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

[ccoyle]

3 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

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.

 

Normally I only do edge coloring. The quality of the graphic artwork varies widely among kits, from no weathering at all to photo-realistic artwork. Some designers color their own models, while other employ the talents of graphic artists. The team of Andrzej Halinski (designer) and Marcin Dworzecki (artist) is one well-known example. Some of the best artwork I have seen is done by Luis P. Igualada, whose models are available as downloads from ecardmodels.com.

 

2 hours ago, Danstream said:

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.

 

I have learned a few interesting tidbits about the 109 during the course of this project. If you zoom in on my last photo in post #28, you can see that each of the two parts of the stabilizer fairing has three small, red tic marks. Those marks are tail plane incidence indicators. The 109 had a variable incidence tail plane, which obviated the need for elevator trim tabs. Those Golden Age aeronautical engineers were extremely clever fellows!

[ccoyle]

I got the basic rudder finished and attached to the vertical stabilizer. I say 'basic' because I still need to attach the actuator rods. Just a dry fit for this shot.

 

 

[AJohnson]

That looks very good, hard to see any joins or seams. How are the colour pens working out Chris?

[Javlin]

That's looking very Nice Chris!

[ccoyle]

2 hours ago, AJohnson said:

How are the colour pens working out Chris?

 

I like them, so far. As I mentioned earlier, they're not exact matches in every instance. Some are better matches than others. The tan is pretty spot-on for the color printed on the model. The olive drab doesn't match the printed color very well, but as an edge color it hides seams decently. Very easy to use, of course.

[ccoyle]

Work continues on the empennage. First I completed the rudder actuators. I used the dark aluminum pen from the Real Color markers set for these.

 

 

Then we have the horizontal stabilizer framing (10 parts per side) and their skins.

 

 

 

And the stabilizers added to the growing empennage.

 

[ccoyle]

Milestone moment: Empennage attached.

 

[ccoyle]

Elevators completed.

 

 

Wings are next!

[ccoyle]

I have not been idle. The wing framing is complete -- all 71 parts of it. 😮

 

[Javlin]

High piece count there Chris.

[ccoyle]

One of the problematic parts of the assembly process on the E-4 was definitely the wing, so that's something I wanted to 'get right' on this build. First step was to add the central ventral skin ('central ventral' -- catchy) and wheel wells. The wheel wells on this kit are really rather simple and posed no problems at all. The sort of 'antennae' looking bits are fairings/joiners that will wrap around the wing root and blend into the fuselage.

 

Now this is a shot from the E-4 build. The part I've circled was supposed to have been folded upward to be the trailing edge of the wing, but that wasn't clear to me from either the instructions or diagrams, so I left it un-folded. 😬 Fortunately, it's on the bottom of the wing, so very rarely does anyone see it.

 

Here's the properly done E-7.

 

And here's the dorsal side of the wing, with tips yet to be added. You can see how one of the 'antennae' bits has been wrapped and mated to the wing skin.

 

Now, you may have noticed that the wing skin consists almost entirely of a single skin. For anyone wanting to try a model like this, I've found it to be much easier and neater to not attempt to glue the skin on all in one go. Instead, I work in sections, starting at the wing root and working toward the tip, using the various bits of framing to align everything properly (I should mention that I gave the entire wing frame a light sanding before starting this process). You can see in the photos that everything has come together very well at the various junctures, e.g., wheel wells, radiator wells, skin edges and frames, seam between dorsal and ventral skins. This is a testament to the excellent design. There will be a less-glowing testament once the wing gets mated to the fuselage, but I'll save that for when we get there!

[Jsk]

You must be in company with Dr. Faustus and Robert Johnson to have such clean builds. Beautiful!

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, Jsk said:

You must be in company with Dr. Faustus and Robert Johnson to have such clean builds. Beautiful!

 

Haha! Hold that thought! The problem with wings is that there are two of them, providing the modeler with twice as many opportunities to screw something up. I'm working my way through a fit issue on the second wing skin at the moment. Stay tuned!

