It was my first real limited run kit using resin parts, well OK i did a Special Hobby Phoenix D1 but that only had resin exhaust stacks so doesn't really count. I have built full resin and white metal F1 cars from S-27 and Model Factory Hiro though, so i have worked with resin before.
Most of the cockpit is resin and is well detailed. No modification was done to the fuselage sides to make anything fit. Only the instrument panel gave me trouble and had to be sanded/filed to fit better.
The wheel well inserts are resin and had to be thinned until they were translucent AND the wing interior also had to be sanded down to almost the same extent. I could not get the wing halves to join well until i worked out the problem area was the excess plastic just outboard of the resin inserts on the leading edges of the upper wing halves. Once i ground down that area things fell together nicely.
I also had to grind down part of the wing spar as it was interfering witht the cockpit floor. With hindsight i now know that i should have thinned the cockpit floor more- but then again the spar was probaly easier anyway!
The wing to body join was very good with just a little bit of help. I really like way that CA delt with the front join by tucking into the radiator faring that then gets covered over- good engineering i think.
I messed up! I cut too much off one side of the resin nose by mistake. The left side was quite thin near the casting block and i made a mistake cutting it, the result was a big ugly gap on the left side. Luckily no engraved detail was removed. So i needed some super glue with accelerator followed by some Tamiya filler and finally finishing with Mr Surfacer 1000 (excellent stuff that i just used for the first time ever).
Looks ugly here.
But primered ok in the end.
Stripes on and masked. I need practice with stripes because of my choice of subjects for the upcoming Aces High Campaign.
Unsersides
Top camo
Gloss and decals on. The decals are outstanding kit decals made by Microscale. And choices of subjest are good too- 2 famous Spanish Civil War machines of Handrick and Moelders, 2 different Swiss AC and a nice Hungarian AC. I wanted to do all of them really but decided on the most colouful option for that stripes practice. Note the excellent opacity of the white decals- i really expected trouble putting those over red.
And the end results below. The Classic Airframes Bf109's are superb kits, only being a bit expensive and hard to get where i am. Ideal for a first multi media attempt. I just hope they re-activate the moulds and get some more of them out there on shelves. The only build trouble i had with the nose was my own doing and just needs more care. The only other problem i found was with the canopy. Firstly the frames are a bit subtle whcih made masking much harder than usual. But also the centre section is too long and can't fit in the closed position. Not even close in fact. If you sanded it down both ends to get it too fit you will not have frame detail left. Checking against drawings seems to show that the clear part id OK- it's the actually cockpit that is slightly too short! A hard thing to fix. Just display it open which covers up the problem, or makes it not noticeable anyway.
Andrew
