Messerschmitt BF 109-E7 from 7/JG 26
1
July 14, 20232
July 14, 2023The whole cockpit was primed using XF-16 "Flat Aluminium". However I had alot of problems with the metallic. It completely clogged my airbrush nozzle. I read that less thinner will help here, since the particles wont settle as fast. After using less thinner, I was kinda able to spray the metallic. I also read that the tamiya paint retarder will help alot but unfortunately I only have the acrylic one and since I need the base layer to create scratches, the base layer should be more resilient than the second acrylic layer and thus I used lacquer thinner. I also thought that the dried paint had a very rough surface. This is of course also bad, since the second acrylic layer will adhere better to the base layer which makes it harder to scratch the paint of. Next time I'll use Mr. Color Silver 8, many people on YouTube use this silver color and it seems to be much better.3
July 14, 2023The cockpit is nearly ready to be clear coated, decaled and weathered. In the end I couldn't resist to adding some details like fuel pipes, chains, cables etc. As assumed in the first picture, scratching of the second acrylic layer was quite hard, due to the rough surface of the base layer. Thats why I am not 100% happy with the result but there is no way back now, since this would make the surface horrible uneven and it was my first time trying this technique, so in the end, I learned alot here. All the added details consist out of stretched sprues, soldering lead and copper cables. I should have added them before painting but initially I didn't plan on adding some extra details as previously mentioned.4
July 15, 2023Quick modeling tip from someone who went fishing in his very early years. I tied all my fishing rigs myself and because fishermen are very precautious, it was a common practise to thicken the fishing line on the end, so there was no chance for the line to slip through the eye of the hook. This only works properly with monofilament fishing line. To achieve this, hold a lighter close to the end of the fishing line and the line will become shorter, with a drop starting to form on the end. I was thinking how to scrap build the lever of the bf109 to thighten the seatbelts. Doing it with stretched sprue would have been much harder, since it would have been hard, getting the sprue to form a round end. Then I remembered this trick and it worked on the first try, definitely a recommendation if you want to scrap build levers!5
July 21, 2023I decided to keep this build completely out of the box. However I thought that the seatbelt decals would look too 2Dish. This is why I cut out the decal precisely, got the dimensions and scratch builded seatbelts out of Tamiya tape. I still used the decals but I applied them over the scratch build ones to give the decals a more realistic look instead of looking flat like a decal6
July 21, 2023Finished seatbelts, they might not look perfect but in my opinion they look much better than just the flat decal7
July 21, 2023Some pigments were applied, gloss varnish was out on the instrument gauges and the gun sight was glued in place, the cockpit is now finished8
July 21, 20239
July 21, 2023All the cockpit components before the two fuselage halfs were joined together.10
July 21, 2023While the glue was bonding both fuselage halfs together, I used the time to glue the wing section together.11
July 21, 2023As I said, I don‘t want to use any aftermarket product for this build, this means that I also have to mask the canopy myself. Thanks to the easy shapes of the canopy, masking it wasn‘t hard, I only made one minor wrong cut but all in all, compared to my first build, the Eurofighter, I did much better this time, nice to see how my skills evolve!12
July 25, 2023Using black pigments, I colored the fresh Milliput putty dark. I did this to fill the gap between the cockpit and the fuselage because it would not have been nice if the model is finished and light is to shine through from the cockpit floor.13
July 25, 2023Those gaps have been filled with the dark putty14
July 25, 2023If you look closely, the putty can be seen since I didn‘t get it to the same dark grey as the cockpit floor. But in my opinion its not a big deal and certainly much better than a gap with light coming through the cockpit floor. One step that made alot of sense to me, was to mount the wings right after the putty was applied. The reason for that is, I thought that once the putty gets hard and I have any fit issues due to the putty, I‘ll face alot of work to get the hard putty sanded away. Glueing in the wings while the putty is still soft prevents this, as excess putty will be pushed away by the plastic and thus a good fit is guaranteed.15
July 25, 2023Wings are glued in place, the color of the inner cockpit side was sprayed on the outside. For the two fixed parts of the canopy this is good enough. For the part that will be in the open position however, I cut out masking tape the same size as the windows of the section and also masked the inside of the canopy because this part is way more visible from all angles.16
July 30, 2023The canopy inside was masked off, the 109 is now ready for the primer17
August 3, 2023The machine gun on the top engine cowling is probably the worst molded part of this kit. The barrel wasn‘t cylindrical, considering the size, there was quite a big seam line running down the barrel. To counter this issue is not hard, a bit of careful sanding will get rid of the seam line, just be cautious that not too much is sanded away, otherwise you will end up with a semicircle barrel. To add more detail, I used a hipothermic neddle to make a small hole on the end of the barrel. Following that, I started to use my smallest drill and carefully drilled holes in the ends of the two barrels. I slowly worked my way up in the diameter until I thought that the hole is reasonably big. Due to the muzzle brake, drilling the hole needs to be done with alot of care, since the diameter of the barrel gets smaller and drilling too wide or too deep, will leave you with an unusable barrel. Drilling holes will result in uneven plastic and some drilling debris will also get left. To clean up very small parts, the best method is to use a bit of extra thin glue, the glue will melt the debris and levels out the surface. Just a small amount will be enough since alot of glue could melt the whole barrel.18
