 

[Kalakan]

That's turned out quite nice. Now that you've posted a picture of the actual plane, however, I wish I could have seen it earlier so that I could suggest that the scheme is very different than what you are doing on the model. If you look closely at the picture, what you see is that the scheme is actually RLM 79 Wellen over the underlying green 70/71 splinter scheme. I encountered this scheme for my Tamiya Storch and it looks like this:

Hello again my friend Crimea:

Indeed you Storch it's a gorgeous kite! The combination of colors you applied looks great!

The idea of applying the RLM 79's combination on the Dosenöffner was based on the fact that it exist several images of this kite with several patterns of camo as well as several colors applied, and somewhere I read (guess that in some book regarding the BF 109 in north africa) that in some cases, the DAK even applied in the desert colors of the Regia Aeronautica in their kites.... so who knows for sure if this combination was even tried.

Like in the following images, the desert colors appears to be applied with the aforementioned combination.

Another thing that caught my attention is the fact that even the white fuselage bands were even applied some color to minimize their obviousness.....

Thanks again my dear friend Crimea

Kalakan

 

[Crimea_River]

Yes, many variations. I wasn't sure if you aware if you are doing a particular aircraft or a representation. Carry on!