Aircraft Edition The wing joint has been slathered with a mixture of talcum
powder and super glue, then sanded. I then brushed some
Gunze Mr. Surfacer on some suspicious areas and re-sanded.
After this I masked the wheel wells and sprayed a rather heavy coat of Mr.
Surfacer 1000 on the rest of the lower wing. So far, so good. I would then
sand and polish this area, rescribe the lost panel lines.This would have been a much more difficult job without these very simple
tools from John Vojtech at UMM Models. They are simple, shaped aluminum
bars to which you attach sandpaper using double sided tape. The advantage
is that they don't "give". They stay perfectly rigid and flat; just what is
needed for sanding the uneven lower wing surfaces.Fuselage Assembly Engine Cowling
I have a very specific sequence for joining any
Bf 109 fuselage. The first concern is the seam on
the rear fuselage, both top and bottom. The actual
aircraft rear fuselage was formed by stretching
sheet metal over forms in sections. This was done in
two halves, which were then riveted together. The
result was a panel line along the top and bottom
of the fuselage, similar to the fuselage sections
themselves. I have seen modelers contort themselves
trying to scribe these lines on a completed
fuselage, sometimes with less than satisfactory
results. There is a much simpler solution. Just take
a scalpel and bevel the top and bottom of each
fuselage half at about a 30 degree angle. Very few
swipes will be necessary. Do check by trial fitting
to insure the resulting line is similar in width and
depth to the other panel lines.
Now on to mating the fuselage halves. The
bevelled fuselage lines would be filled if you glued
the fuselage in the usual way. I use clamps to hold
the sections together, then using a rather large
brush, apply a strong, quick drying liquid glue to
the INTERIOR (italics) of the fuselage. Tenex 7R or
MEK will be perfect for this. Next on to the panel
immediately in front of the windscreen. Having built
so many 109 models, I have seen what can go
wrong. Over time the glue in this area has caused
a ghost seam to appear, making you feel like an
absolute amateur who cannot even use putty. Out
comes the super glue, applied to this section alone.
The rest of the cowl can be assembled using your
glue of choice, Tamiya Extra Thin in my case.
Obviously this models is much different regarding
the cowl, but you get the picture.
Next, on to the cowling. Here's what I meant about the lower wing
being crucial to the nose alignment. This photo demonstrates how
the lower wing/lower cowl piece is the keystone to the entire nose
assembly. Here the cowl panels are stuck on with blobs of Blu-
Tack. Not a pretty sight. I considered leaving them there and gluing
everything together with 5-minute epoxy. Of course I would align the
parts better than this, but that just might work. Or, use epoxy putty for
the same purpose. Epoxy putty would also act as the adhesive, but if
you pushed beyond where you wanted it to go, you couldn’t really pull
the part out again. Blu-Tack is "gummier" and will allow that.After much thought, this is how I decided to proceed with the nose. After
taping the wing to the fuselage, I applied some liquid glue the very back
of the exhaust panels, joining them to the fuselage halves and let them
set up overnight.Then I attached the upper cowl panels to these exhaust sections with
white glue. This was followed by a touch of liquid glue at the front
corner. After they had set up reasonably, I loaded up the interior of the
nose with 5 minute epoxy. I would have to do quite a bit of sanding
and filling, and didn't want anything separating during the process.Here the forward cowl has been taped on to check the fit. It is far from
great, but when clamped together the gaps close up to a great extent.
You can also see the vents on the cowl have been filled with superglue
and sanded flush. There were a number of differences between the A
and B variants, including some wing access panels that will have to be
scribed in. It’s pretty ugly at this point, but don’t be deterred.As I mentioned, the AMG kit comes with a rather extensive fret of
photo-etched parts, and representing the landing gear covers this way
is very realistic. Gluing the two pieces of photo-etch together can be
a challenge. I started by rolling each piece lengthwise with a metal
X-Acto handle on the palm of my hand. There is a slight curvature
to the covers that much be made before joining them. I then tacked
them together with white glue and after checking alignment, followed
up with thin super glue. The only modification I made here was cutting
off the upper section of the cover and reglued it with a very slight
overlap. This also angled in a bit, which is accurate.
Next up was the fuselage together. Again, there was quite a bit of trimming and sanding to be done, particularly with the cockpit floor and
instrument panel. The AMG kit has probably the best "in the box" cockpit of any 109 in 1:72 scale. I mentioned the photo-etch, but there are
also many tiny plastic bits. I intended this model to be built out of the box and therefore keep the canopy closed. Actually, very little will be
visible through the rather thick glass. Even if you leave off a number of photo-etched bits the cockpit will still look suitably busy.