Trumpeter 1/24 Bf-109G-6

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October 17-19

During this weekend, I did several things. One was that I spent a lot of time in bed. I've come down with a cold or something so it tends to slow me down a bit. What I did do was to get started on the painting. This meant a lot of masking to keep paint from where it isn't wanted. I taped the underside of the tail planes and the wheel wells. I also applied tape to the underside of the upper radiator exit cooling doors. Since the cowling had already been painted, the underside of the engine was masked off as was the front of the aircraft. Then, I painted the entire underside with RLM 76 using Testors Model Master. That was left to dry.

Meanwhile, I managed to finish up a few more subassemblies such as the under wing cannon and the landing gear. For the cannon, there is no need to paint more than the barrel as you won't be seeing the rest of the gun in the gondolas. I also drilled out the barrels. Odd that this is provided for the cowl MG, but not for the cannon. The other item is the landing gear. The oleo scissors were painted RLM 02 and glued in place. They tell you not to glue where the two scissor pieced attach to each other, but you have to glue the scissors to the oleo as there is no mechanism to allow them to move. Kinda stupid to have a working suspension and not be able to have the scissors move! Were I not building this OOB, I'd drill out the scissor attachment points on the gear and insert a small piece of rod.

Then the brake lines were attached to the struts. They are too short. You can glue in one end, stretch that miserable, slimy plastic to fit the other end, but no way will the center be done. You'll also have a case of the oleo being fully extended, which is not the normal way the plane sat unless it was totally out of fuel and other heavy stuff. It will be interesting to see how it looks when attached to the airframe. I also cleaned up the head armor. This piece is supposed to have a piece of clear bullet-proof glass in the center of it so the pilot can look over his shoulder to see if anyone is behind him. Trumpeter somehow missed this minor point and molded it solid (with two huge ejector pin marks in the backside). I'm going to cut out the center section and put a piece of clear decal over it to at least make it look a bit more realistic. Using clear decal will not violate the OOB rules.

I also painted the tail wheel RLM 02 and put a coat of clear gloss on the spinner. When the RLM 76 was good and cured, I glued on the aft canopy section, then stuffed the center section in place as best I could. The radio mast and DF loop antenna (which I broke taking off the sprue), were glued on the top of the fuselage. I also decided at this time that I was going to at least have the left and lower engine cowlings glued in place. I fit them as best I could and glued them in place. They really don't fit that well and I'm not sure just what is preventing a tight seal as I tried all I could to get them snug. Then the airframe was painted RLM 75 on all the upper surfaces. To be honest, I'm not sure just what paint I used for this, but since it is drying glossy, I'll have to assume that I've used Xtracolor enamels!

October 20

With the upper dark grey on and dry, it was time to choose a set of markings so I could continue with the painting. Naturally, I didn't want to use either of the kit markings though I will test one of them on the clear bits given to me so you will know how well they work. Since I had a couple of sheets from Cutting Edge to pick from, I chose the 7./JG 3 gunboat from sheet CE 24004. Several reasons for this. First of all, the other two options didn't have the under wing cannon. To use either of them would have meant filling a bunch of holes in the lower wing. Now I'm not really sure just why Trumpeter didn't offer the cannon as an option which would have meant little more than opening a few holes with a hobby knife, instead of doing things the hard way, but there it is. Secondly, to have done the Barkhorn option, I'd have had to use the optional G-5 right cannon bulge, which I didn't install.

Since my choice has a white fuselage band, I sprayed the tail of the model with white and waited for it to dry before masking it off. Yes, it does make a bit of a mess, but I always have to go back and forth with my camo schemes so it isn't really that big a deal for me.  While that was drying, I cut open the back of the head armor in preparation for its clear decal. It was then painted RLM 66. With the clear nice and dry on the prop spinner, I cut out the spiral decal from the sheet and applied it. It isn't as tight as shown in the artwork as it isn't long enough for all those 'laps'. I used a bit of Solvaset to get this decal to snuggle down onto the spinner. When dry, I glued the prop to the backing plate and then the spinner itself.

With the white dry, it was masked off and the kit then had the RLM 74 green-grey added to the paint scheme. This was done freehand as it seems though the real plane was treated in such a manner. I don't know about you, but I've always found greens to be a bit more difficult to apply smoothly than the usual greys.

