SPA Modeler

Floki wrote:Thanks for sharing the info on how you correct this, it will be very helpful in the future.

Your welcome! The PE that is included in the kit (f/e: Profi) is so small and flimsy and if you trim just a hair too much it is garbage. If you got the overtrees or weekend kits, you don’t get PE at all and this is a great alternative to be able to have the struts. Once the cement is set it is pretty solid and is able to take light sanding to narrow the width if you so choose to get as accurate as you can with the kit.

Here is a picture of the PE part lined up next to the new part. The PE seems too thin to my eye when compared to it’s side thickness and the new part needs a little work to be just right.



The styrene rod is .020 / .5mm and cut to just a hair over 3mm, angled at the ends to meet the surfaces it will contact. I make a mini sanding stick from those revlon nail sanding sticks since the core of them is wood so it is rigid enough to lightly sand on the new strut. The Olfa knife I use has the blades break off in small pieces since cutting this sanding stick ruins the blade. One quick snap and you have a fresh blade again.

Superb corrective work - far more that I'd have done with my laszy-modeler-itis.

Thanks Stuart!

Sprayed some black Mr Surfacer to see how the work came out and that the cowling on the right, inner side got a little soft from the cement being used to fill the slight gap and left an “eye” in the panel line. Had to massage the plastic to get rid of it. Also dry fitted the fuselage to make sure thing were lining up nicely. Now I need to spray some RLM76 (lighter and has a more gray tone compared to 78 for the use of stacking layers and future blending) and see how this all turned out.

Granted the quickboost correction parts just get slapped on and are way easier, this way saves you $5 (not much actually, kinda worth it) and waiting on the part to show up which this took 2 hours between sanding, fitting, and installing the home made struts. Going to sand a little more on the struts just to make it a hair thinner but not too bad to do.

The inner side of the right radiator cowling next to the blister is where the plastic got soft and made an eye in the panel line (you end up making the plastic pretty thin to have it sit flush-ish, take care not to have it do the same, lucky this was the only spot):


Just some dry fitting of the fuselage to the wings. All looks good, has a nice fit as always. The gap you see is the fuselage shifted when I set it down.


Coming up next is an area that needs deviation from the instructions for the cockpit...

What you doing here is great! I got a few Eduards 109s in the stash going to refer back to this when I get started on one.

Your progress here is great stuff. I see you visualizing where you want each step to go, then executing that vision.

Floki, use and tweak any info I give to help you with your build! Hey you might find a better way to do something that I didn’t think of! Can’t wait to see them being built!

Stikpusher wrote:Your progress here is great stuff. I see you visualizing where you want each step to go, then executing that vision.

Thanks Stik, does help that this is my fourth (first one was one from the Emil Royal Class days) and each time I want to tweak what I did for the better!

I promise that I will move on to a different aircraft after this one! Friedrich!

Great tutorial!

Wow you are flying along on these!! Great work Kevin!

Thanks gents! Plenty of 109s stashed away and boxes on display!


Anyway, fixed the small issue I had and worked the “hole” that was behind the blister in the panel line. Used the Tamiya Scriber II (first time using one) to lightly create a slight ridge along the radiator cowl and then used a fine sanding stick the polish it up. Now I can move on to the next part as this is good enough for me.