1/48 Eduard Bf 109E in Swedish Service (What-if)

[mustang1989]

I’ve dealt with those struts before in 1/24 and1/48 scale. Neither one was fun but I used stretched sprite for mine which worked out a ton better. Great progress so far and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the primer coat go down.

[pzl66]

I should have stretched the styrene rod!

[pzl66]

Well, this build wouldn’t be eventful with out something happening... During this I have found an issue with my notes and have now revised the instruction: hold off on install the fuselage gun cover (right in front of the windscreen) til AFTER installing the canopy. Mine was installed .005/.010 too far back and it threw my canopy alignment out. No biggy, easy fix is to file or sand the canopy CAREFULLY until it sits level...

[speedgraflex]

Despite these bumps in the road, this build is a straight line to success. Your photos are kicking as much butt as your seam removal. I appreciate that you want to do as much as possible to preserve the original tooling as well as keep the fidelity of the source. Your work is really a wonderful balancing act between what is possible to achieve from an Eduard kit and historical accuracy.

[pzl66]

Thanks Bruce! I edited out the info about the E-3 because I remembered that one of my E-4s is going to be a Galland build so it uses the alternate windscreen. So good news is that it is back on track for the full E-4 look.

The part I took out was I was going to throw the E-3 canopy on but that is a never mind. But the fun fact I will repost which is: the early E-4 in service that were flown by pilots who flew and were accustom to the E-3, some of them were not happy with the new canopy, some even went as far as having the earlier E-3 canopy put on their new E-4 aircraft! Just to add to any more confusion one may have about a build!

[Floki]

Looking good and thanks for that little info on installing the wind screen

[pzl66]

Your welcome, funny thing is when ever I do the next Emil later down the road, all this info will not do me any good since the it will be built open up with now cowl on it at all like this:

[pzl66]

Primer on the model now, ended up with a gap in the canopy so stretch sprue in the gap and will primer again tonight to check again. Wednesday paint arrives and then we will see how the color scheme turns out! Decals are slowing making their way from Europe so we will see how long that take to areive.



Two previous build never had a gap issue with the canopy but the last two I do. This kit was designed to be left opened up and it does take a little work for the closed up build. What I am thinking is the best coarse of action is install the canopy in reverse order (rear piece first, center, then front) as to not cause the binding gap issue if you have something a hair off up front. If you do get a gap it is easy to fix but I would rather not to have to go that route. Then install the gun cover.

[mustang1989]

Yikes!!! Your plan with installing the canopy pieces in reverse order sounds like a good one. Sorry to see your misfortune with that.

[speedgraflex]

Is there a layer of Mr Surfacer on top of your stretched sprue pieces? Also, how will you sand to blend with existing primer (yellow arrow)?