SPA Modeler

It's looking really good. I would go with the kit wheels and add a flat spot to them. Main reason it looks like the resin wheels have a more prominent seam to clean up. I've never used barracuda tires before, but plenty of eduards brassin resin and they have always been a one part mold with the pour stub on the flat side not sure why barracuda would make them with a two part mold.

Have you seen these? The tires look superbly detailed, especially the tread height. I tend to look at tread height which is usually a little exaggerated. On these castings, tread height looks spot on.

Floki wrote:It's looking really good. I would go with the kit wheels and add a flat spot to them. Main reason it looks like the resin wheels have a more prominent seam to clean up. I've never used barracuda tires before, but plenty of eduards brassin resin and they have always been a one part mold with the pour stub on the flat side not sure why barracuda would make them with a two part mold.

The Barracuda stuff is really good. Eduard is good too but I don't like their practice of molding hubs separately. The ones I've had, the hubs didn't quite fit and had a gap between the hubs and tire. The seams may have been exaggerated by my carelessness. Instead of carefully cutting off the thin excess resin off of the lower half of the tires, I just started sawing the main stub and the thin resin broke off as I sawed.

speedgraflex wrote:

Have you seen these? The tires look superbly detailed, especially the tread height. I tend to look at tread height which is usually a little exaggerated. On these castings, tread height looks spot on.

I have not seen those but they look excellent as well. But most manufacturers including Barracuda and Def Model incorrectly show the flat spot on the bottom of tire. This is not accurate. Bf109 wheels sit at an angle, just slightly more upright than the landing gear legs.



So the flat spot is at an angle.

speedgraflex wrote:Mea Culpa, John! Thank you for the correction and the photographic evidence! Is that from the 109 board on FB? It’s an amazing angle of the angle! Thanks mucho.

I found the photo on Marc Haldimann's Flickr account. He has (had) an amazing repository of Bf109G/K photos categorized by sub-type. The photo is actually a 109K but it is facet common to all 109s. I referenced the photo in a discussion with the maker of the resin/metal landing gear (Damian at Synthetic Ordinance Works). Based on my reasoning, he actually changed the angle of his wheel axles to reflect this correction.

With Damian's replacement legs in place, I can start thinking about the approximate angle that I need to impart onto the tire flat spots. It doesn't have to be exact. With the slight play between the tire and the axle and the use of fast setting epoxy, I can let the tires settle into the flat spots as the glue dries. This is just a looksee before I start sanding the flat spots.

The stance looks brilliant, John! Wow! Brilliant! Is Damien making legs for the G-10? I have that one in 1/32. Maybe he only makes legs fit Hase kits, though. Here are a two photographs of G-6 types with fairly clear photos of their wheels:



I noticed the inverted white/black propellor nose spiral above right away! Is that common? I am not sure.



A nice photo of the tires in daylight.

The Revell G-10 Erla legs are the same as the G-6 leg, so yes, Damian makes sets that will work for both kits.

A black spiral on a white spinner is atypical and not what was officially mandated by the RLM. Perhaps the white spiral is really wide and makes it appear that it is a black on white spiral? I dunno... either way, it is an interesting looking spinner!

jkim wrote: A black spiral on a white spinner is atypical and not what was officially mandated by the RLM. Perhaps the white spiral is really wide and makes it appear that it is a black on white spiral? I dunno... either way, it is an interesting looking spinner!

I did wonder if that an issue with the photo, but no it does look like white on black - it does indeed look interesting and would probably stand out.

Silly me had the landing gear legs reversed. So I had to make a re-evaluation...


Putting the model on a flat surface to check if the angle of the flat spots works...

Happens to us all - thank fully it was only a test fit!

Looks good?