Hi everyone,

long time i posted something overhere.

This is a commision build, so the person who ordered the build, chose for a very intresting plane, that crash landed in Kent, during the Battle of Brittain......
Pilot of this plane was Hauptmann Franz Von Werra, an ace that escaped from his prison in Canada, and returned to flying status with the Luftwaffe.

I will using the Eduard BF-109E-4 kit, and also lot's of aftermarket items.

Aires cockpit set
Aires wheels
Eduard PE
Master machine gun and canon barrels
Scale Aircraft Conversion landinggear
Quickboost exhaust

As reference i will use the Squadron Signal BF-109E Walk Arround book.



Whe start like alway's with the cockpit, the two fuselage half's where cleaned up a bit, because some little flash was spotted, not much, but enough to get my attention



Like i said before, regarding the cockpit, i will use the excellent Aires cockpit set.
I dryfitted this already, and i must say, the fit is excellent.



In combination, i will use the colored PE instrument panel, that is included in the kit.

The resin sidewalls are cut from theire casting blocks, and sanded to fit in the fuselage half's.
Some minor sanding is needed to one of the fuselage half's, and with the help of a glass fibre pen, this job is easily done.







For the PE i will wait until the two half's are painted in theire base color.

Also the oil cooler compartiment is glued together, with the help of some PE, provided in the kit.



Not much progress, but it's a start.

Please feel free to give comment's.

Greetz

Danny

Looking like a good start!



Those fibreglass pens seem a very nifty solution to such small sanding jobs.
I haven't tried those before, but now I feel like gotta go get a couple. How coarse is tip on those? Or are there different grades available?

The fine one is very coarse, you have to take care when to used this, because it remove allot within seconds.

The wider one, is softer, with this I can remove scratches made with the smaller one.

Hopes that answers you're question

Greets

Danny

Hi Danny,

..I'm also planning to do this as von Werra's machine using the Kagero decals...

..can I just point out that von Werra had made a number of attempts to 'escape' while held in the UK but he didn't exactly 'escape from prison' in Canada - he merely alighted from a train taking him to a POW camp. This was in April 1941. According to his own account he then paddled a small boat across the St. Lawrence with his bare hands. He was the third German serviceman to have crossed to the neutral US by this stage of the war but the 'von' in his name ensured the US press would fill column inches with the 'Baron's' 'story' - While the US authorities did plan on sending him back to Canada, the German embassy in NYC hurriedly organised his onward travel to Mexico and south America....incidentally 'von' Werra wasn't German at all. He was born to impoverished Swiss parents, the 'de Werras' and 'sold' to his adoptive German parents, cf. Wilfried Meichtry. Incidentally his motives for 'escaping' were rather less than 'heroic' - according to Burt Leasor's book & the film based on it, the British had apparently told fellow inmates about his considerable tally of false claims - specifically five Hurricanes shot up on the ground on 28 August 1940 during a sortie where he claimed four aerial victories - all these claims were apparently accepted by his superiors, specifically Oblt. Sannemann and Hptm. von Selle, without witness statements - and needless to say were false. His 'determination' to escape was at least partially motivated by the possibility of his fellow German POWs taking a very dim view of his 'fraud'- he was an RK winner after all. Author Robert Michulec in Greenhill's 'Luftwaffe Aces' says he was the 'greatest liar of the Jagdwaffe aces'..

Hi Neil,

thanks allot for giving more detailed info about Von Werra

I did read also the whole story, but wanted to give a more compact note in this topic, because my writing in English isn't very good.

But it's great to read that you gave a more detailed note about this story.

Greets

Danny

Today I made some progress on the rudder pedals, and on some bits regarding the cockpit section.

Beginning with the rudder pedals, I used the parts provided in the Aires kit.



Just the little U shaped piece of PE wasn't really a eye catching item on the rudder pedals, so I replaced it with some scratch copper wire, witch made the whole area looks more realistic.

Also, the trim wheels are glued on their place, with also the drive chain.
After this is done I dry-fitted the cockpit tub into the fuselage half's.





The upper IP was cut from his casting block and glued on the deck where the machineguns where attached.
This part is a kit-part.



The dry fit to the right side of the fuselage, here you can see the trim wheels, witch are also kit-parts, together with the drive chain.







Thanks for watching

greets

Danny

....just to give you guy's an idea what color scheme this would be.



This is not a accurate picture or color scheme, as there are some black holes into the knowledge of the real color scheme back in the 40's.
Whe can only rely on the rapport, written by the English, when the plane crash-landed in Kent.

But, it comes close to what I want, and therefore it's a good reference.

Colors are painted like the ones stated by the RLM, back in 1940.

Points of interest are, the black and white squared spinner, this must be black (RLM 22) and white (RLM 21)
And the engine cowling, witch Eduard stated to be white, and that's totally wrong.
This must be RLM 65 Hellblau.
The mottling on the side fuselage, isn't painted on this aircraft, but content's severe weathering from the often use on grass air strips, dirt and oil greases from the engine and frequently use in very harsh envirements.

Greets

Danny

Hi Guy's,

today I painted the first parts of the cockpit.

First, I used black paint for the deeper spaces, in this way I create already some sort of shadows on the areas that are difficult to reach with the airbrush.

After this is done, I used Tamiya XF-22 RLM Grau for all the cockpit areas.





Also, I've been busy with the upper and lower instrument panels.
for this I used the Eduard colored photo etch set provided in the kit.



Also I glued and painted the Revi C/12D gun sight with a variety of Vallejo and tamiya acrylics.



The PE levers on the instrument panels are painted over, because some colors didn't match with the real thing.



Also, and maybe you can't noticed this, I added the power cable for the Revi gun sight.
This cable was connected in a power socket on the instrument panel.
Also the power socket hood cap is added here.

Greets

Danny

Hi Danny,

Excellent progress so far!

Jean-Luc

Thanks Jean-luc for the nice comment.

Greets

Danny

Hi folks,

here i am with some more progress regarding the '109'

Today I finished the detail painting of the two sidewalls.
After that I added some more PE, regarding the drive chains.
Copper wire was added regarding some more detail work.

Also did some chipping for a more or less weathered look.





This isn't finished yet, the whole cockpit area needs some more weathering, since these planes where heavily used during the Battle of Britain.

Also, the pilot seat has to look heavily used, so here also, more chipping and weathering.







That's all for now

Greets

Danny

Hi Danny, your build here is looking great !! I will certainly be looking back over this thread when I start my 1/32 Hasegawa G-10 for the Bf 109 Campaign. It will be my first ever 109, and I need all the help I can get !!

Cheers, Damian

Very nice progress Danny. Really nice details in the cockpit.

Looking forward to see more.

..yes indeed nice work

Cockpit is almost done, just some minor touch-ups and whe are of to close the two fuselage halfs.

here are some pic's regarding the almost finnished cockpit.







Greetz

Danny

The cockpit looks really nice!
That subtle chipping effect is nice, is that just painted with a brush or did you some other tricks?

Thank's Eetu,

regarding the chipping, i used some sort of foam, wrapped arround a toothpick.
This was soaked into the paint, with most of the paint removed again, after this was done, i carefully added the chips onto the seat, in a way of pushing the foam onto the surface of the seat, with a gentle touch.

Greetz

Danny

I agree with Eetu, the weathering in that cockpit looks great. I will be "borrowing" your trick with the foam for my next build

Great work so far Danny, well done.

Cheers, D

Thank's Damian, for the nice comment.

Please feel free to use all the tips and tricks you can find mate, after all, it's the end result that count's.

Greetz

Danny

Hi Danny

I really like your model!! Even if it is in the wrong scale

Are you using the kits decals, do you make your own or any AM stuff?

all the best

Steffen

P.S. totally off topic: Any news on your F-104 Update set? I am pretty sure you won't do business with me again, but I can buy it from another source once it is available

Hi Steffen,

Thank's Steffen,

i will use the kit decals, but all aftermarket stuff comes from, Aires, Eduard and Scale Aircraft Conversions.




Sorry to say, but i think you confuse me with someone else Steffen.
The guy you meant will be Danny Cooremans from DACO, i have nothing in common with this guy.

Greets

Danny V.M.

Sure, my fault... Sorry for that one!

As for AM: I meant decals ... I follow this thread from the beginning (so I had seen the first pix), but did not comment yet..

Still your model is cool

cheers

Steffen

No problem steffen.

We did look for aftermarket decals, but the owner decided to use the kit decals.

I find them pretty good to work with, so, there should be no problem when i use them on the model.

greets

Danny

Hi all,

cockpit is coming slowly together.

I added the two instrument panels, and some chart's.

the chart's are from verlinden.







The chart's where white, so i needed to yellow them, to look much used.
For this i used Vallejo yellow oker and a light sandy brown color, this, heavily thinned.

At this level, the cockpit is done for about 95%, just some little touch-ups are needed, and the two fuselage half's can be put together.

Greetz

Danny

yesterday i made the last progress regarding the cockpit.
The two fuselage halfs where glued together, and also the aft bulkhead was glued on the back of the cockpit.

The hinged door of this bulkhead isn't quit realistic, because it's represented by reccesed details, so, this was replaced by photo etch from Eduard.
First, i removed the reccesed details, with the help of my glass fibre pen.

Before



After



And with the replaced PE part.



Now it's time to tackle the wheelbay's.

The 109 main wheelbay's consist of a canvas liner, that was stitched arround the circumfence of the well for protection.

On the kit, this wheelbay is rather very basic, so some details need to be added, for a more realistic appearance.



For this, Eduard provide PE to represent the canvas liner, and i must say, this is fairly nice done by Eduard.....but......
the curved shape of the circumfence, isn't quit a good base to add the rather stiff PE, and so this resulted in a less or more drastic change of mind.
I really wanted to use the PE liner, but it was just to difficult to ad this, with a not so good result at the end, so, i decided to scratch build my own canvas liner.

For this i used some aluminium self-adhesive foil, and a round iron file.

First i placed the self-adhesive foil into the wheel well, after that, i used the iron file to ad the fabric texture of the canvas.
This was just a testing fase, so the result you see on the photo's isn't the end result.







I will do this a second and final time, together with the zipper and the other details on the canvas.

Greetz

Danny