Revell 1/32 Bf 109G-10 Erla (1 Viewer)

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Why not model the Hartmann machine? Because I am saving that one for you my friend! :) Hartmann's G-10 will definitely make an eye-catching model but the tulip nose markings are not my style. I prefer my Gustav's to have a clean finish up front to accentuate all of those subtle bumps and curves.

But! I hawe also super good variant -
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Why not model the Hartmann machine? Because I am saving that one for you my friend! :) Hartmann's G-10 will definitely make an eye-catching model but the tulip nose markings are not my style. I prefer my Gustav's to have a clean finish up front to accentuate all of those subtle bumps and curves.

But! I hawe also super good variant - View attachment 284555

Yeah, that is a cool one. I like it but it is not an ERLA-produced machine so it wouldn't be an appropriate subject for this particular kit. And believe it or not, I actually modeled Ewald's 109G-10 in 1/48 scale. It was my first model kit after a 30-year hiatus from the hobby...

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The JG300 aircraft sported the solid red colour tail band from early 1944 when the unit was part of Luftflotte Reich. Some time in late 1944, before the Reichsverteidigung Order on February 20. 1945, which made the alternate colours official, the unit switched over to the blue/white/blue colours for the unit, so the profile for red 12 is plausible. It could well be a different aircraft than Red 8 and it was also possible for the G-10 to have the short tail wheel, being the mutt that it was.

Still checking on pics and profiles and will revert.
 
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OK John, I skimmed through the encyclopedic work on JG300 by Levant and Goyat. The only pics in there of Red 8 have already been posted, as has the one pic of "Timo" Schenk's Red 5. There is a pic of Dahmen standing in front of Red 12 but all you see is the number, the "Gisela" script, and the canopy so no help on whether or not this rig had the red or blue bands. I'll defer to others to provide proof one way or another if it exists. The book says that Dahmen was killed in Red 14 on Feb 3, 1945 so that does't help either.

Asbiz.com, which I don't take as an authority, says that Dahmen's Red 8 was renumbered to Red 12. Hopefully that statement is substantiated somewhere and, if that's true, the bands would be blue and not red.

Your profile of Red 8 above states a W.Nr. but Lorant and Goyat are less committal on that and the profile they have, which I'll send you by e-mail, states the number to be "provisional".
 
Thank you George and Andy! Let the information download begin! The Revell kit comes with FOUR rudders. One will definitely NOT be used as it is the older style with the angled top edge. I will have to inspect the three remaining "tall tail" rudders and make some sense of them (all three of them feature the two trim tabs BTW). The instructions aren't much help... they simply list two of the three as options, with no clarifying language. It would be nice if the kit came with a parts description list to go along with the sprue map!


Looking forward to your builds! Too bad I won't have them for reference.;) I'm sure you're aware of this but Alley Cat's upgrade set and small bulge wings for the Revell Erla kit are now available again, after some ownership transition. The upgrade set is quite comprehensive and seemed like a more economical choice compared to the separate upgrade options offered by Barracuda. I'll give a complete report on the upgrades as I received them.

I have the G-6 Alley cat set and you get plenty of bang for your buck! So i expect similar for this version too!
 
I received a couple of my aftermarket requisitions and will report on them as promised. First is are some Revi 16B gun sights from QuickBoost. At 1/32 scale and in a prominent location within the cockpit, I thought it would be a worthwhile upgrade from the kit gunsight which is molded wholly in clear plastic. They come with premarked acetate for the sight glass and three to a set so a fairly economical upgrade.

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The next two upgrades are from Alley Cat Models. One can consider the Bf109G-10 being an upgrade program rather than a standalone new model. The G-10 was Luftwaffe's attempt at upgrading existing 109G models to K-4 levels. So G-10's were often a hodgepodge of old and new features. Revell chose to include only the newer style upper wing bulges on its G-10 release even though there were many G-10's that retained the older, smaller wing bulges. Strange omission on Revell's part considering (a) all of the other options that Revell includes in this kit, (b) the smaller wing bulges have already been created by Revell for the previous G-6 release and (c) the cover subject for Revell's G-10 has been clearly identified as one of those with the smaller wing bulges.

