Instructions are quite complete and offer a very logical construction sequence. I feel they don't have all the colors right and will attend to the differences during building. I do have quite a few references for the 109 and find that the Model Art on the 109G to be quite useful when it comes to colors. In that edition are photos of a basically unrestored G that is in Finland so will be using that one and a cockpit photo that I have here on the website of a G interior from the NASM when it comes time to do the cockpit. Aeromaster has done the decals and two options are provided; one for White 7 from II./JG 51 and the other for Anton Hackl of III./JG 11 (though no unit info in provided on the sheet). Both schemes are not unique as they've been offered on many other aftermarket sheets. You will note that the swastikas are split up for sale of the kit in squeamish countries. Decal and color instructions are superbly done with a color markings sheet that has a large listing on the back for Model Master enamel/acrylic and Polly scale acrylic colors.

I've gotten a lot of feedback regarding the desire to read about on-going construction, so that is how I'm going to treat this particular build. Yeah, not very original, but what the hey. Since it won't be a quick construct, this format will work out quite well and allow me to build other models around it, so to speak. The first thing I did was to read the instructions. On a kit of this complexity, it is the best way to do things. It also allows me to see what I can build in the way of subassemblies while other bits are drying or being painted. I've always been a proponent of gluing as many bits that will be the same color together at the same time. This makes painting simpler and I've found that when one scrapes paint to glue two pieces together, often one has to repaint the area anyway so it saves a step.

30 September

After perusing the instructions, it seemed as if this was basically going to be a series of 'mini-kits' that will be put together into a final product. First of those mini-kits is the engine. I started to assemble the engine by putting together the main pieces of the engine block. Now I've noticed that nearly all the parts of any size have ejector pin marks; either shallow indentations or raised bumps. Most parts have some flash that will need to be cleaned up as well. I then added the air valve on the crankcase housing and the prop reduction gear housing along with the prop shaft. I then filed and filled in the seams that I found on the front and back of the block. I also glued together the magnetic generator (or what we'd call a magneto) . This isn't the easiest bit to get right. There are two semi-pyramid shapes that fit on there. They should have some 'dihedral' on them when finished and the flat bits are on the bottom. Yeah, I'm not being very lucid on this, but once you start building it, you'll see what I mean. I also glued together the rear accessory housing.

While that was drying, I glued the oil tank halves together, trapping a small line in between them. Try as I might, I still broke this very fragile line. A problem with softish plastic. The match between these two halves was quite poor so much filler was slathered on. I also glued together the supercharger halves. There is a bit of a seam on this as well. According to drawings of the engine (and I used Aero Detail #5 on the 109G as a primary reference), this seam will be nearly invisible, but I'm not taking any chances. I then cleaned the seam from the large, oval induction piping.

Moving on to the next mini-kit, the engine mounted cannon. There are eight pieces to this which consist of the gun body and the mount section. I first cleaned up all the seams. It appears that there was some mold mis-match on this particular sprue and while not really bad, it is something that will have to be taken into account. I attached all the bits to the gun itself and then drilled out the barrel. It isn't as detailed as the photos, but since it will basically be hidden after construction, it will do nicely. The mount and recoil section is a bit messy to glue together. I'm not sure if the various seams on the bottom of the mount should be dealt with as it may well be totally invisible once done. Test fitting when I get to that stage will see how things go.

So after a few hours of work, that is the beginning as you can see in the photos of the day's effort. I'll do at least one photo for each day that I work on this to show you how things are progressing.

1 October

Today was a day for doing other things beside model building so the output isn't as great as I'd like. I sanded off the filler on the engine block, oil tanks and accessory housing. The accessory housing was glued in place to the rear of the engine and atop it went the magneto. You really need to test fit the cannon while doing this as there is no lower tab to hold the housing. I discovered while doing this, that you'll never see the cannon tip. However, when those judges stick their rectal flashlights in the spinner hole, they'll see a drilled out barrel! While that was drying, I build up the cowl machine guns. The barrels on these are not totally circular and are actually a bit flat. The tips of the barrels are also off-set to one side. Not exactly great!