August 19, 2023The elevators, flaps and other fragile parts where not glued in place prior to priming. I thought that this would be the smarter approach since I prime the model to reveal imperfections but sanding them away is much easier if you don‘t have to look out for fragile parts. This was a good idea since I later decided to add missing rivets and this would have been much harder if more control surfaces are glued on. The upper engine cowling was fixed in place using blue tac. I also didn‘t want to glue it in place since the machine gun is under the cowling. This would have resulted in unnecessary masking of the barrels. In retro perspective, I could have primed the model without the engine cowling since it needs to be primed in white anyway because than the yellow color looks nicer.19
August 20, 2023The 109 was primed in mr surfacer 1500 (the grey one), some other parts where also primed, this includes to radiators, elevators and the lower engine cowling. The parts who will get painted yellow were primed in white mr surfacer since the white primer will make the yellow more pronounced.20
August 21, 2023The model after priming. All the sanded spots on the model are due to my incompetence on rescribing panel lines 😄 I imagined that I'm like Plasmo and tried to rescribe the panel lines only using a razor saw. The fact that I rescribed for my first time, led to some mistakes, were the blade jumped out of the panel line. I need to mention however, that this model wouldn't need to be rescribed, I just wanted to try it and thought it might be a good lesson, which it definitely was in the end, you learn the most out of your mistakes and challenges as they say21
August 22, 2023Quick tip for your future build of this model: not glueing in the upper and lower engine cowling will give you a good point to hold the model while painting. The parts fit so good that it‘s no big deal to glue them in after the painting has been done and it will make your life alot easier.22
August 23, 2023I decided to try some riveting. I really struggled with the trumpeter tool because it is very unstable and gives you a very bad view, thus I modified it a bit (which I will show in a later picture) but still, this showed me that a good riveting tool will be a important investment for the future.23
August 25, 2023The riveting of the upper wing section is nearly finished, now the fuselage is next, alot of riveting still needs to be done, didn‘t I mention somewhere that I‘ll keep this build simple? 😄24
August 26, 2023To get a litte break from riveting I decided to assemble the lower engine cowling. First the radiator needs to be painted and the the airintake is painted in the typical yellow. This way I can mask the radiator with a sponge and simply paint the outer part yellow and don‘t have to care for the raditor or the air intake25
August 27, 2023The left landing flap had a scratch out of the box. This was however the only part that had any issues what so ever. The scratch was very minor and only on the surface and thus could be sanded away easy26
August 28, 2023All the riveting is finally done. This was for sure the most time demanding process of this build. As you can see, I modified my trumpeter rivet tool by sanding away alot of the plastic around the wheel to get atleast some view on where the wheel is going. The tool is still terrible because the wheel is so big which means you can‘t rivet close to the fuselage. I did the rivets close to the fuselage using a hypothermic needle. Unfortunately rivet tools are hard to get a hand on in austria seemingly but I will try to get either „rosie the riveter“ or the „Z63“ tool for future projects. Some of the rivets unfortunately look like some drunk guy made them 😄 but I learned alot since it was my first time and the inperfections hopefully disapear after the camo is sprayed on27
August 29, 2023Due to the construction of the BF109, many rivets next to panel lines are NOT double sided. This can be seen especially here on the fuselage.28
August 30, 2023The wheel wells were painted and masked. Due to the round shapes, I think it is easier to paint the wheel wells first and mask them compared to painting them afterwards. The areas on the edge and where no sponge is, were masked using masking liquid. I was a bit scared of masking fluid because the Vallejo masking fluid is very hard to get rid of afterwards but then I bought the masking fluid of VMS. This stuff is very great since most of the time the complete film is pulled of just by pulling on one end. With the Vallejo masking fluid you end up with several tiny pieces that wont come out of small spaces.29
August 31, 2023Did some preshading. In a Video I saw a person using brown instead of black because this allegegly will give a warmer shadow. I think this is true since zenith shading on a figure should also be made using dark red paint instead of black paint.30
September 1, 2023When I did the preshading, I had problems adjusting the paint to thinner ratio. I used the 0.2mm nozzle set on my H&S Evolution the get thinner lines, however, as you can see, I got many small sprinkles in my paint job. The good thing however is, that preshading doesn‘t has to be perfect, in fact, there should be a bit of variation in the preshading as this will make some panels more pronounced than others which creates a more interesting finish. I did intentionally do alot of preshading in this build, because I need the practise doing fine lines with an airbrush because when the mottling stage comes, no mistakes should be made.31
September 7, 2023Bad placement of the ejector pin, to be fair though, this was maybe the only possible placement. The pin mark can be easily filled, using a small drop of super glue. Since the mark is on the highest position of the part, sanding was also not a problem.32
September 9, 2023Using 0.2mm lead wire and masking tape, I scratch build the brake hoses. They can be seen on some pictures and will add some interesting detail. To fix the lead wire in place, I used black super glue, to secure the masking tape, extra thin glue was used, this should be enough to keep everthing in place. Same as on the MG under the engine cowling, holes were drilled to make both MG barrels of the wings more realistic.33
September 11, 2023Masking the camo pattern of the BF109.34
September 16, 2023Because the grey and green of which the camo pattern consists are quite dark colors, I decided to strengthen the pre shading, using white and darker tone of red. Otherwise it could have been possible that the light pre shading wouldn‘t be noticable under the dark colors. However, to make the preshading more pronouced was a good idea, the execution could have been better. As you can see, I masked the whole camo pattern and then did the new pre shading. It would have been better to only mask the upper wing area(where the grey and green camo pattern is), do the new preshading and then mask the individual green and grey areas. Because I did it the wrong way, I ended up with little white stripes between the transitions from grey to green.35
