¹⁄35

Three Years and a BF-110 G-2

Enhancements and that Pesky Antennae

The only enhancements I made were drilling out the gun barrels and exhausts which was time consuming and not easy because these exhausts are not simple round tubes. They were painted Xtracolour Burnt Iron, heavily dry brushed with Humbrol Rust, from the engine end to between a third and two thirds along their length. The very tips were dry brushed with Xtracolour Oily Steel and the inside was painted matt Black. I added leather straps to hold open the pilot’s top canopy.  The straps were made out of the paper wrapping inside the foil packaging of scalpel blades. I also added photo etched seat belts by Re-Heat and the antenna wires from smoke colored nylon invisible mending thread.  The insulators for the antennae wire is white glue.

I wanted to get the pictures onto the Rivet Review board but the sun (the light source for my “photographic studio”) was disappearing fast and I still needed to attach the antenna wire. That’s one of those jobs that happens the first time or will take several attempts. Guess what-it took several attempts! I had pre-planned for attaching the antennae by drilling a 0.4mm hole (should be 0.3 but I have no 0.3 drills left) in the fin and using CA glue to attach the antenna mast and given plenty of time to dry. To attach the wire I squeezed out a drop of gap filling super glue and hold the wire about 5mm from the end with a pair of needle nosed tweezers. Picking up a drop of CA on the very end of the wire, I then hold the wire to the mast. This usually works, at least with no more than a couple of goes. Eight or nine goes later and still no joy. Sun is still disappearing fast. Then I try gluing it into the hole on the fin first. This got it first time and with one end anchored it was a breeze finish.  The wire is run into the fuselage through a drilled hole (the position is engraved and has an indent, which I drilled out). A minute drop of gap filling CA fixes the antenna wire to the fuselage. In the photos the white glue insulators are not completely cured. I don’t know their proper color but as I guess that since they are ceramic, off white would probably be right. I had been using shearing elastic for antenna wires (see my F6F-5 Hellcat, on the Rivet Review Board). It has its advantages, mostly because it's elastic it doesn’t put any tension on the mast but stays in tension and wont break. Problem is that CA glue tends to make it shrivel up and this makes it difficult to attach. The invisible thread is, effectively, easy to attach. My problems with it here are more to do with the fact that the CA is getting old-I think. The thread needs to be tensioned, though, and this can break off the antenna. All is not lost because you can treat it like stretched sprue and attach it, slightly loose, and pass a heat source (a blown out match or needle heated over a lighter) under it which shrinks it and tightens it nicely. I have a real problem using stretched sprue. The first armor model I built with stretched sprue antennas was kindly dusted by the wife! She didn’t even realize that she had broken anything.