I glued together the two small side tanks which I can only assume are oil overflow tanks. These had filler applied as did the supercharger. I then turned my attention to starting on the interior. The floor of the interior is rife with ejector pin marks; at least 13 of them. Some were sanded and the others filled. Same with the firewall section which had a piece glued on it. I also glued together the trim wheels and the engine cover.

Then I decided to see about these wiring harnesses that are provided. They are made out of some sort of very flexible and soft plastic. Heaven only knows how to paint these things and I'm not going to try. Anyway, they have to fit into the spark plug holes (2 per cylinder) so I figured I'd test fit them to see how it is done. Before you write to tell me there are only five sets of plug wires, I checked the reference and this is exactly how it looks! I drilled out the holes with a #75 drill bit and found that was too small. I went up a few sizes to a #72 and that was the ticket. I then carefully stuck each 'wire' into the appropriate hole with a pair of tweezers. They hold rather well and it seems that it won't be the hassle I thought it would initially be. Sometimes taking the time for test run will save your sanity later! Results of today's work shown to the right.

2 October

Since I had many things to do during the day, I only had an hour or so to work on the kit. However, I did manage to get several things accomplished. First off, I sanded the parts where I applied filler yesterday, which were the supercharger, cockpit floor and the small side tanks (upper left). I also went to work on the cockpit some and though most of the ejector pin marks were filled on the first run, one was stubborn and had to be refilled. Since most of the floor was clear, I glued in the seat, seatback and firewall. The seat back had pin marks on the side that were sanded down. The seat itself has two ejector pin marks and it had a ridge of built-up plastic on the inner seat sides that I scraped down as much as I could.

The trim wheel mount was installed as were parts for the rudder pedals. This consisted of a 'D' shaped item on the floor, the pedal mounts and the pedals themselves. Thanks to the slight mold misalignment, these bits need to be cleaned up prior to gluing. I painted the back of the instrument panel film with Vallejo acrylic white so the instruments will stand out. When most of the interior parts are painted, I'll attach this to the back of the panel and then the whole construct to the three-part panel shield that is in the lower left. Finally, I glued together half of the exhaust stacks. These all needed flash on the inside removed and there will be a seam on one side of each of the exhaust as you can see near the tab on the lower exhaust. This will need filled. What is missing is the normal seam along the center of each exhaust stack. These were welded and the weld seam is quite noticeable on the real aircraft. If you want absolute accuracy, then you might want to run a section of stretched sprue on the inside and outside middle of each stack.

So far things are going fairly well with no disasters as of yet! The pile of bits is increasing and the sprues are getting less populated!

3 October.

Today most of my work was in regard to the cockpit.  First off, I sanded off the final ejector pin mark on the cockpit floor and installed the trim wheels. Then I installed several items in the cockpit itself. On the left sidewall, these were the throttle quadrant with throttle and mixture control, the canopy lock mechanism, the motor for the trim wheels (this assembly happens to be missing the chain, something that is quite prominent when you peer into the cockpit of a 109) and the vent control. On the right side I installed the voltage regulator, a set of auxiliary instruments, and a handle/control whose use I'm not sure of. The small instrument cluster is too far forward and the handle of the control unit needs to angle more toward the center of the cockpit. No way could a pilot reach that handle as the kit has it. There is also a total lack of wiring anywhere in the cockpit. In those days, wire bundles were easily seen as there was no cockpit insulation padding as we have nowadays.

I left off the radio panel, fuel line and oxygen regulator. The fuel line needs painted yellow, the oxygen regulator blue (though some were black with a blue face), and I can't install the radio as the fuel line should be installed first. At least I think that is how it goes. We'll see tomorrow. I also attached some handles to the clear instrument panel face (why it is clear is beyond me). I also removed and cleaned up the engine mounts and glued together the supercharger intake. This intake should have a seam running down it like the exhaust as it was also a welded unit. Again, a piece of stretched sprue will fix this for those who want to install it. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it or not at this moment.

I should also mention that there are easily seen ejector pin marks inside the supercharger intake which I sanded as best I could. Those in the cockpit that I thought would cause a problem I had to scrape away with my scalpel as I couldn't get sandpaper in there. Others are covered or will be covered by bits or otherwise difficult to see. I'll now take a number of bits to the paint shop to have some color added to them before I continue construction. I'll repeat that the kit color information is suspect at best. Yes, the cockpit is RLM 66, but not EVERYTHING in there is this color! If you don't have a good book for research, then use the 109G-6 cockpit photo I've got here on the website and print it out. Though it only shows the right side, it is quite useful. You can see some of the problems I've mentioned just by looking at this photo that I took at the Smithsonian back in 1981.