September 18, 2023As you can see, both colors were masked and painted. Here I peeled of the masking tape to see if the colors look good. I used the website Replikator.club to achieve the needed RLM colors using my tamiya colors. On of the colors is RLM74 which was mixed using 3 parts XF-24 and 2 parts XF-27. However, I saw on scalemates, that there are two versions of XF-27 from tamiya, with mine being the darker one. Thats the reason why I added a tiny amount of XF-5. I have a feeling that I didn't get especially the RLM74 completely right but I think it's a close match and don't forget, those aircraft were battle worn. Thus I think that hitting the color tone 100% isn't so important since they got repainted on the airfield and they probably also differed a bit from the factory color tone.36
September 19, 2023All the masking tape was taken off, I am pleased with the result. The white lines between the color transitions are visible (I wrote about them in picture 34) but it really isn't to bad. A bit of very light sanding using a regular cloth will help quite alot. Additionally I planned on doing some post shading aswell, to highlight some panels and blend everthing together and this will also definitely help with getting rid of the white lines.37
October 30, 2023Some vacations and university kept me away from the modeling bench. I hope to finish the build before the year ends but alot of work still needs to be done. Here I masked the propeller cone. It was my second try at painting it. The first time I tried it, I sprayed the cone black and then white but white has such bad covering properties that way too much paint was needed and it didn‘t work. This time I spray the whole cone white and then black, which worked much better.38
November 1, 2023The upper engine cowling wasn‘t transitioning into the fuselage in one continous line, thus I sanded it a bit to create this smoother transition. I was surprised about this little error and thought that there might was a height difference on the real plane but after looking at reference photos and some books about the Me109, I couldn‘t spot any difference in height going from the upper cowling to the fuselage.39
November 3, 2023I spotted some inperfections on the hull where the paint has come off. I don‘t know why this happend, since I used Mr.Color Primer which is supposed to be very resistant. I should get used to wash the sprues before assembling and to whipe the model with alcohol before the primer goes on.40
November 5, 2023Thats how I tackled the areas where paint came of. I tried to sand away as less material as possible.The sanding is extremely important since it levels out the step between the unpainted and painted area pn the panel. Then I masked the individual panel. I thought that masking the individual panel is good, because I might create a little paint step and if this paint step is inbetween two panels or in the riveting, the step won‘t be as visible.41
November 10, 2023I also resprayed the pre shading in the area. I think it‘s important to have the masking tape perfectly aligned with the panel lines or rivets. Otherwise it will look weird if the „shadow“ of the panel line runs next to the actual panel line. Respraying the preshading should also give those panels a nice variation compared to the other panels, which could give the intention, that those panels got changed by the ground crew for example.42
November 11, 2023The area after the respraying was done. I am happy with the result, because the pre shading was also sprayed again, the shadows also look similar to the rest of the light blue panels.43
November 21, 2023The part of the flaps that’s hidden when they are retracted is painted in a light blue color. I wasn‘t happy with the result here and nonetheless I needed to spray some post shading so I didn‘t bother masking it and just sprayed over the color. This blueish color will be the last part that I‘ll spray on the wings.44
November 23, 2023After the wings were post-shaded, I sprayed the light blue color inside the flaps. This was done by putting liquid mask on the edge and thanks to the surface tension, the liquid mask will stop right on the edge of the wing. At this time of the project I started to make dumb mistakes however and thus got a bit unmotivated. One of those dumb mistakes was to only mask around the edges, thinking the overspray wont be as bad. What I didn‘t think through was that light blue color is very noticable on dark grey color. This resulted in a terrible overspray above the nicley post shaded wings, so all that needed to be done again which explains the lack of motivation I had at that time for the project.45
November 26, 2023Here I wanted to get the liquid mask to dry faster, so I thought it might be a good idea to spread it using a brush. It also dried quicker but I wasn't very happy when I peeled the mask off. Seems like the liquid mask softened the underlying paint coat and when I used the brush to spread the material, it damaged the paint. It's important to note, that its no problem to spread liquid mask using a brush if its applied fresh but if the liquid mask has some time to soften the paint and is then spread around, chances are high that the underlying paint coat is not too happy. I thought that this discovery is very interesting though, since that might be a new method of creating realistic scratches 😄 It's also worth noting that I used lacquer paint under the liquid mask, so this stuff has to be quite aggresive to be able to soften the paint. Maybe I do some experiments in the future with different types of paint, since this would be a very controllable way of chipping compared to hairspray chipping for example.46
November 28, 2023Here you can see the terrible overspray I got, because I thought for some reason, that the liquid mask would be enough with a 0.2mm nozzle. Due to various painting attempts, these gaps of the landing flaps were a big motivation killer for me, because I wanted them to look as good as possible. In retro perspective, all the mistake were made because I began to rush a bit and thus could have been avoided. I am glad that I didn‘t throw the model out of the window 😄 because now I am happy with the result of those landing flap gaps.47
December 13, 2023Now the part I had the most fear of was due: the mottling. This wing of the first model I tried to build, an Airbus A350, was my paint mule for learning how to mottle properly. Note that I already sprayed a new layer of gray on the wing to do some more training and this wasn‘t my only paint mule I used to practise. It took me one whole week to get the hang of it. The main problem was that I used the wrong kind of thinner. I used Tamyia Acrylics nearly for the whole plane, so I also used them to do the mottling. First I tried Tamiya Lacquer Thinner, then Mr.Leveling Thinner with or without retarder and various Thinner/Paint mixtures. I also varied the air pressure and got myself the inline air regulator from H&S, which is great by the way, especially for fine adjustments. I always had the same problem of having a very spotty spray pattern. I started to think that my airbrush might have a bend needle but I couldn‘t imagine why it should, I always take great care of the needle, so somthing different has to be the cause. Than I had the great idea of switching to the X-20A thinner and suddenly the spray pattern improved alot. Maybe the lacquer thinner caused the paint to dry too quick. Now I only needed to get the right shape of mottles before I could move on to the model.48
December 15, 2023Having finally found the right recipe to do mottling, I started by making the sharp edges of the camo pattern a bit blury. Thats the same way how the individual Jagdgeschwader did it. The got the planes fresh out of the factory with their standard camo and then the did the mottling by them selfs. On many pictures you can hardly see a transistion from the mottling to the sharp edge of the camo.49
December 18, 2023Here is the finished mottling. I am not completely happy with the result but despite my paint problems I think the result is acceptable. If you are wondering why I masked of the area of the german iron cross, when mottling was done by the crews, they tried to not spray over the cross or other wise they needed to paint it again. Thus they left quite alot of distance to the cross, this can also be seen in alot of pictures. To know roughly where the cross will be I placed this masked, so I can keep my distance to it, thats the only purpose it serves, its not there to mask anything.50
December 21, 2023Thats the starboard side of the BF10951
December 23, 2023The nose cowling and rudder have been painted in RLM4. Thats the paintjob nearly finished, now I just need to do some minor touch ups and then the BF is ready for a gloss coat52
December 25, 2023A big milestone has been reached! The whole paintjob has been sealed with a generous amount of lacquer clear coat. I used Mr. Color‘s GX100 because I liked the rock hard surface it creates, once it cured. Of course I tested before on my paint mule if the clear coat is compatible with the decals solution I will be using.53
December 26, 2023This was a moment I was looking forward to alot, finally unmasking the cockpit. I was very relieved to see that my combination of liquid masking agent, regular masking tape and sponge kept every paint from getting to the cockpit. I was especially nervous because I used the vallejo liquid mask because a couple months back when I masked the cockpit, I had not discovered the VMS liquid masking tape, which holds togehter much stronger and is thus easier to peel off. With the vallejo stuff, alot of rubbing and toothpicks are required which increases the risk of creating scrates in the paint. However at the end of the build I will make an extra post here mentioning all the stuff I discovered during this build and get to like alot.54
December 28, 2023Here I used decals which I didn‘t need for my specific livery, to test how the decal solvents are working on those decals. I used Vallejo Decal- Setter & Softener, Revell Decal Softener, VMS Decal Setter &Softener and Tamiya Mark Fit Super Strong. This test is also important to see, if the softener attacks the used clear coat, because decal softeners are basically weak color solvents. In the plastic model mojo podcast I heard, that Tamiya Mark Fit is the best solvent for Tamiya decals, so I was pretty determined to use this product. Actually I thought to try the other solvents just for fun, thank god I tried them, because I found out, that the VMS products work even better on my decals. Don‘t get me wrong, the Tamiya Mark Fit Super strong is also great but it seemed quick weak compared to the VMS products. They really made the decals wrinkled and afterwards the decals looked more „painted on“ compared to the Mark Fit Super Strong. Another reason why I choose the VMS stuff is, that you get a decal setter and softener. The Mark Fit Super strong is just one solvent and if you are not fast at placing the decal, it gets soft and you run the risk of damaging it. The VMS setter gives you alot of time, since it only enhances the adhesion of the decals, once you remove the liquid and let it try before applying their softener.55
December 29, 2023The first decals were applied. I took me several coats of the softener until I was satisfied with the result. After the first coat of softener I draged my exacto blade through the panel lines that were covered by the decal to make the decal adapt better to the panel lines.56
January 1, 2024Here you can see how aggresive those thick tamiya decals respond to the VMS Softener, this stuff worked reallly great on the decals57
January 8, 2024Using a very sharp blade (scalpel instead of exacto blade), I cut away the clear film surrounding the white numbers of the 109. In the water you can see that some parts of the clear film were already floating away. It is however always adviseable to check the edges of the decal using precision tweezers if any clear film remained on the decal or got under the decal. If you notice that clear film got under the decal after the decal has settled down on the model it is to late to remove it.58
January 9, 2024A punch and die set also comes in handy when you want to cut out small round decals. I didn‘t have this punch and die set when I made the cockpit, especially for the round gauges this would have been a life-safer.59
January 10, 2024Starboard side after decaling was finished60
January 13, 2024And thats the port side after decaling, next step will be to sand the edges of those thick decals down61
January 15, 2024After the decals, I applied a good layer of tamiya‘s acrylic clear gloss, to seal the decals. Another purpose of this coat is, to be able to sand the decals using fine grit sand paper.62
January 17, 2024When you look at the number 3 for example, the thick carrier film is clearly visible. Especially those small numbers being surrounded by a carrier film, which is thicker than the number is big, led to the decision to sand this step away.63