Alley Cat Models offers a drop-in resin replacement for modelers wishing to accurately portray a G-10 with smaller wing bulges.
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Alley Cat also offers a resin correction set for the Revell G-10. It's quite comprehensive and addresses most, if not all, of the little complaints and shortcomings that have been identified with Revell's G-10 since its release. This is not a cockpit detail set... although Alley Cat includes some cockpit replacement parts, those that want to rehaul the kit cockpit (especially the sparsely decorated sidewalls) will have to look elsewhere. Even without the cockpit details, this is quite an expanse of resin...
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The largest piece is the upper gun cowling. Apparently, the gun trough shape and space between them was not accurately portrayed by Revell. Alley Cat rectifies this by providing a replacement piece with revised gun troughs. You can see that the Alley Cat gun troughs are spaced further apart. I only wish that Alley Cat (or Revell) could've somehow portrayed that ill-fitting gap between the rear edge of the gun cowling and the rest of the fuselage that I see so often in pictures of the G-10.
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The oil cooler is replaced by a slightly curvier version...
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The supercharger intake? Can't really say what the difference is here, especially with the kit in two parts. Filling of a small sink mark will be avoided... yay!
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The exhausts are interesting. Alley Cat kills a few birds with this one correction. The ends are hollowed out of course which means I won't have to be drilling out the pipes on this one. The kit exhausts are designed to be installed before the fuselage halve go together, which complicates painting. Alley Cat provides a way to install the exhausts after the fact by utilizing a mounting plate (essentially a strip of resin with a row of six holes). The mounting plate goes in first and the exhausts are installed individually at a later time, presumably after the majority of your painting is done. Spacing in the exhaust trough is very tight so how installation of those little pipes, one by one, practically plays out, we'll have to see.
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Similar to the oil cooler, the ETC rack is given a slight shape massage...
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As the theme of this set is CORRECTION not ADDED DETAIL, a few of these pieces are marked not by the presence of the items but the absence of them. The Alley Cat seat offers no additional detail but simply removes the molded seat belts. This allows the addition of AM or scratcbuilt harnesses of your choice without the headache of filing, grinding, sanding.
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The inclusion of a joystick is a bit of surprise. Maybe its buried in all of the flash but I don't see much of an upgrade here.
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Another example of the less-is-more philosophy in this correction set... the little discs that were present on the kit's control surfaces have been wiped off. An added benefit here is that the elevators and ailerons are now one-piece affairs.
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The 109's little airscoops on the fuselage are molded as solid bumps on the kit. Alley Cat provides these fine hollow replacements but we'll have to perform some minor surgical removals to utilize them.
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And finally we come to the propeller and spinner, which I think is the only "essential" piece in this set. The late model 109's broad VDM prop blades have a distinct "butter knife" look to them, which many manufacturer's fail to capture. Alley Cat's rendition captures the look better than the kit blades, especially near the tips.

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Both the Revell and Alley Cat spinners portray the pinched openings correctly but the Revell version has two significant shortcomings. (1) The joint between the spinner and backplate does not occur on a natural seam line. Removal of that joint would be difficult to achieve since (2) the prop blades must be installed before that joint is formed. Alley Cat bypasses all of that headache by putting the backplate join line where it belongs AND giving one a nifty way of inserting the prop blades into the completed spinner using slots and pins.
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I have Radu's fabulous looking harnesses on the way and I've yet to pull the trigger on the decal markings.
 
Good stuff John. Just looking at the Alley Cat control column, there's quite a difference. the grip shape is better, and the firing solenoid, below the grip, looks more accurate than the kit parts.
 
That's good to know Terry! I'll be looking at the parts in more detail as I get into this build. One thing I've noticed is the kit instrument panel decal looks strange to me. Gray instrument faces? None of my references indicate this to be the case. Do I overlook it and just use them as is? I don't consider handpainting an option here since the dials are smooth and don't have molded instrument details. I can fork over some dough to get AM IP decals from Airscale or MDC.

