ICM 1/48 Bf 109F-4

[Airframes]

Caution:- the guns on top of the engine are fine, the part I meant is the 'box' under the instrument panel, which was a cover over the breech of the cannon which ran through the engine block. The reference to 'green' in the instructions is probably intended as RLM02, which was a grey green shade, not unlike German Wehrmacht uniforms. Although interior colours chnaged to the RLM66 grey, the engine bearers and engine compartment still normally used the 02.

 

[Peebs]

Ahh! just as well I hadn't had time to tackle the cannons yet! (Need to study up and improve my knowledge of planes me thinks) The part in Question was a terrible fit, (possibly me lol) will need a file i think!

Thinking this will be a closed cockpit finish, as this is the first plane I've built since I was a kid ( except for the Red Barron I started around 10 years ago, really need to dig thsat out and finish it too).

A question before I get to paint, the instructions call for the underside to be painted light blue. RLM 76 is light blue, although I have a polly Scale labled RLM 76 light gray which has a bluish appearance.

opinions please!!

cheers
pete

 

[Airframes]

RLM 76 is one of the family of greys, although it is in fact a bluish grey, sometimes called Hellgrau, so both descriptions are correct. It replaced the earlier RLM 65 Hellblau around mid 1941, and was generally used with an upper surface camouflage scheme or RLM 74 and 75, again greys, until later in the war.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Looking good Pete.

 

[A4K]

Great work Pete! You're in very good hands with Terry (Airframes) too, he's right on every count.

 

[Wayne Little]

Good work mate...agree with Terry too!

 

[Wurger]

Yep..I'm with Terry and Wayne too.

 

[Tony Hill]

Nice!

 

[Peebs]

G'day All,

Not sure weather its my inexperience or 2 left thumbs, but as you can see its not fitting together as well as i'd have liked. From pic 1 you can see on the underside the piece in question sits reasonably well, the etched line on the inside matches ok, but even allowing for the paralax error, that makes the mismatch look worse, the outside etched lines don't match all that well.

From pic 2 you can see there is quite a gap, I'm thinking I'll heat up a bit of sprue flatten it out and form a shim to fill this gap. You can also see that the piece is slightly raised compared to the rest of the wing surface so I guess I'll be filing/sanding

pic1

pic2

 

[Peebs]

P.S. the join circled in green here is a good fit, it looks odd because there is some dark overspray and some flashing I've yet to remove

 

[Crimea_River]

Heating sprue and flattening it certainly is an option but the more common approach is to get yourself some plastic card at your local hobby store and cut a strip to fill the gap. Card comes in many thicknesses and is not expensive. I have a couple of sheets of varying thicknesses and I use it all the time.

Another option you have is to lower the radiator flaps. Many photos of 109's on the ground show these in the lowered position along with the flaps. If you place them this way, the gap won't be noticable.

If the rad flaps come in two halves, you can avoid the thckness issue by sanding the mating edges down a bit until they are the same thickness as the wing trailing edge. Or, you can wedge the trailing edge apart a bit so than the rad flaps line up. But be careful you don't mess up the wing to fuselage alignment in doing so.

 

[Peebs]

Hey Crimea, thanks for the advice. Indeed nearly every pic I found of a 109 on the ground shows it with "flaps down"

How does this look guys??

 

[T Bolt]

Doesn't look like anything a little filler and some time with a needle file won't solve.

 

[Airframes]

Looks like it's getting there. Before you go any further, check the wing dihedral - you might find the gap will be smaller, or disappear, once the dihedral is at the correct angle. Also, that gap on the underside, inboard, might be the line of the split flap and radiator - bit hard to tell without actually seeing the model.
You should end up with a fairly narrow gap, if any, on the upper surafce joint. As Andy said, a strip of plastic card will fill that. Just insert, fix with liquid poly cement, and trim off flush, or alternatively, use a bead of either CA glue or PVA.
NOTE:- Check reference pics for the upper-section of the inboard flap/radiator to get the angle correct - they didn't 'droop' as the lower half did.

 

[Peebs]

NOTE:- Check reference pics for the upper-section of the inboard flap/radiator to get the angle correct - they didn't 'droop' as the lower half did.

A point illustrated here perfectly!!

 

[Wayne Little]

Nice challenge you got there, looking the part though!

 

[Airframes]

Great pic! MBB's Bf109G6 which they rebuilt, crashed, re-built, crashed, re-built....it's probably had more 'battle damage' than a whole Jagdgeschwader! (only kidding, it's a beaut reatoration.)

 

[Crimea_River]

Here's a section through the wing at the rad if it helps, courtesy of the 109 Lair website:

 

[Airframes]

Nice one Andy !

 

[Peebs]

G'day Guys,

Thanks again for all the info. I'm quickly becoming addicted to this forum lol!

I've separated the two halves that form the radiator. The lower half is molded in one long piece so there is no real way to have the lower 'coolant flap' 'hang' down as in the pic. I'm going to cut it and rejoin at angle similar to the pic