Model Aircraft – September 2019

The fuselage halves were itted together
with no problem. They lined up perfectly and
very little movement was needed with again,
no iller. The wing halves were then sandwiched
to each other, again with magniicent it and the
two were joined together with pegs and rubber
bands! There was no gap between the fuselage
and wings even though this is where most kits
have one. The it of the kit is that good. The only
problem with the wings is that the pitot tube on
the end of the wing is already moulded to one
of the halves. My issue with this was that even
with the upmost care in trying not to accidently
break it of, it inevitably ended up happening.
I decided to invest in a pack of the Eduard Bf
109F and G resin pitot tubes and I was not
disappointed in the quality. Not only were they
thinner but once attached, they were far more
resilient to being broken of again compared to
the original plastic moulded piece.
Once I had masked up the canopy and
sealed of the cockpit from any stray paint,
I sprayed over the canopy area with Hataka
RLM66 so that once the canopy is on show,
it will have the interior colour on the inside
instead of black or the desert sand-yellow
colour. After the canopy had been painted
over, I used a Humbrol rattle can of Matt Black

33. Because this can cover a large surface easily
    and quickly with a nice smooth result, this is
    my preferred method of base coating. Quick,
    simple and efective. For this kit, I decided I
    would paint it up in the lovely desert colours
    of the Bf 109F4/Z/trop as lown by Ufz. F.
    Schweiger of 6./JG 3 based in San Pietro, Italy in
    February of 1942. Once I had let the black base

coat fully dry, after about twenty-four hours, I

started with the Light Blue RLM65 underside.

Thinning the paint six-parts Hataka Orange Line

Lacquer thinners to two-parts Red Line acrylic

paint, I started to ill all the panels with paint,

slowly building it up on every pass, avoiding

painting any panel lines or rows of rivets. After

three or four passes, building up the layers

of paint on the panels to a nice bulk colour in

each, I came back over the whole aircraft. Two

or three light passes all over the underside and

sides of the fuselage to even out and unify

the colour and the blue was done. The

same process was then repeated with

the top colour of Hataka Sand-Yellow RLM79

after the slightly wiggly line between the two

was masked of with blu-tac.

Once the paint had fully dried, I gave it three

light coats of Alclad II Aqua Gloss which gave

it a lovely shinny surface to do my next stage

of building on. The decals, despite being quite

thick, came of the backing paper smoothly

and had no problem in settling down on the

model itself. With a coat of Micro Set before

and Micro Sol after, for each decal, the decals

settled almost perfectly into any rivets or panel

lines they were led upon. There were a few that

didn’t quite go down, but I didn’t notice until

THE LATE BF 109E3, E4 AND E7 DESIGNS WERE NEEDING AN

UPGRADE, WHICH CREATED THE BF 109F ‘FRIEDRICH’

MODEL AIRCRAFT SEPTEMBER 2019

OUT OF AFRICA

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