[ccoyle]

Okay, the fix turned out to be not nearly as difficult as I anticipated, and the second wing skin is on. I can now dry fit the structure to the fuselage and make airplane noises. 😋 NYEEEEERRRRRROWWWWW!

 

[ccoyle]

There is quite a bit of work involved in getting the wing ready to mate to the fuselage. So far I have added the wingtips and gun blisters. Still have the radiators left to do (26 parts for the two radiators).

 

 

 

[ccoyle]

BTW, here's one for the airplane nerds out there: According to what I have read in online sources, the 109's radiator doors were linked to its flaps, the idea being that since the lowered flaps partially blocked the flow of air through the radiators, the flow would be maintained by automatically enlarging the rearward aperture via the linkage. Thus, a model should match the positioning of the radiator doors to the angle of the flaps, i.e., flaps down -- doors down, flaps up -- doors up. The construction diagrams show the doors fully opened, but since I intend to display the model with the flaps up, I will position the radiator doors to match.

[Canute]

Chris, that sounds plausible. But I'm no experten on Luftwaffe airframes. I do know that a lot of WW II fighters were very sensitive on the amount of ground time between engine start and takeoff. The maintainers usually did a start to warm up the engine before the pilot got to his bird, then shut down until the mission start time.

[ccoyle]

Further to my last post, in this screenshot taken from a Bf 109 walkaround, you can see the flap and radiator door in the lowered position.

 

[ccoyle]

The radiators are finished.

 

 

 

Note to future self (I have two more Halinski 109s in my stash): Notice that the port side cover fits better than the starboard cover. That's because I discovered that the internal parts are all about 0.5 mm too tall. Trimmed them all down by that much and got a much better fit.

 

The next step is to add the wing fillets. That means this is the last time you'll see these two sub-assemblies apart. 😮

 

[ccoyle]

Wing fillets done.

 

[Danstream]

Wing fillet went on like a glove!

 

[ccoyle]

Work progresses. I decided to work on some various fuselage bits rather than stick dogmatically to the numbered construction sequence.

 

First, I killed some white spots on the lower fuselage.

 

Then I made and installed the exhaust stubs (ugh . . . a real chore).

 

And added the exhaust fairings. I learned afterward that the forward opening on each one should be rectangular, not round, but there were no fold indicators on the parts. 😒

 

Finally, the tropicalized air intake.

 

That's it for now!

[ccoyle]

Only some very small progress to show. These are the cast resin wheels. They needed some washing to remove releasing agent. I then used the Real Color markers to paint them. It's hard to see in this photo, but the tires are painted in 'rubber black' while the hubs are painted in RLM dark gray. These are definitely a step up from the paper wheels on the E-4.

 

 

I need to make a run to Hobby Lobby to get some music wire for the landing gear -- the stuff I presently have on hand is either too thick or too thin for the job.

[ccoyle]

Here's what I've managed to get done today. First, both ailerons are complete.

 

 

And I also managed to get one landing gear done, along with its doors (16 parts).

 

 

Now of course I have to do the whole landing gear assembly process one more time. 😵‍💫

[ccoyle]

And now the main gear are done.

 

[Canute]

You've got the knock-kneed look down, Chris. 👍

[ccoyle]

3 hours ago, Canute said:

You've got the knock-kneed look down, Chris.

 

I know that some of the plastic gurus have jigs for aligning everything, but I just do it by eye. One gear is canted slightly farther forward than the other, but I think I got the angle between the struts more or less correct. She sits with wings level, which is a good sign.

[ccoyle]

Flaps done.

 

[ccoyle]

We are now into the home stretch. The major components are done, and there remain only a few bits and pieces. Some of it is tiny details that are easy to overlook, and others are not so easily overlooked -- like the canopy and propeller.

 

Here is the canopy in progress. The kit includes both inside and outside frames. I have always found inside frames very difficult to do. