Hasegawa 1/32 Bf109F-4, H.J.Marseille

[Nikola]

Hi gents,

After a loooong journey with the Mustang, my second 1/32 bird which I will soon begin work on is Hasegawa's Bf109F-4 flown by Hans-Joachim Marseille in Africa in 1942.
I will build it mostly OOB with Eduard seatbelts. If I have time and energy I hope to do some scratch building for the cockpit as well but we'll see.
The kit includes a figure of Marseille so I will give that a shot too. See how it goes.

I am still not sure which markings I will do but probably the ones on the box art with the red rudder. I like the red rudder and also the white wing tips but unfortunately they can't go together.

Best,
Nikola

[ForeverPlasticKits]

Excellent choice, the 1/32 scale is perfect for its high level of details. And with a figurine of the famous pilot it will be a great build!

[digger303]

Ps...got this in my stash so I'm more than a little interested.

[aur0ra145]

Looks like a great kit!

[Nikola]

Hi gents,

I think that AMS is slowly creeping on me.

I have cut out the gray plastic portion of the fuel pipe and replaced it with a clear part which I made by stretching part of the clear sprue to make it to scale. In the real thing this was transparent to make it possible for the pilot to be sure that there is fuel supply to the engine.

I also made some simple foot straps for the spare PE frame cut to scale.

Nothing that special and far from perfect, but new for me. And fun too.


Best,
Nikola

[digger303]

That AMS is a nasty one....

Never knew that bit about fuel lines and it's a nice upgrade.

[Nikola]

Well gents, since I don't have a lot of free time I thought that it would be very nice to create some more unnecessary work by mysteriously losing one of the elevator trim wheels!
So, I had to make one. It is not perfect but it will do as it will barely be seen once the cockpit is closed within the fuselage.
On the other hand, this mishap gave me a chance to hone my skills and make a more correct elevator trim wheel mechanism by making the chain from wire thus it being closer to scale than the original from the kit.

I am also sure that after I finish all this the part will somehow show up from somewhere.

Best,
Nikola

The lost part (C40):



Finished wheel:





And the process:

[digger303]

You did a marvellous job replicating the hand wheel.
Kudos for not going and buying the hand wheel set from Resicast and saving yourself $30 bucks.

[cor]

Nice work.

[Nikola]

Painted and ready for installment.
Next I will have to make the chain from a wire probably. That'll be a bit tricky, but interesting.

[ForeverPlasticKits]

Amazing scrathc, the result is really nice. I can't wait to see the next steps of your build, excellent choice!

[Garion77]

Love the subject ! One of my favorite scheme for the 109. Great color pictures of the real thing ! where did you find them ?
Wow. amazing job recreating the hand wheel. Hard to scratch build a round object like that !

[aur0ra145]

Nice job! Marseille was such an interesting character.

[Nikola]

Trim wheels in place. It actually is more to scale than the original part as the ''chains'' are closer in scale to the ones on the fuselage wall.

And of course, I found the original part the day after fitting the scratch built one.

Sorry for bad photos.


Best,
Nikola

[Nikola]

Some progress with the office:

[digger303]

[cor]

That's some nice work.

[Nikola]

Some more office work:

[Garion77]

Well done ! especially the seat area

[digger303]

Like what you done with the interior. Looks great.

[Nikola]

Well done ! especially the seat area

Thanks Garion! Appreciated.

Best,
Nikola

[Nikola]

Like what you done with the interior. Looks great.

Thank you very much Digger! Glad that you like it so far.

Best,
Nikola

[Nikola]

Hi gents,

Some slow progress with Fritz.

As you can see, the rudder and the vertical stabilizer are bent slightly. Does anyone know what would be the best way to remedy this?

Best,
Nikola

[Nikola]

I just found out that the real planes had offset rudder to counteract the engine torque, similar to P51 offset rudder. Phew.

[Nikola]

Hi gents,

White primer done.
Again, I continue to experiment with my complementary pre/post-shading method.
For the blue belly, I chose to go with brown and orange, since the complementary to blue is orange. Also, brown is nothing else but a very dark orange so it fits the bill.
For the top sand yellow, which is actually some kind of orange again, I did the opposite, using blue as it's complementary.

We'll soon see what we get...

Best,
Nikola

[cor]

Thats looking awesome

[Nikola]

And this is the result (as best as my phone camera can reproduce). You be the judges...

Personally, I like the subtle rich grayish tones and tonal shift which it produced. We'll see how much of this is lost to further filters, clear coats and weathering.

Best,
Nikola

[digger303]

[cor]

Thats coming along nicely. Good work.

[Nikola]

Hi gents,

Decals in place.
They gave me hell because it is an old kit and they cracked while still on the carrier paper.
They tore, broke, bent and I had to patch up and hand paint parts especially on the yellow numbers.
The dashed red lines on the wings were impossible to use so I had to mask and paint.
I ended up using fuselage crosses from another kit.

The Balkenkreuz markings on the upper part on the wings are supposed to be damaged like this.

There are still some corrections to be done.

Since I didn't like how the demarcation line turned out using the masking method, I repainted it, for the first time trying out freehand painting with a 0.2 nozzle. Next time I will go with even smaller 0.15.

Anyway, here she is so far:

[digger303]

Love it....you have done marvellously well to get the old decals to work.

[Nikola]

Love it....you have done marvellously well to get the old decals to work.

Thanks Digger. Did my best and swore a lot.

Best,
Nikola

[Nikola]

Hi guys,

Since I haven't posted for a while, here is a little teaser before the final reveal.
Still some things to finish and I hope to bring it to the end soon.

Best,
Nikola

[Nikola]

Making the antenna wire springs using an acupuncture needle to coil up the thinnest electrical wire.
The acupuncture needle is perfect for this as it is very thin but hard enough to provide support.
I should have done this for the canopy spring as well but it's too late now. Lesson learned. For this I used regular needle which is thicker.

Best,
Nikola

[Garion77]

Looking good !

[cor]

Nice work. It's all looking great.

[cor]

are those wooden brackets / holders / tressels, whatever you call it, the thing the plane rests on, any good / necessary? They look pretty good.

[Nikola]

are those wooden brackets / holders / tressels, whatever you call it, the thing the plane rests on, any good / necessary? They look pretty good.

Hi Cor,

It's called a jig or a berth, and it is very useful, for me at least. Good investment in my opinion.

Best,
Nikola

[Elve1984]

Nice work!