Hi all!

Here is my next project: a "Duo Build"!

I will try to build two kits at the same time. While this is not unusual for most modelers, it is for me since I always build one kit after another. I choosed two kits that are very different: Fonderie Miniature's 1/48 scale Henschel Hs 126 and ICM's 1/48 scale Bf 109 F-2. Both are new kits but the Hs 126 is short run while the MBf 109 is mainstream injected plastic technology...





I have built the cockpits so far and they are typical:
- On the left side, a short run "multimedia" assembly of low pressure injected plastic, resin and white metal parts.
- On the right side a common cockpit made of plastic parts.
Of course, the Hs 126 cockpit was more difficult to get together than the Bf 109 one which is rather basic. But at the end, out of the box, the short run cockpit will be more detailled than the mainstream one.



Next time I will paint the cockpits...

Jean-Luc

hi jean-luc! those cockpits are already looking nice without the painting. only yesterday at the milton keynes show i had a good look at the FM Henschel Hs 126 kit, although its 1/48 i was almost tempted to buy one, small world is'nt it.
nice box artwork can sell me almost any kit!

Finally

as you might have noticed I am a little short of time now, so I will join you next week

I guess you will have the 109 finished by then .. and the 126 will have the first FOD .. when hitting the basket or a wall

cheers

Steffen

Both cockpits look nice, even without the paint.
Are these two planes gonna be built separately or placed on a diorama?

Cheers, and good luck with the build(s)

Hi Jean-Luc

Whether ICM's kits count as "mainstream injected plastic technology" is debatable... your unpainted pics already flatter the '109 - my example's cockpit is really quite nasty... there could be a lot of variation in this kit...

But, looking forward to seeing both these birds finished.

All the best

Rowan

Hi all!




Phil, it was better you didn't purchased the kit I think! The boxart is probably the best part of it!




Steffen, can't wait to fly a "Rotte" with you!




Rowan, compared to the Fonderie Miniature kit, believe me, the ICM one IS a mainstream kit! :-)
As for the cockpit, you are quite right, take a look at the picture below and guess what parts I will use?



I painted the interiors with their basic colors: RLM 02 for the Hs 126 and RLM 66 for the Bf 109. Is that correct Steffen? If not I can still change as I didn't drybrushed or washed the cockpits.
Meanwhile I sanded the wings of the Hs 126 so to get thinner leading and trailing edges. This is not something unusual when building a short run kit and it took me an hour! I should have been prepared for that because there is a WARNING sign inside the underwing part...



Below is the current status of the kits...



I also test fitted the fuselage halves of both models. You can note I already glued the engine cowlings of the ICM kit because I don't want to display the engine. I found out some interesting things (at last for me):
- The Hs 126 is a big aircraft compared to the Bf 109. No wonder it was an easy target for French and Russian fighters!
- The tail of the Hs 126 is noticably offset on the kit! I found a 3 view plan on the web and it seems this was a feature of the real plane (I didn't knew that). It must have been designed like that to counter the inertia of the radial engine.
- There are ugly sink marks along the Bf 109's fuselage bottom!
- The panel lines of each fuselage halves don't match to each other at the top.



Well, that's all for today. My first impression is that a lot of work will be needed for both kits!

Jean-Luc

Hi all!




Goran, I don't know yet, but it could be possible...

I found some time to make some progress on both models. I finished the cockpits and you can see the instrument panels below. On the left, the one for the Bf 109 F-2 wich is a Hasegawa spare. On the right the one of the Hs 126. Do you notice something? Fonderie Miniature simply took Hasegawa's original part and changed the layout to make a "new" panel! Not very respectful for the modeler I think...



Anyway, once finished, the Hs 126 cockpit doesn't look too bad. But the fit is terrible (see red arrow) and I had to fight to get the whole thing into the fuselage. No it's not a modern abstract Artwork in the last picture, it's only a plastic kit fuselage with a lot of clamps! :-)



The ICM cockpit was easier to get together. It is not as detailled as the FM one but it fitted into the fuselage halves without problems. The seam that appears on one picture (red arrow) is due to the fact that the front parts are larger than the rest of the fuselage. Some sanding and it was ok...



The wing's assembly of the Bf 109 is not trouble free. I had to fill numerous little holes in one of the upper parts, the other was perfect!? I also had to cut away a little of the gear bay inner structures because they were in the way while gluing the parts. To get the wings properly on the fuselage, you will have to considerably thin down the plastic (see red areas) to eliminate a disgracious step...



And that's not all. The wingtips are separate parts in the kit and they are way to thin. You can either reduce the thickness of the wings by sanding them or, if like me you already glued them together without test fitting the ends, add filler in several layers and sand smooth...



