Werners Wings have produced a very neat limited edition resin conversion set for Tamiya's Bf 109E, complete with a vacuformed canopy and full decals.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Hi all

this is quite a nice set and even if there is still a lot of work involved, you have a whole lot easier task as you get all the white decals (considering most want to do Udets red bird). Watch Jean-Lucs thread and/or feature and you'll see: she is a beauty Actually working (more or less) on a conversion of the Hasegawa kit using this.

cheers

Steffen

Here is my interpretation of Udet's V-14 using the conversion set. The conversion is actually quite easy. Of course the Tamiya kit is a thing of beauty. The cuts are very simple and can be done in less than an half an hour. I will build up the V-13 sometime soon.
Floyd

Hi Floyd

It looks great! What paint did you use for the muted "burgundy"?

All the best

Rowan

that looks good,i've ordered my conversion set as i want to do the udet aircraft,just need the tamiya kit now!

Thanks, I used Gunze Russet for the color. It looks really nice when completed. The model is in the Feburary 2010 SAMI magazine for those who want to see more of it.
Floyd

Yes I read this article today and it brought a great smile to my face as Santa-Luc sent me a copy of the set when he first produced it for himself. I will get around to building it one day but I will, of course, be using paint masks.

Hi all

I've wanted to do one of these birds for a long time so I ordered this set from Floyd and have already started work on the conversion. I am generally really happy with the set - the vac canopy and racing spinner are very nice (I'm doing the V-13 racer) and the decal sheet is stupendous. The gear covers and V-14 spinner and oil coiler cowling are cast in a different, creamier resin to the other castings - they look a bit rough but I'm sure they will clean up nicely.

I do, however, have one issue with the set, and unfortunately it's a major one. The resin replacement forward cowling/nose, while beautifully mastered, appears to have shrunk after casting. Not much - only about two to four millimetres all round - but enough so that it just doesn't fit in any direction I line it up. I've made my cuts to the kit fuselage in the right spots, and re-checked the fit a number of times, and the casting is definitely undersized. I think I can fix the width problem by hollowing out the casting and adding some sprue spreaders, and correct the length by building a extension plug between the kit firewall and the resin nose, but this will take a while. Grateful any advice as to how I might fix this another way - I don't think resin shrinkage can be fixed by reheating the part the way that warpage can?

Hopefully this is just a one off problem, and as I said, it's not unfixable - it will just stretch my modelling skills! All in all, I can still very much recommend the set.

cheers Brad

Hi Brad

I didn't have the Tamiya kit when I reviewed the conversion, so I wasn't able to do a test fit. I was planning to do the 'V-13 for the Bf 109 campaign (although maybe I won't if you're doing exactly the same build) so I'll see if I hit the same problem.

The size of a resin part is partly set by the temperature at which it was moulded, because the RTV mould expands and contracts accordingly (casters who produce hi-tech parts for industry can actually control the size precisely in temperature-regulated cabinets). I've never heard of a way of permanently changing the size of finished resin parts.

All the best

Rowan

Thanks Rowan, that's as I suspected. I won't tackle permanently fitting the resin V-13 nose until I've assembled the fuselage and wings - this will give some structural integrity to the model and I'll know precisely what fit issues I'm up against. Another solution I'm contemplating is to cut the nose vertically down the middle, add a slice of plastic card, then join it up again.

I'll start a build log in the near future so I can post pics of the build - I'm going to need advice on this one as I go along, I think...

cheers Brad