1/48 Hasegawa Bf 109 G-6 (FINISHED)

[Stikpusher]

How in hades do you guys build so well so quickly? Nice work there lawdog!

[CallSignOWL]

i realy wish I had a permanent set up for my airbrush, cuz id ned soooo much practice to get as good as you!

[Manny1943]

Thanks for the kind words. Mostrich, thanks but I decided to go with Hackl's markings. I was reading up on him and learned he served on every front at one point and had 192 confirmed kills with 34 being "heavies". Consider me inspired! I'll probably use the kit's tail scoreboard but will source the rest from my Aeromaster stash. I'm not that brave.....lol. I'll just live with the cannons. I like instrument decals too, but on my kit it came in black when it was suppose to be RLM 66. I decided to make mine a drybrush exercise. A question about the Airscale decals though, are they already pre-cut individually into circles or is a punch set needed? I may try these out. Can someone post a small tutorial on this?

Last night it was me, Net-Flix, and RLM 74, 75, 76 through my airbrush. I can attest to German mottling being somewhat challenging when your airbrush needle is going bad, for I'm having a hard time getting those fine lines down. Here I preshaded the panel lines and then added the ID colors (white tail, yellow nose and fuse band) which were taped off.



RLM 76 was next. For some reason I couldn't seem to get this right to my eye. I used the recommended 2 parts (drops) XF-66 Light Grey, 1 part XF-23 Light Blue and then 7 parts XF-2 Flat White, but it just looked too pale grey. I added a touch more of the blue. This is why I hate trying to make RLM colors out of Tamiya paint and use Gunze Aqueous for this. RLM 76 is the only one I dont have. Here we are with "F--- it...good enough". I streaked and weathered it with a diluted red-brown/black post shading.




I then pulled out the Gunze for the 74 and 75. I love the Aqueous line for RLm colors. They look right on to me. 75 was first.



I then used the instruction sheet profile for an Idea how Hackl's camo pattern went. It appeared to be field applied void of the normal splinter pattern. I am however skeptical since the sheet calls for this pattern on all three planes, two being on the Eastern front??? I decided to freehand spray on the 74. I then added a touch of XF-2 Flat White to fade it out a bit in the wings. As I said, needle issues prevented this from being a convincing mottling job and really tried my patience. Hopefully it will be passable after decaling and weathering later.




Decals soon...
Joe

Yeah, that pattern on the top wing seems suspect but IMO not a deal-breaker. However, Hackl's bird didn't have the tear-drop umbrella mounts on the fues side as it was not a TROP version...

[lawdog114]

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah Manny, I won't sweat it too much, especially with all the issues I've been having with my airbrush. Do you have any pics of the Hackl's upper wings? Perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to go back and fix it...

Umbrella eh? looks like I got a Trop fuselage on accident. Truthfully I never even noticed those. I think I put the wrong starboard cannon bulge on too (the one with the second smaller bulge on the bottom)...oh well. Hasegawa has too many extra parts

Joe

[Manny1943]

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah Manny, I won't sweat it too much, especially with all the issues I've been having with my airbrush. Do you have any pics of the Hackl's upper wings? Perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to go back and fix it...

Umbrella eh? looks like I got a Trop fuselage on accident. Truthfully I never even noticed those. I think I put the wrong starboard cannon bulge on too (the one with the second smaller bulge on the bottom)...oh well. Hasegawa has too many extra parts

Joe

I did mine years ago so I don't remember the exact source of my extensive and expensive research but this is what I interpreted from it:







The kidney-shaped fairing on the R cowl "bump" you referred to was for the high-altitude, pressurized version and housed an oil bubble remover...mainly found in G-5s but I think some G-6 and recce versions carried that equipment too. For some reason pressurized pits in the 109 weren't popular w the pilots so demand was not high for this feature...

[lawdog114]

Thanks Manny!. It's safe to say you know a heck of alot more about Hackl's 109 than I do. I trust your judgement. I have an old G-2 instruction sheet with that pattern on it so I'm going to re-spray the upper wings using it as reference. Nice build and pilot figure by the way. I was planning on putting a Reheat pilot next to this turkey too..

Joe

[Manny1943]

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah Manny, I won't sweat it too much, especially with all the issues I've been having with my airbrush. Do you have any pics of the Hackl's upper wings? Perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to go back and fix it...

Umbrella eh? looks like I got a Trop fuselage on accident. Truthfully I never even noticed those. I think I put the wrong starboard cannon bulge on too (the one with the second smaller bulge on the bottom)...oh well. Hasegawa has too many extra parts

Joe

Just in case there's any confusion about the "umbrella" clips:



They REALLY were umbrella clips!!! You can just shave em off the kit if you want...

[lawdog114]

Nice Manny... Have you ever built one with the umbrella? Maybe one of those fruity drink Umbrellas would be sufficient? Well so much for changing the wing pattern. I forgot that I already clearcoated it, so I ultimately decided to leave well enough alone. It looks close enough to the instruction sheet at least as much as possible with a crappy airbrush needle ........



I got a little more work done last night. I got it decaled and Flory washed. I pieced together the markings with old Aeromaster sheets. I used the kit stencils and the tail kill board. Interestingly, these went down fine. Go figure....



On a side note, I got these Reheat figures off Ebay recently. Ill probably add one to the base and the other for another 109 or 190. They look kind of smug yeah? We'll see how they paint up...



I'm hoping to wrap this build up tonight...

Joe

[Stikpusher]

You work fast there Lawdog! I do like Reheat's stuff.

[lawdog114]

I'm gonna go with done here . Just finished...the glue is still wet on the groundwork..... . To recap it's the 1/48 Hasegawa Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 in the markings of Anton Hackl of JG II around August of 1943 when JG II was assigned to Reich defense. Hackl was a 192 kill ace with 34 of those being heavy bombers.

Reference the kit, it was the "Experten" boxing which came with Hackl's markings. Its nicely engineered, but in my opinion somewhat basic. I have built many over the years and they do just fall together. It does need a resin pit, or at least some PE in there. My issues, or should I say confusion, lyes in trying to use the correct parts for the particular variant I'm building. Then all the "cut this off...shave that....fill this" stuff.....its mind boggling to me and I usually forget something. For example, as Manny pointed out, this one has two dimples on the port fuselage which was for an umbrella on tropical versions, not this theater. I think I used the wrong cannon blister on the starboard side too. I did remember to shave off the scoops in the canopy. Anyways, on this build, I used a True Details cockpit and Quickboost guns which I found in the stash.

The Reheat figure was found to be nicely detailed. I painted "Major Tony" with Tamiya paints and drybrushed with lighter versions of that color. The skin tones were done with Model Master Enamels with the same techique. It was all given a brown detailer wash. Figure painting is really not my forte but I'm trying to improve in this area. To me, these models just look better with a pilot standing next to them and the chute at his feet is a bonus. I may eventually branch into vehicles and such too.

I may try the Zveda F model one of these days just to see how it compares. I heard its better than Hasegawa's kit. I still have 2 G-2's and a G-10 in the stash.

If you'll have me, there's a good chance I'll do another in here. Thanks for having me and it was a pleasure to be amongst friends again...

Joe