Below is a picture which shows the current status of both projects...



So far I don't have the feeling one kit needs more time than the other. The Fonderie Miniature one is of course more complicated to build but the ICM Messerschmitt is not a "mince affaire" either and both are equally big consumers of filler! I have the feeling the Bf 109 will be ready for painting before the Hs 126 though...

Jean-Luc

If that's true I miss the pic of the Bf 109 with 10 clamps

Hi J-L

I found the Bf 109 quite easy to construct. Some comments that might help others (without special order)

# I did the same with the wing root as you .. thinning both parts, E-Z

# same solution for the wheel well

# I did not correct the "holes" yet .. I first will give it a primer layer ...

# other solution for the wing tip ... I cut off the plug from the wing tip .. it spread the wing end .. with that done it was glued to the wing ... I forgot if I sanded the wing halfs .. in case i did, it was only slightly .. no filler needed

# the fit of the flaps is bad (not the cooler flaps ... the others) .. better concentrate your force here .. I still have a larger gap here

# I built in the engine ... the covers cannot be closed this case!

Hope I did not forget too much

best wishes

Steffen

Hi Steffen!




:-) Ok, the Bf 109 needs less clamps but all the little "extras" (sanding the wing root, getting the fuselage parts together, filling the holes, filling the wing tips etc...) are very time consuming... and I didn't built the engine!




I did that too (cutting the plugs) but the tips were still too thin...




Thanks for the info! I'll take a look at it tomorrow!

Have you decided on a paintsheme Steffen? (I think I asked that question already...)

Jean-Luc

P.S. I just saw on the pics I glued the control stick of the Bf 109 backwards... Ooops

Hi all!

I didn't made a lot of progress today but the ICM kit starts to look like a Messerchmitt...



I'm mainly working to get a decent surface finish on both models, especially the Hs 126. I sanded the surface, eliminated the seams and I will rescribe the panels later. I will use a new product (at least for me) I found in my LHS: Tamiya Light-Curing Putty...



On the box it is written the putty cures in 2 mn under artificial light and 1 mn under sunlight! Well I hope it's true because the stuff is very expensive! Anyone tried this product?

Steffen, I didn't noticed any seams around the flaps... what exactely do you mean? Do you have a picture maybe?

Jean-Luc

Hi Jean-Luc

i wanted to try that stuff since I saw it on the Tamiya site a year ago (might be longer) .. .but I never have seen it in a local HS .. IIRC there was a how to on the Tamiya site ...

Bf 109: Hmm, might be my fault then. First I did not get it to fit (at all). I tried both sides assuming that I might have switched it (or it was wrong in the instructions) then I sanded the "plug " but still I have a 1mm seam towards the wing ... pic tomorrow

maybe my whole wing is thinner than yours .. as I did not have much problems at the tip --- where you had a large step ...

best wishes

Steffen
Edit: Link: http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87076light_curing_putty/index.htm

Very interesting builds. Nice to follow the progress and pick up on some tricks from the aircraft industry I am still mainly an armour modeller who is trying to make some decent aircraft

So far I am not really tempted by any of the kits. I might try some kits that fall together well before I tackle more complex aircraft kits.

Thanks for sharing the progress.

Hi All

As promised yesterday some photos .. though I feel a little intimidated to post my pix alongside the Captains model





Engage!

cheers

Steffen

Looks great Jean-Luc.

Hi Jean-Luc,

Fantastic progress so far! I have a question for you regarding the Hs-126 observer's area.
Where does the seat belt go? No available cockpit pics have answered my question and I doubt they were just on the little flip side seat he had since he was usually standing taking pictures. Could the belt's ends have been attached in either side of the rear cockpit walls and the pilot simply fastened them around his waist?

Thanks and looking forward to the completion of your project!

Cheers,
John

Hi all!




Steffen, that's what I call timing! Both our kits are in the same stage...






John that's a very good question! Unfortunately I don't have an answer to it. Maybe Steffen? I don't have a specific book about the Hs 126 and a Google search only ended up with very few interesting references. I didn't found any pictures of the cockpit area...
If someone can help us it would be very nice!

I tested the "new" Tamiya Putty...



It worked fine and it does indeed harden in two minutes. It is a semi transparent stuff, not as thick as putty, wich looks more like epoxy resin once applied. I think it a good product for specific tasks or if you want to work fast. As I said before, it is expensive but does what is written on the instructions, to do what is depicted on the pictures it took me 5 mn.

Jean-Luc

Hi all!