January 21, 2024On the number 8 you can see how I sanded the decal edges away. You can see a slight edge still remaining and I sanded until the edge disappeared. On my first model, the Eurofighter, I made the mistake to wet sand the decals, with the result, that the water got under the the clear coat and the decal wrinkled up. Thus I highly recommend to dry sand the decals, using high grit sand paper. If you sand to much away you only end up with small scratches in the decal instead of water marks showing on the whole decal and possible wrinkles. If you sand to long and the edge is still visible, I would recommend to spray another coat of clear gloss, just to be on the save side.64
January 23, 2024Here I had the problem that those rivets made by the bad trumpeter tool which I used a couple months back were not even with the surface. Thus they will get sanded down more than the rest of the surface. I still chose to sand them because I prefer having the base coat showing through on some spots than having those decal edges. I also think that weathering will hide those sanded-through spots.65
January 26, 2024Sanding all the decals went really way better than I expected it to be. I used Tamiya Gloss coat, thinned with the acrylic thinner X20-A because I was scared that a lacquer thinned gloss coat could attack the decals if it eats to much into the material. The obly problem was, that the acrylic gloss coat didn‘t dry so fast compared to the lacquer counterpart. The drying time got even more increased because I added some retarder, to ensure a smoother finish and to avoid tip drying and frosting. This lead to the problem, that the coat still felt a bit sticky even after 2 days. It was no problem to touch it but after sanding, I discovered that my finger print got pressed into the clear coat because my hands got warmer from sanding and I held the wing stronger, to aviod the 109 slipping out of my hand. Fortunately the finger print went away after I sanded it a bit and added the next coat of clear varnish.66
January 29, 2024After I left a big finger print on the gloss coat, I chose to use rubber gloves to avoid the finger prints. How ever I still managed to transfer the surface of the gloves to the clear coat. Fortunatley, some sanding and another gloss coat got rid of it. However it was worth it in my opinion, since the sanding was really easy. I dont know if the sanding of the decals was fairly easy because the gloss coat wasn‘t fully hardend but I could imagine that this could be a reason. It just surprised me because many people say that sanding decals is quite risky but I found it to be straight forward and with some common sense this should not be a hard task67
February 17, 2024At one point I started to trim the thick carrier film surrounding the decals. To have a better vision on the cutting, I decided to do the cutting free hand. This was the only area, where I cut a part of the decal away and because it was quite visible on the iron cross, I decided to respray the missing part by airbrush. This worked out really well and you could hardly tell that something was done here.68
July 16, 2024It been a long time since my last post, unfortunatley university demanded alot of time but now are finally holidays and my goal is to finish the BF109 now! After I spent quite some time to sand all the decals flush with the clear coat, it was time to do some weathering. I started with a basic panel line wash. It looks very messy but thanks to the clear coat which I sprayed on prior to weathering, I had no problem getting the wash of, thus I used it very excessively69
July 17, 2024I didn‘t cover the whole plane in plane liner however. With the gloss coat, it‘s very easy to wipe away to much of it, thus I only worked on specific areas to ensure that I didn‘t clean everything of due to rushing it.70
July 17, 2024Then I started to apply a dot filter. I used Winsor&Newton‘s Winton Oil Paint Series but I think the Griffin Series would have been better because they have a higher pigment content. The oil paint didn‘t seem „fine“ enough sometimes and because this was my first time doing something like this, I could really evalute if the result was worth it.71
July 18, 2024Here are the oil colors I used. In a video I saw that even unusual colors can be used, thats why I used red, yellow and blue. They are supposed to tie the overall paintjob together.72
July 18, 2024Here I visualized the difference created by the dot filter. The left wing had the filter already applied, the ring wing did not. In my opinion, the filter is not an obligation but I still think that it ties the camopattern together and it also ties in the post shading from the airbrush, which quite stood out, before the filter was applied. To create such a filter, you just need to make dots of different oil colors (less is more!), take a brush which is lightly soaked in spirit and then you just drag the brush over those dots (in the direction of gravity or airflow) until they are blended in.73
July 19, 2024Post shadong with oil paiints is a method of creating very good results with no risk, because the can just be wiped away with spirits if you don‘t like the result.74
July 20, 2024At the time I made the rivets, I only had the low quality rivet maker from trumpeter. Thus, the rivets I created were raised compared to the surrounding area. As a consequence, when I sanded the edges of the decals away, I sanded through the parts of the decals, which were placed on the raised decals. Here I used black oil paint, to hide the spots where I sanded through the decals and it worked pretty fine, Im sure after another coat of matte clear coat, this touch up won't be noticeable. When you take a look at the previous picture, the little white dots on the iron cross from sanding through the decals can be seen very good.75
July 21, 2024She‘s getting closer to the finish line! The landing gear is now installed, I used VMS‘s slow drying CA Glue for the two landing struts in the front. The increased drying time gave me enough time to check if both struts were aligned with each other and CA is generally better suited for parts that are under stress by the models weight.76
