Messerschmitt Bf 109E-7/Trop by ccoyle - FINISHED - Halinski/Kartonowy Arsenal - 1/33 - CARD - Werner Schröer's 'Black 8'

[ccoyle]

INTRODUCTION

Well, here I am -- unashamedly back in the land of "not ships," doubly accursed by the fact that my not-a-ship is also made out of card. 😮 The subject of this build log will be Halinski's Bf 109E-7/Trop (tropicalized), which is from their Kartonowy Arsenal series of 1/33 scale planes.

 

 

The kit depicts the mount of Staffelkapitän Werner Schröer of 8. Squadron of JG 27, flying in North Africa in the autumn of 1941. His aircraft was photographed in flight by the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda..

 

Public domain, courtesy of Wikipedia

 

Schröer survived the war, surrendering to the British in Schleswig-Holstein on 5 May 1945, and passed away in 1985, aged 66. He is credited with 114 aerial victories, including 61 in North Africa. (Interesting historical side note: Some historians have noted that the Luftwaffe's tally of aerial victories in North Africa, though considerable, consisted to an astonishing degree of Allied fighters rather than Allied bombers. Though I'm sure that Allied fighter pilots may have preferred that Experten such as Schröer focused a bit more of their attention on the bombers, this somewhat puzzling tactical mistake allowed the Allied bombers to wreak havoc on German ground forces and supply lines, making a significant contribution to the eventual Allied victory in North Africa.)

 

You may dimly recall that I previously built Halinski's Bf 109E-4, so why am I building another Emil? Well, for several reasons. First and foremost, the Luftwaffe desert camouflage is just drop-dead gorgeous -- who can resist a leopard-print Emil? Certainly not me! Second, I was inspired by Mike's Henschel Hs 129 build. I just felt his Henschel needed an escort -- never mind the fact that the Emil had been replaced by the Bf 109F in Africa by the time the Hs 129 entered service. Oh, well. Third, I made a few mistakes on the E-4 build, and I'd kinda like to see if I can rectify those mistakes on what is admittedly little more than a re-boxing of the E-4 kit.

 

Lastly, and most importantly, my wife picked this kit. No, seriously! I had seven potential projects set out in a stack in my man cave when the missus paid an unexpected visit. She offered to give an opinion on which of the seven kits I should build next. I hadn't even finished laying out all seven kits when she pointed at the E-7 and said, "That one!" Well, okay then! I guess she likes leopard-print, too. If the wife expresses such a strong opinion on the matter, then it must surely be a sign! It doesn't hurt that I was leaning toward the E-7 anyway.

 

THE KIT

Okay, enough intro. Here's a look at the kit, starting with one of the parts pages. Again we have world-class graphics by Marcin Dworzecki,

 

A very nice feature of this kit is that it includes an optional second livery. If desert camo does not appeal to the modeler, the kit can be built as a non-tropicalized E-7 in Eastern Front colors. (Second interesting historical note: In addition to coping with the high pace of operations in North Africa, the devastating losses of numerous Experten, such as Hans-Joachim Marseille, and the usual stresses of combat, at least one historian has suggested that the morale in JG 27 was also adversely affected by the stories of huge victory tallies being racked up with seeming ease by German pilots fighting against the Russians.)

No, I will not buy a second copy and do a two-for-one build!!

 

We have Halinski's usual wealth of CAD-generated diagrams, among the very best in the business.

 

And finally, I have purchased (as is my habit these days) the available after-market frames, molded canopy, and exceptionally detailed resin wheels.

 

Look for first cuts soon!

[Keith Black]

 Lead on Chris "The Card" Coyle.  

[Canute]

I'm in, too, Chris

[Dave_E]

I’m in! 🍿🥤👍😀

[ccoyle]

The first bits of cockpit. Looks shockingly like an E-4 cockpit. (The reason for that is that the only significant difference between the E-4 and E-7 variants is that the latter was equipped to carry a drop tank, which roughly doubled the Emil's range.)

 

 

I have no idea where part 2d goes (it doesn't go on any of the white spaces you can see in the photo). It's a filler cap of some kind. It is not indicated on any of the diagrams, and I have been unable to locate it in any online resources. As a general note to anyone considering a Halinski kit, it really pays to work slowly, study the diagrams, and think about the sequence of parts to be installed. Once some things go in, it may be difficult to install things that come after. But sometimes the numerical sequence of the parts is not always the most sensible order to follow. Usually it is, but not always.

[Keith Black]

 Chris, it looks like 2D goes in the bottom center of the rudder controls part #4C

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Chris, even though I enjoyed your beautiful Speeljacht build, I am glad that you are back in “not ships” land. Very nice introduction!

[ccoyle]

17 hours ago, Keith Black said:

it looks like 2D goes in the bottom center of the rudder controls

Good eye! What's really weird (other than the odd location of the part in the diagrams) is that there was a "cut out" symbol on the part that 2d gets glued to -- which in retrospect seems kind of pointless.

 

Anyways, here's the finished pedals and duct work. This stuff will largely be invisible on the finished model.

 

And here's why it will be largely invisible.

 

One new option in the E-7 kit compared to the older E-4 is the option for glazed instruments, which I have included for this model.

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, ccoyle said:

Good eye!

 Not so much having a good eye but more due to the fact that we own a iMac27 and I can enlarge photos to a ridicules level. 

[ccoyle]

Cockpit seat added. Believe it or not, some masochists actually replace the paper strap buckles with wire. I am not a masochist. 😑

 

 

[ccoyle]

And just like that, the inner cockpit details are completed. Next I will add the remaining cockpit framing and move on to the inner cockpit skins, where all the wall-mounted goodies go.

 

 

[ccoyle]

Cockpit framing is done.