4 October

Today was spent painting. I first painted all but the oil tank, engine mounts, fuel line, and oxygen regulator RLM 66 using Testors Modelmaster enamel. The engine mount and oil tank were painted RLM 02, also with Modelmaster. The regulator was painted RLM 24 using Xtracolor enamel (because I had it) and the fuel line was first painted white and then yellow. I also did the firewall of the cockpit section in RLM 02 to match the area that it would be attached to. All of the day's efforts are shown to the left.

Once that was done, the rest was detail painting. I used a 5/0 brush for this. First of all, I painted all the bits and pieces that were to be black with Floquil Engine Black. That not only included a bunch of boxes but most of the instrument housings. This took time. Various knobs and buttons were painted with drops of white using Vallejo acrylic colors. This is because I was putting red or yellow atop them and they needed the white background. Once that was dry, I did the red and yellow trim, again using Vallejo acrylics.

There are two areas that took extra work. One was the instrument panel. In addition to doing the various buttons and stuff, the rim of several instruments needed a color other than black. Now you'll find examples of indicators without these additional colors or with them in different places. My reference showed a number of different options, but I took the more colorful ones. For the brown, I used Tamiya Hull Red which seemed a good match.

The other area that needed special attention was the right cockpit sidewall. First of all, the aux instrument panel needed something. I painted the face area white and when dry, used some Reheat instrument decals. Some small 1/48 ones seemed to fit well. They are not 100% correct, but look the part. Secondly the fuel line. There is a clear piece in the center of it to show the pilot if fuel is present or flowing. I could have cut the line and inserted a piece of clear sprue. It is easy enough to do, but I did want to build this kit OOB as I figure most modelers will be doing the same. My only other option was to paint it silver or white. Since I was using silver for the clamps attaching the rubber hose on either side, I chose white and it works rather well. The lack of wiring and other plumbing does give the interior a rather bare look. I'm sure that the aftermarket cockpits that are to come will take care of these missing details!

Yet to be done is to add some more bits to the cockpit and then give it a wash and dry brushing to enhance what little detail there is. That is later.

5 October

Sunday is NASCAR day for this kid so I usually spend the day vegging out in front of the TV watching the show. However, I did manage to spend an hour or so on a few things. First off, I attached the clear instrument film behind the instrument panel. Now the panel is really way too thick as the instruments are in there pretty deep. I may try to fill in the instrument faces with clear paint, but it may make more of a mess than it is worth. The problem with sanding down the back of the instrument panel is that if one makes it too thin, the handles and the gun sight may not have a good hold when installed. Anyway, the end result is quite pleasing. One MUST paint the back of the instrument film white or you won't see a thing.

Other stuff I did was to glue together six more exhaust stacks and apply filler on the other six that had already dried. I also drilled out the holes in the upper wing to install the bulges. These will leave unsightly holes on the other side and can be seen in the wheel well. I filled these holes with Mr. Surfacer 500 and will sand them smooth when it has cured. I also glued the wheel halves together. Now you must make sure you get the right wheels as they are different on the G-2. At this time, I also attached the hinge mechanism to the rudder. It is quite simple to do. One merely cuts the etched hinges (use scissors as it is too much for a knife blade) and then picks the proper length rod to go inside it. If you are metric stupid as am I, then there are two lengths of rod, a short and a long. The short one goes in the rudder. Simply place it in there and glue the rudder halves together. This will be the same for the ailerons, flaps and elevators.

Finally, I added more pieces to the engine after making sure there would be no interference with the pieces I've yet to install. I glued on the small steam extractors, the valve covers and the oil lines to the valve covers. All these pieces needed cleanup of some sort. I'll be painting some of these bits and pieces in preparation for more construction tomorrow. You can see the evening's work (minus the exhaust) in the above image. If it seems like I'm going pretty slow, well, I am. There is no rush to finish so I'm taking my time with this one. I'm sure that there are modelers out there who'd have this puppy nearly done by now, but I'm not one of them!

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