July 22, 2024Here I sprayed the exhaust staining. I used MRP‘s „Exhaust Soot“ and the task was way easier than expected. It can be sprayed right out of the bottle, no thinning required. The air pressure was set to around 12psi. If you airbrush is able to limit the amount of paint thats coming out of the airbrush (like on my H&S Evolution), you should definetely use this feature. To keep control over the effect, you should barely use any paint and I found it very useful to keep the surface of the model in the right angle to the light, so the fresh paint can be seen on the model. This is helpfull, because you use such tiny amounts of paint, that it‘s often uncertain if any paint came out of the airbrush at all. Sometimes, even if you are on the same paint setting like before, no paint is coming out of the airbrush, if this happens, just wipe the needle with a q-tip and fully pull back the trigger to allow paint to flow through the airbrush. To give the staining more depth, I might use some black pigment on the stained area close to the exhaust.77
July 22, 2024Coming from doing the exhaust staining, I thought, that the gunpowder staining is also done in no time. Unfortunately I think that I should have added even more thinner, because the paint covered to much area to fast. Thus the effect went a bit out of control but I will try to blend everything in wirh oil colors, especially on the underside. I used roughly 20% of paint but even that seemed to be to much. Anyway, thats how you become better! 🙂78
July 22, 2024Here‘s the finished prop. Might have overdone it on the scratches but the plane operated from Gela (Siciliy) of a gravel airstrip, so there is an valid excuse to all those scratches! 😉79
July 23, 2024Here is the finished fuel tank. The fuel leaks were painted on using oil paints. The scratches also might went out of control, especially considering that they dropped off when empty in flight but let‘s pretend that the plane didn‘t come into a fight, thus the fuel tank stayed on the aircraft and it got alot of scratches when the BF109 landed and started from the gravel airstrip. 😉80
July 23, 2024Gunpowder stains on the engine cowling. I just sprayed a light stain on the outside of the deepening where the MG barrels would stick out, because there would not be alot of staining due to the barrels being recessed in the deepening. Then I just took black pigments and created heavier staining inside the deepening where all the gunpowder would collect.81
July 24, 2024The brake hose is now in place and painted. In pictures I found out, that they used metal hoses along the landing gear which were either painted in the same color as the landing gear or silver. I found a picture of a restored bf109 with silver metal hoses but I thought that hoses in the same color would fit better. Both of the ends of the metal hose needed to be flexible, thus they where likely made out of rubber, thats why I painted them in tamiya rubber black.82
July 26, 2024When you look at real BF109E cockpits, you will notice two metal struts on the end of the first cockpit section. I added those using stretched sprue, painted them before glueing them in. I used a glue that is not aggresive to the clear parts and won‘t fog them, in my case it was VMS TranspaFix 6k because it is made for clear parts, ordinary PVA glue should also be no problem. What I like about the VMS glue is the thick consistency, thus the light parts will stick on the canopy themselves once the glue connects both parts. However, getting the those small struts in position so that the glue holds them in place, was a real pain in the a** 😄. Hopefully I didn‘t put glue inside the whole canopy while trying to position those struts but we will see when the masking of the clear parts is removed.83
July 26, 2024She is now able to stand on her own legs 😄 The wheels are masked because I will give the plane one final matte clear coat and the instruction say, that the wheels should be gloss black. I also masked the chrome of the landing gear dampers to avoid turning them matte chrome. I used VMS‘s liquid mask to do this since I really like this stuff compared to other products but I think that I have mentioned this product earlier in the build. The final matte coat can be applied when most of the weathering is done and when the rigging is completed. I mentioned the rigging because it will be fixed using CA glue, which turns glossy when dryed. Thus I want to spray a matte clear coat over those areas to blend the tiny drops of CA in.84
July 27, 2024Here is a before/after after I used some black pigments to give the core of the gunpowder staining a more interesting look. It easy to do and adds in my opinion alot more character to those stains85
July 28, 2024Did some additional weathering with oils86
July 29, 2024I cannot remember where I found out about the original location of the airfield in Gela, Sicily but I still had this screenshot. I tried to find the right tone of pigments by mixing some together. It‘s important to note that you should use pigment fixer to see the true tone of the pigments. Take the reddish spot of pigments: It never looked so red when the pigments were mixed, glad I tested it on my paint mule. The left spot of pigments is the mix I choose in the end.87
July 30, 2024Here‘s my short guide on how to create those cones you see on earlier BF109‘s antenna cables. There is an aftermarket option for those cones but they are not accurate since most of them are not even hollow and it‘s quite easy to make them yourself. You just need a candle, a pencil and some plastic foil. First I tried it with clear wrapping foil but this stuff is just way to thin. In the end I used a transparent document film, just make sure its one of the thicker films, because you can also get pretty thin document films. Cut out a piece of the film. Hold it over the candle until the film becomes more shiny. Then quickly put it on the tip of the pencil and slowly pull the film down over the penciltip. Don‘t cut the cone of immediatly, make a hole on the tip of the cone using an exacto blade, now you can cut it off, however the cut won‘t be looking perfect but the cone can be trimmed using a pair of small scissors once it is glued on the antenna cable.
Some additional tips: try to keep the cone thick enough, this can be achieved by not getting it to soft from the candle and not expanding it to much on the pencil, this way it‘s much easier to handle and if the cone is to thin it‘s easy to dent it.
Roughen the foil before creating the cone with high grit sandpaper, this way it will be much easier to paint the cone afterwards (I didn‘t do it but I imagine that the paint would stick much better to the cones)
Smooth out the surface of the pencil tip, from sharpening it the surface is uneven and this will also likely show in the surface of the cone.
If you do create like 5 cones, you should get the hang of it, it‘s really not that hard.