  

 

[ccoyle]

Going forward, my progress may be more than the usual intermittent. I have a large collection of family photos I've been meaning to archive for years, and the necessary supplies arrived at the house today. I have to get this done before I die, because no one else in the family knows who most of the people in the photos are. 😮

[ccoyle]

I got a lot done over the past few days. First here is a shot of the port cockpit wall . . .

 

. . . and the starboard cockpit wall.

 

Much of that work will be invisible once the cockpit inner skins are glued on and covered by the outer skin, like so:

 

Work will now commence on the forward fuselage.

[ccoyle]

Mmmmm, beefy!

 

 

[Jsk]

Your modeling work always looks so clean and precise. Inspiring!

[ccoyle]

I have used watercolor pens and markers for edge coloring off and on for many years. The trouble with them is they tend to bleed into cut paper edges. So, of late, I have only been using them when they are a very close color match and/or in places where the bleeding will be difficult or even impossible to see. As you know, I mostly use custom-mixed acrylic craft paints for edge coloring. They are dirt cheap, but mixing them can be hit-and-miss, and then of course they have to be applied with a brush, which is kind of a pain.

 

Enter AK Real Colors acrylic paint markers.

 

When I learned of the existence of these markers, I knew I had to try them. And, since they are not terribly expensive (though by no means cheap), I decided to get the 34-color boxed set. Real Colors are aimed at the plastic modeling world and thus come in a variety of specifically military colors -- not the gaudy colors that watercolor pens typically come in. The boxed set has been out of stock everywhere for months, but AK has them back in production now. I ordered directly from AK -- took three days to get here via DHL. Fast, but again, not cheap -- though the price from AK + shipping was probably about what I would have had to pay from a US supplier.

 

Anyways, I have tried out several colors on the 109, and they are close matches, though not exact. No bleeding at all. The real test will be when I get around to doing some seams. Stay tuned!

[AJohnson]

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with those markers, they seem an attractive method in principle. 

[Canute]

That's a great steer to a handy product, Chris. I got myself on the AK Interactive newsletters and see lots of goodies from them. I too order from them direct; they also offer some weathering pencils, too.. Stock on this side of the pond is spotty at best. Fellow put on a great demonstration at an NMRA Regional convention last year and his work on a number of structures had to be see to be believed. I believe he took best in show.

[ccoyle]

Some nose progress. We start by adding the interior of the oil cooler air intake.

 

The fuselage skin that surrounds the intake is then added.

 

And then the skin between that piece and the cockpit section is added.

[Keith Black]

 The panels are lining up nicely, Chris. 

[ccoyle]

I know I said this build would probably slow down a bit, but darn it, it just goes together so well that I can't drag myself away from it!

 

Here's the finished oil cooler scoop and the next skin section.

 

The oil cooler inlet is a real booger to shape properly, and this was true on the E-4 as well. The best I can say about this effort is that it doesn't look worse than the E-4's. I do think the yellow on the E-4 did a better job of hiding the workmanship than the light blue RLM 76 on this kit. I do like that this camouflage pattern is great at obscuring tiny seam imperfections. The new paint pens have helped in this regard, too.

 

You can see there's a seam right down the middle of the JG 27 unit badge. Here's how it looks with the next skin section added.

 

The pens were very helpful in patching up that particular item.

[ccoyle]

The nose is all skinned. Here's the top with the machine gun channels added.

 

And the bottom, with the various lumpy, bumpy fairings.

 

I have one more lumpy, bumpy 109 in my stash, a T-2. The others are F and G variants, which had a redesigned forward fuselage that streamlined the aircraft by eliminating the various lumpy bits.

 

Construction will now transition to the rear fuselage!

[ccoyle]

Making a little magic happen during one of my vacation days I have to use up!

 

[ccoyle]

Last one for the day.

 

[Dave_E]

All that beautiful cockpit work, the blood, sweat and tears, the detail, the patience…. All covered up! Thank goodness we have photos! 😁

 

[ccoyle]

As I stated in post #1, one of the things I hoped to accomplish with this model was to avoid some of the mistakes I made during my E-4 build. One of those mistakes was not getting the vertical stabilizer perfectly vertical, as the name suggests it should be. To correct that, I went about constructing the aft fuselage slightly differently this time around. First, here's the last fuselage piece and the stabilizer framing.

 

 

Let's zoom in a little closer.

 

The part I've circled is where the difference is. As you can see, there's two bulkheads glued together there. The left-hand one is the aft bulkhead of the fuselage section. On the E-4, I glued that bulkhead into the fuselage and afterwards attached the stabilizer, essentially creating a dreaded butt joint (shudder!). This time, I glued that bulkhead to the stabilizer before it gets glued into the fuselage. This allowed me to perfectly align the two bulkheads; there are tic marks on the fuselage bulkhead that will make plugging it correctly within the fuselage a fairly straightforward process. That should produce a nicely vertical stabilizer.

 

That's all for now!

 

[ccoyle]

A small bit of progress. The vertical stabilizer is now skinned and glued to the last fuselage segment. I will complete the entire empennage before permanently attaching this assembly to the rest of the fuselage.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks great Chris.  Do you end up painting/weathering these card models?  Or just touch ups along seams?  Seems like they are already printed with nice colors.

[Danstream]

On 10/10/2024 at 3:06 AM, ccoyle said:

One of those mistakes was not getting the vertical stabilizer perfectly vertical, as the name suggests it should be.

Yes, it should be vertical, but did you know that it shouldn't be symmetrical? It had a section like that of a wing (flat on one side and curved on the other) to generate a lateral force and assist the pilot at take-off to use less rudder pedal. Of course in a model it is hardly visible and I am mentioning it just for fun.

 

Keep up the good work with this icon.

Cheers,

Dan