1/32 Revell Bf109G-10 Hartmann

[Stikpusher]

This is sure to be another great show!!!

Oh man this is gonna be good!!

Oh yeah... I'll be strap hanging on this ride as well....

[speedgraflex]

Hi John! Wow, your spirit and momentum for this build is awesome! I have chills watching such precise fuselage surgery and such good fortune with resin that fits!

Would you post a photo of the interior of the Revell cowling? How does the kit design hold the exhausts in place? Locking tabs? I dig the idea of “planter boxes” to hold the exhausts, but the angle of the exhausts themselves would take finessing. Maybe the Revell exhaust strips could be used close “as is,” inside the Reaver?

Isn’t the Aires cockpit and its base pour slug pushing forward due to the fuselage interior a bit? I know it’s early data and first fittings but it seems so.

It’s really beautiful to watch you cut and shave these pieces to fit!

Brett Green suggests that the Eduard cockpit will be a “95% fit” in the Revell kit. (This comes from his online review.) Did you consider this option?

[jkim]

Things are still up in the air when it comes to fit but I'm hoping that I can finesse a good result with careful preparation and execution. The important thing is to establish a strong bond between the resin and plastic so that repairs (puttying, re-scribing, etc) can be done with confidence. The last thing I want to see is a crack develop in a repaired joint due to a less than solid connection. So I'll have to put in the proper amount of work to ensure that joint is as solid as possible, including adding shims to bridge any significant gaps and location tabs to ensure that the mating surfaces butt up against each other positively.

The casting block of the Aires cockpit floor does not seem to impede the closure of the fuselage halves at all... it's almost a perfect fit. But I have to make sure that I have accounted for all of the interior parts and also the fit of the windscreen and canopy. Lots of time is going to be spent doing the dry-fit thing before I commit to any glue but I can also do lots of prep work during this stage like riveting and rescribing. Since the resin cowling is a single piece, I can work on the exhaust mountings and insertion of the guns barrels and the oil cooler intake grill.

The Revell exhausts do seem to fit fairly well, unmodified, into the Reaver cowling but I have to weigh the work to hollow out the exhaust tips against creating a box for the Barracuda exhausts and I'm leaning towards doing the latter.

Based on my research, the Aires resin cockpit is the only choice for a Revell-specific cockpit upgrade. I did not consider the Eduard cockpit for the G-6. But looking at that set now, I think I would have the same issue with the Reaver cowling since that forward bulkhead seems to be the same as the Aires. The Eduard cockpit floor is designed to accept the wing spar without any nasty cutting so that would've been an improvement.

[speedgraflex]

John,

Have you tried using this to create spinner spirals?

[jkim]

That's a pretty cool tool Bruce! I don't have one. I cut thin strips manually using a straight edge and that seems acceptable to me. The problem with the spirals is that initial section at the tip of the spinner... it sometimes has a compound curve to it that is hard to replicate with thin strips of tape.

I did a little more work on the G-10 yesterday and today. Mostly dry-fitting the cowling and then filling the rest of time on small tasks that need to be done eventually. Just hopping around, keeping myself occupied.

Here is the front of the cowling with the air bubbles filled with putty. Most, if not all of it will be hidden by the spinner but there were enough bubbles near the visible edge that I just decided to smooth the entire front end.


The exhaust pipe issue was investigated next. The Barracuda exhaust stacks are designed to be drop-in replacements for the Revell kit. However, they are noticeably wider than the kit exhausts. So they are difficult to install from the inside as designed.


Bruce reminded me to compare the kit cowling and exhaust parts. I threw the kit cowling into the trash after I had cut them off of the fuselage. Luckily they were cut in a way that preserved the exhaust area. Here are the kit cowling parts with the Revell exhausts tabbed in from the inside and the Barracuda exhausts dropped in from the outside. Remember, I had already trimmed the backing from the Barracuda exhausts earlier, which prevents me from installing them like the Revell exhausts. No big deal... I want to install them from the outside anyway.


What I came up with is a two-piece backing plate made from sheet styrene. These were glued in with CA glue.



The Barracuda exhausts drop in from the outside, like I wanted so this solution is a good one.



One thing I noticed about the Reaver engine cowling is that it lacks the deflector plates above the exhaust stacks. The opening for the exhausts is pretty tight with the exhausts in place but I think I can fit deflector plates made from thin brass sheeting. I did this for my 1/48 Bf109K-4 build...



At this point, I jumped over to the main landing gear legs. I don't know why Revell chose to do this but each leg is comprised of FIVE separate parts. It's unnecessarily complicated.


Once finished, the legs will look pretty good. I'll be adding brake lines of course.

[jkim]

Jumping again... this time to the instrument panel. The acetate behind an unpainted photoetch face is a bit of an older school approach. I happen to like it better than the current Eduard pre-painted instrument panels. Mostly because of that awful purple paint that Eduard tries to pass off as RLM 66.


The back of the instrument dial acetate needs to be painted white to make the instruments visible.



The Revell instrument panel is pretty nice but it can't match the Eduard panel.


Dry-fitting continues. This time I've added the wing bottoms into the mix. I still can't figure out if the forward bulkhead of the Aires cockpit is getting in the way or not. But the fit of the gun breech cover to the fuselage is not bad.



Adding the windscreen and canopy revealed some issues. The Aires cockpit sidewalls seem to be pushing the fuselage sides wider so some thinning is probably in order. Also , there may be a height issue with those sidewalls.


I've reinforced the exhaust backplates with epoxy glue because I'd hate for them to pop into the fuselage after the cowling is attached. When that cures, I can do some more dry-fitting.

[speedgraflex]

Nice work with the fitting, John. You are moving smoothly, and the work shows that the build-up of momentum from Dora to this project has unlocked a new level of confidence in your abilities. Great problem solving. I was worried about the angle of the engine exhausts as well as the pieces falling inside the empty nose area. Is there a need to cross brace or will the pieces hold? My greatest fear is having the cockpit section drop down... but it looks like here that will never be a concern due to the size of the cockpit's plinth.

[jkim]

The exhaust backing plates should be pretty secure, especially with the epoxy glue that I glopped on there last night. They won't bear any structural load and the exhausts drop right into them so I won't be exerting hardly any force on those plates.

Not much play in the cockpit vertically where the spar is at but it can have a tendency to rock on that spar like a seesaw. There are locating tabs on the insides of the fuselage that catch the corner of that rear shelf so I can use both of those connection points (wing spar + locating tabs) to lock in the cockpit position.

I think this is going to be a quicker build than the Dora. No extensive engine wiring to dream up. No delicate brass flaps to fidget with. Canopy is going to be shut so that will simplify a number of things.

[speedgraflex]

Work looks great, John. Excited for you. I received the closeout kit (Trumpeter 1/32 Bf109G-100 which is WNF-built not Erla) today so I have been comparing and contrasting two different kit designs as well as coming up with a subject. I wrote to Mr Hjortsberg regarding his "Rote 2" of 5./JG52 upper wing camo and he sent back an image from a JaPo book which was very helpful.

Back to your 1/32 Revell, I am glad this build is going so smoothly and efficiently. Your preparation work is absolutely incredible... I did actually revisit your earlier '15 Build of the 1/32 Revell Bf109 in your fantastic gallery, and already see how so much more finesse is being brought to your work! Very excited to see your sources for painting and airbrush work.

[BlackSheep214]

I finally managed to play catch up on your build progress. Looking good yet you're braver than me when it comes to surgery for the resin nose. Well done!