I had a hard time finding good instructions on how to make those cones, so hopefully this will help some of you 🙂88
July 31, 2024Here are the parts that went on the antenna cable. There are two cones, two tension springs and two (actually four) isolators but two are enough. The springs are made out of 0,2mm lead wire, which is wraped around a very thin copper wire. The isolators are created directly on the antenna cable using glue.89
August 2, 2024I had trouble to guide the soft 0,02mm rigging through the lead spring. Thus I put both ends of a very thin cooper wire through the soft spring and used the loop which formed to pull the soft rigging through the spring. Be carefull however to not bend the soft lead.90
August 3, 2024I forgot that there were two cones on the antenna cable but at that time, the antenna cable was already super-glued in place, thus I either had the choice to cut the cable or to find a solution. In the end, the solution that I worked out was to cut a line along the cone and than you can just stick the cone on the rigging. Without cutting the rigging off again.91
August 4, 2024Finished antenna cable before painting the individual parts on it. The cable which enters the airframe from the antenna is still missing however but I wanted the get the most crucial parts of the antenna fixed before adding the last cable.92
August 5, 2024Those are the finished exhaust pipes after my second attempt, the first attempt was way to bronze thus I chose to redo the exhaust and this time I was really happy with the result. I just airbrushed them gloss black, then I drybrushed them in aluminium paint, I rushed the dry brushing a bit but this turned out to be very good in the end, as there were still some black spots in between the aluminium parts and they made a very nice color variation in the end, just like on real exhausts from ww2 era planes. I then turned the aluminium in to some burnt metal appearance by spraying a layer of MRP exhaust soot over it. Took my AK weathering pencils in gunmetal and gold, the create some nice highlights. In the end, the ends of the pipes were darkend by applying tamiya‘s black panel liner. Using a hair dryer, the exhausts took me roughly two hours.93
August 6, 2024Using my punch and die set and some stretched sprue, I tried to create this little port where the antenna calbe enters the airframe. I just looked at some museum walkarounds to find the picture on the right and then I tried replicated it94
August 7, 2024Here is the reason why I chose to deviate from my inital plan of not buying any aftermarket parts for this build. The stock exhausts look really ugly in my opinion and since they are so prominent on the 109, an upgrade is definitely a good idea and well spent money. Ignore the fact that one is painted and the other one isn't but just look and the missing detail on the stock ones!95
August 8, 2024Then final matte clear coat was sprayed on the model! Like many other modeling areas, mine is located in the basement of my house and because basements are often used to either store stuff until the next season or to forget about it, they are often not as clean as the rest of the house. Thus I am often confronted of having tiny hairs on my models, the fact that my airbrush booth also sucks in 9 cubic meters of dirty basement air per minute is also not helping to solve my problem. What I like to do as soon as I am finished airbrushing, is to hold my model in different angles to my workbench light, by doing this, all the tiny hairs are easily seen like the one on the right vertical stabilizer. Now you just have to take your small tweezers and carefully pic the hair. This is the best state of the paint to do this, since the paint layer is a bit dry (especially with acrylics and lacquers) but not hardend, thus you can just pull the hair of the model. Even is you miss the hair and touch the clear coat, its no big deal, since the paint is already a bit dry and especially on a matte clear coat, inperfections are not really noticable compared to a gloss clear coat. On a gloss clear coat, I think you are best just sanding those hairs out to be honest, since any area where you touched the paint layer will be noticeable for sure, thank god the bf109 is finished in a matte clear coat 😄96
August 9, 2024I put liquid mask on the shiny damper of the landing gear. After the liquid mask was properly dry, I could do all my weathering (chipping, pigments, oils…) and the final matte clear coat, in the end, I took of the mask and they still look very shiny and clear and thats more realistic in my opinion, since the dampers are moving when landing and taxiing and thus they constantly clean themselves if the aircraft is operating.97
August 10, 2024First, I wanted to model the steel rope, which stops the canopy door from opening to wide, from this copper wire and the lead spring. It was actually alot of work to create this spring out of thin lead wire but unfortunately, the wire and the spring looked way to big, it would not be realistic at all, if the spring of the canopy mechanism was larger than the springs used on the antenna. Thus I chose to just make this canopy rope out of rigging line and call it a day.98
August 11, 2024For some reason I still get tiny spots where paint has come of, I probably will make it a habit to wash the model before the inital primer is sprayed becauce even after blowing air at the model and wipeing the surface, some very small sanding residue seems to stay to on the model. Here you can see such a spot. First I tried to „hide“ it by brushing some aluminium paint on it and make it look like if the paint has chipped of due to harsh environmental conditions or something. But then I honestly thought that chipped paint would occur at the leading edge due to grains of sand and thus, such a big chip on the side of the vertical stabilizer would be unrealistic. There isn‘t even some maintainance port there, so the ground crew would also not likely chip paint of in this area. Long story short, I took green, black and dust colored oil paint, mixed it to achieve this german dark green color and then I just blended it in until it wasn‘t so pronounced. This close before the finish line of completing the model, I didn‘t want to get the airbrush out and might f**k up something 😄99
August 12, 2024As said in picture 97, I just made the rope which stops the canopy door from opening to far out of ordinary rigging (the same diameter I used for the antenna, simply because I have no smaller rigging). However, to create a smaller diameter compared to the antenna cable, I stretched the rigging more than the antenna one. Thus the diameter of the rigging gets smaller. Then I painted the spots of CA glue and the rigging in the cockpit color and thats it.100
August 13, 2024Here is a glimpse on the finished 109 🙂 Proper pictures will follow soon!
Komentáre
60 14 July 2023, 21:33
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Hallo Stefan, hab das selbe Modell im Regal. Bin gespannt wie deine wird, soweit schaut das richtig vielversprechend aus. Und ich bekomme bei deinen Bildern richtig Lust, den Bau der Messerschmitt ebenfalls zu starten!