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Yeah they don't look ideal but they might arguably simulate a bit of glare off the glass faces. I could live with them. You might get away with carefully going over the gray parts with a 0.5mm felt pen if you have a steady hand.

By the way, I emailed you that profile.
 
Based on pictures of online builds I've seen, it looks like Revell has changed the IP decals from their G-6. Not only the instrument faces from black to gray but the actual instrument details look different... finer detail actually. I'll probably give the kit decals a go and see how they look.

I figured at least one of the reasons why Revell divided the landing gear strut into three parts. The kit has the option of showing the landing gear up. It provides option-specific landing gear doors for this and due to space limitations, utilizes only the strut piece with the wheel axle for the wheel up configuration.
 
Before diving into the first real work on this bird, I wanted to finish up my look at the landing gear struts. I sprayed the shiny part of the struts with Alclad Chrome, waited a few days and then masked them. I then added the oleo scissors and scratchbuilt brake lines made of lead wire. I'll put these away for now.
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The cockpit assembly is laid out for painting. I didn't add too much here. Some wiring, a new throttle lever. Just a note... the instructions call out the wrong cannon breech cover. The 109G-10 used a MG151 in the center gun position, not a MK108 and the kit contains both. The control stick, seat and seat bulkhead are from the Alley Cat set.

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The foot pedals were spruced up with flattened lead wire and a buckles from the spare PE stash.

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The cockpit parts were base coated in black and then sprayed dark gray. Various details were handpainted. I added a spare decal onto the top of the cannon cover.

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I still haven't received the seatbelts from RB Productions so I'm not going to piece everything together just yet.

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Spare instrument decals were used on the oxygen control panel. Everything was given a dirty wash.

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I was planning on using the kit instrument panel decals but they reacted poorly to Microset/Microsol. That was the last strike against them since I didn't like the gray faces anyway. I dug into my decal spares box and found the instrument panels from two previous builds (FW 190A-4 and Ki-84 in 1/48) as possible donors. Interestingly, the 1/48 scale IP decals fit pretty well into the 1/32 109G-10 IP.

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Putting the cockpit assembly aside for the time being, I looked ahead and decided to some dry-fitting and preliminary surgery for the AM pieces. The supercharger needs a triangular opening so I used the pin vise to drill holes outlining the triangle and cut out the piece using an Xacto.

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The small solid scoops on the nose were snipped of using sprue cutters. The remnants were carefully shaved away using a curved Xacto blade and then sanded down flush.
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Looks like there are some access panels that I need to fill in. The Alley Cat upgrade kit comes with a brass template to cut access panels in correct locations so I'll need to look into that as well.
 
Danke Schon! A few more things to share with you guys.

I'm doing a lot of pre-fitting with the larger components, especially with regards to the Alley Cat components. The gun cowling features a wider space between the gun troughs but essentially is the same as the kit piece. I had high hopes for the fit of this piece since it is prominent and visible. Bad news... not a good fit.

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After doing some filing here and there and inspecting the fit, I surmised that the piece was slightly warped given the good contact at the ends of the piece and the gap being in the middle. Pressing down on the mid section affirmed my suspicions. The directions stated that warped resin pieces can be gently re-shaped under hot tap water so I thought it was worth a try. I ran the piece under hot water, gently and very slightly bent the piece and while holding it in place, I placed it under cold water to try and "freeze" the correction. It took a few attempts but I could see that it was working. Now it sits much better. I'm glad I took the time to inspect the fit rather than jumping into more cutting and filing.

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A few access panels were filled in with Mr Surfacer 1000 and sanded down. The fuel fill on the spine and the cockpit vent under the canopy will be rescribed in correct locations.

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I went ahead and attempted to drill cooling holes in the machine gun barrels... looks a little more convincing now.

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The small bulge wing inserts by Alley Cat have fit problems as well. Again, careful pre-fitting and comparison with the kit supplied large bulge wing inserts indicate that the Alley Cat pieces are a bit short.

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I can make the small wing inserts fit but it would be a lot less headache using the large bulge pieces, which fit much better. I'll have to think about this one for a bit, in terms of what specific machine I am going to portray.
 

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