October 21

What work done today was to mask off the white tail band and repainted the RLM 76 areas. I also found some very thin paper and used it to mask off the exhaust so I could spray on the area around there. I installed the wing cannon in the gondolas for when they would be installed under the wing after the decals have been applied. I also managed to totally crunch the DF loop antenna while handling the model during painting. Typical for me to do a boneheaded thing like that. Now I have to figure a way to replace it, though I'm leaning towards using the appropriate size of plastic strip. I also assembled the tail wheel and glued the other half of the tail wheel strut in place. Hopefully I won't break that as well!

Still a few bits in the box, but those are mostly clear bits and the gear doors. Now that most of the camouflage is on the plane, I'll glue the main gear in place after the tail wheel has dried sufficiently. Many of you will note that at no time, have I done any 'pre-shading'. Yes, it is used a LOT by modelers, but face it, it isn't prototypical at all. It isn't that I never do this or use panel line shading, but the vast majority of the work I see like this is WAY overdone. Just look at the more recent show images and you will see a great number of models that have this effect applied in a manner that is just too much, even in the larger scales. People who have actually worked around military aircraft or who see them regularly will note that they've never seen a plane like that. I seriously doubt if a crew chief has gone to his plane and said to himself "Hmmm...., I need to get some grunge on those panel lines as they don't stand out...".

More tomorrow.

October 22

Well, I'd really planned to do some more painting, but other things got in the way of that. What I did do was to glue in the landing gear. These fit a bit loosely so you need to be sure to allow a long dry time when you install them. Then on went the gear doors and the wheels. The wheels are held in place by small caps. You place a drop of glue in the cap and then push it on the axle. Well, as luck would have it, one of my wheel caps didn't hold well and when I turned over the model after I thought it was dry, the wheel and cap went rolling onto the floor. Finding the wheel was no problem, but the cap has disappeared into the carpet (which just happens to be about the same color as the cap). Bummed out I am so I just glued the wheel on the axle in hopes that the cap will eventually turn up. I also glued on the gear doors but didn't attach the brake lines. For some reason, these lines attach into the upper gear door! Most odd if I say so myself. I did manage to do some touchup painting on the doors and the tail wheel leg. I then put the model away so I could do some silent weeping...

October 27

The weekend was taken up with preparing for and recuperating from a road trip so no modeling was done. Today, however, I continued with the painting. There are those who can finish a paint job in a day or two, but it usually takes me the better part of a week, depending on the complexity of the job and how much other stuff needs done in terms of prep.

On this one the only real prep was to mask off the wing roots and repaint them the appropriate colors to take care of the overspray from the RLM 76 fuselage. Then I started into the mottling. First, removing the masking, I used the RLM 75 and applied a number of rather large mottles to much of the side of the fuselage. This plane was to be rather heavily mottled. With the 75 done, I then put on the 74 mottles, then gave all of the mottled area a bit of a mist with the RLM 74 to increase its density.

Then all the masking was removed to show the finished camo scheme. After it dries, I'll start on the clear coat and the decals. I also went and used Bare Metal Foil for the aluminum strap that commonly goes around the drop tank. I've seen these in everything from a bright aluminum to painted over so there is no absolute on this. Still haven't found the cap for the wheel.....

October 28

Today was mainly spent breaking more parts from the fuselage (in this case, the radio mast - image to left) and applying decals. The decals are going on quite well and are reacting well to Solvaset, which is good as the nose 'comets' have to go over the small intakes under the side windscreen panels (right). I'm having a bit of trouble with wrinkling of the large insignia, but repeated applications of setting solution should take care of that. As I expected, the solution is reacting with the Future that was applied and creating large white splotches (see image to the right for an example of this). These will disappear once the matte clear coat is applied. It will take several days to finish up the decals as I'm not one of these people who can do all the decals on a project of this size in one day.

October 29

More decal work so not much new to show you. I did take one of the swastika bits from the kit decal sheet and apply it to a spare part. The decal is a bit brittle as when I pressed it down over the intake, it started cracking. It also took two applications of Solvaset before it would snuggle down. The sheet says it is done by Aeromaster, but I've never had an Aeromaster sheet crack or to require two coats of Solvaset before. I'm inclined to think that perhaps the masters were done by Aeromaster and Trumpeter used someone locally to print them.

I noted on the Cutting Edge sheet that they give you several options regarding some of the data markings. One thing the sheet doesn't tell you is which are not appropriate for which aircraft. You have to do a bit of research to find which should apply and which may not be right for the aircraft you are modeling. They also give you way more wing walk markings that one will use on three planes! With all the decals on, the model was given a coat of matte clear using a mixture of Future and Gunze Flat Base.