21 July 2023, 18:10
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@Christian Hallo Christian, bist jetzt sind mir bei dem Modell keinerlei Probleme aufgefallen, alles passt wunderbar zusammen , kann dir nur empfehlen das Modell zu bauen. Selbst wenn das Modell verglichen mit den neuen Tamiya oder Eduard Modellen weniger Details aufweist, macht es sehr viel Spaß diese Details selber hinzuzufügen und selbst wenn man die Details weglässt, ist das Modell sehr schnell gebaut und für den Preis meiner Meinung nach sehr zu empfehlen. Abgesehen davon sind die meisten neuen Bausätze der BF109 von der G Variante und nicht von der E Variante. Hoffentlich kann ich dich mit meinem Bau inspirieren, dein Modell auch anzufangen 🙂
22 July 2023, 09:35
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Schaut sehr gut aus Stefan! Die Sache mit den Nieten für meine E hat der Vorbesitzer meines Kits mit einem kompletten Satz Nieten Decals von HGW gelöst. Für andere Projekte hab ich auch schon über ein solches riveting Tool nachgedacht?! Hab jetzt einmal geplant, das Modell über den Winter zu bauen. Allerdings will ich vorher noch meine UH-1B und die MH-60K zu Ende bringen, bzw. diese parallel dazu bauen. Bis Mitte November bin ich noch sehr mit unserem Hausprojekt und der Landwirtschaft eingeteilt. Auf alle Fälle bin ich auf das Resultat deiner Bemühungen gespannt!!!
26 August 2023, 06:27
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@Christian Ein solches Nieten Set habe ich auch gesehen aber um ehrlich zu sein, ist es mir nicht wert, den Preis des gesamten Modells noch einmal für Nieten zu zahlen. Gut für dich, dass der Vorbesitzer sie schon gekauft hat, ich würde sie auf jeden Fall benutzen, bin schon gespannt wie deine Emil aussehen wird!
7 September 2023, 22:08
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@Mark Lawrence since this is my first BF109, I'm no expert yet but I also like the Emil just simply due to the fact, that the Gustav variants seem to get build more often, which why I like seeing the Emil instead of yet another Gustav!
7 September 2023, 22:32
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Looks great Stefan and nice cockpit. Neat trick on the fishing line, thanks.
17 September 2023, 05:58
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@John thank you for your nice words! Always happy to spread some tips! 🙂
18 September 2023, 06:53
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Wow, thanks for the detailed description! I learned a lot only by reding. I'm looking forward for more.
18 September 2023, 06:58
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@Marcin Dudek I really appreciate your comment Marcin! I wasn't expecting that someone really reads all the stuff I write but seems I was wrong! It makes me really happy that you found some useful tips even though this is just my second proper model and I am far from being a somehow experienced modeler. Take care and keep modeling 🙂
19 September 2023, 21:25
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For the boundaries since it's straight edge you can just touch it up with a post it note pretty easily.
19 September 2023, 22:35
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@John thanks for the tip! I would have masked it again but the post it method is much easier, didn't think of that, thanks alot!
20 September 2023, 08:33
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That's a neat trick with the fishing line; lots of great detail on your work. Very nice work so far.
26 January, 07:26
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@Jennifer Franklin thank you for the nice words 🙂 I'm really trying my best and hope that my increased experience will show at the end result, especially when compared to my first ever modelkit, the Eurofighter
27 January, 10:24
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Looking good, especially knowing this is your second build. 1:48 is a good scale to start with. Thumbs up and keep modeling 👍
29 January, 11:55
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Nice job on the exhaust/gun stains. 👍 You are right, you really can't go too thin on that mix. I'm cheap so I just use XF-1 (and other colors for allied planes that used leaded gas) thinned way down with isopropanol and make multiple passes until it looks right. I also add some pastel/pigment to give some body to the stain as well like you suggested. Looking good, Stefan!
22 July, 16:40
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@John thank you!! Tonight I also used black pigment in the core and close to the gun barrels to give the stains a more interesting look, happy with the result, pictures will follow soon! 🙂 And thanks for the tips, appreciate them alot! 🙂
22 July, 20:47
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@Christoph Kunz thank you alot!! In retrospect the spring, the insolator and the cone should be closer together but I am still very happy with the result, hopefully you are able to reproduce those cones if you like them based on my little guide some posts earlier 🙂
5 August, 20:17
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Absolutely love these antenna cones. Excellent idea! How was the antenna glued to the masts?
8 August, 18:19
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@Desert Marlin thank you, appreciate it alot!! I used normal CA glue, not the slow drying or the thin one, just the regular VMS glue. Any CA will do the job. Just place a tiny drop on the mast, put the end of the antenna cable in it. Then you take you other end, stretch it a bit (thats the neat thing about those Uschi Van der Rosten rigging cables, because you can stretch them like a rubber band and they hold this stretched state, thus they look like a real, tensioned antenna cable would look like) then you put another tiny drop of CA on the other mast, but the rigging thru it and hold the position for 10 seconds and then you are done. To be on the save side, I then put another small drop of CA on the already glued ends of the antenna cable to enhance the connection even more. The end of the rigging was then cut using my exacto blade.
8 August, 18:55
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@Desert Marlin sure, here is the link to the website I got them from (super-hobby.at/produ..ng-linka-0-02mm.html) I am Austrian, thus I shop on websites which are quite close to me, thats why the shop is from Poland. I am sure, you will find the same product or a very similar one at an American dealer. The one I linked you, is the exact diameter I also used (0,02mm), good look at finding this product! 🙂
9 August, 22:57
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@Desert Marlin and here is the link to the product on ScaleMates: (Rigging - Medium Fine 0.02mm.. Mig Jimenez A.MIG-8017, No))
9 August, 23:00
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