I worked on the Hs 126's engine today. Unfortunately the cowlings are badly done and I will have to reshape them so they look more accurate. I added some details to the engine because it is very visible in the front of the plane...



The Bf 109 is pretty much ready for painting. I rescribed the panel lines that disapeared while sanding the surface smooth and tomorrow it will receive it's first coats of paint. The wing of the Hs 126 is also ready but I still have to rescribe the fuselage. So far I guess 75% of the work for this duo build was for the Fonderie Miniature kit. No really a surprise!

Jean-Luc

Hi all!

No spectacular progress today... but I finished to rescribe the fuselage I reworked about 80% of the original panel lines because they were badly done or inaccurately placed...



I didn't started to paint the Bf 109 because I want to paint both kits together. I'm still searching for an appropriate paintsheme for the Hs 126. Do someone know of good profiles of the Hs 126, preferably from the Russian front?

Jean-Luc

Great looking machines Jean-Luc!


Hs.126
Unit: 1.(H)/32
Serial: V7+1M (W.Nr.4262)
This aircraft was shot down by Lt.Safonov on 27 August 1941.


Credit Both: Wings palette.

Hi Jan!

Thanks for posting that one. It's my favorite for the moment. I like it because there are no insignias so basically it could belong to any unit for a non Luftwaffe expert (like me). I also like the yellow tactical markings on the fuselage and the wings.

Now the question is, what letter or number (if any) was painted under the wings? V, 7, 1 or M? Could someone help? I would imagine M but... I really don't know

Jean-luc

Anytime Jean-Luc, glad to be of any help.....

Hello Captain

Well I did not read this part of your question. So in addition to what I wrote in my PM. Below the wing could be 2 types of markings either the Stammkennzeichen which consisted of 4 letters and is not to be mixed up with the unit designation! or the a/c letter.

The Stkz. was issued in blocks to manufacturers to paint them on the built a/c. This letters were also written into the papers of the machine and are "sticky", read they do not change (while unit markings could) .. to make things worse there were also Überführungskennzeichen issued and some Stkz . were also issued more than once ... but I digress

Back to your problem. As we do not know the Stkz. we assume it was overpaintet and replaced with the a/c letter of the unit markings. The unit markings consist of the Geschwader designation (sometimes also smaller units got their own) which are the first two letters

in this case "V7" which is the designator of Aufklärungsgruppe (reconnaissance group) (H) 32. The H stands for Heer (Army) and stands for short range recce. After the Balkenkreuz normally follows the a/c letter and then the Staffelbuchstabe (sqn letter) --- but things were different in those recce units. in this case after the BK we have a number, which is unusal but typical for this unit. it stands for the squadron. and the last letter ist the a/c letter

So, finally: you should paint the M outboard of the underwing Balkenkreuz on each wing ..

(BTW Barry Rosch's "Luftwaffe Codes, Markings and Units" is very helpful if you want to dig deeper into this topic)

HTH

cheers

Steffen

impressionant Jean-Luc! Trouver de la doc ce n'est pas une mince affaire non plus...!

I was impressed by Jean-Luc's very honest review of this kit - I'm sure his build will help sell a few though! Reference that might help on the Hs 126 is hard to find - all I could locate in my library were some drawings of the cockpit and instrument panel from an old Polish monograph and the excellent photo series in one of the first Squadron Signal Bundesarchiv books ...

Hi all!

Wow Steffen and Neil! Thanks a lot for the infos and the pictures!

It looks like Fonderie Miniature had the same reference books because the cockpit looks very similar than the drawings. The last picture confirms that the cowling bulges of the kit are too pronounced. I already sanded them down but I can take away more... what do you think?



As you can see I replaced the poorly done cowling flaps with plasticard. It's not perfect but much better than the original ones!




Neil, it's not the overall quality of the kit that was the biggest disappointment, but more the fact that Fonderie Miniature made a HUGE step back with it. A lot of short run manufacturers have improved their products in the past years but not FM. Was the master really that bad or was the tooling the problem? I don't know... but something definitely went wrong!

Jean-Luc

Jean-Luc,
After following your progress on these kits and seeing you use all that filler and doing all that sanding and fitting, my hat is off to you.

I'd like to see you build the kit that I am currently building for the Vietnam campaign. It is Classic Airframes F-5 Freedom Fighter in 1/48 scale. The fit and finish is horrible which is a shame because it is otherwise a beautiful kit. Already I have around 50 hours building the kit and she's not ready for primer yet.
I'd really like to see what a person of your skill level could produce out of the F-5 kit. Like I said, she's actually a beautiful kit for someone with more advanced skills.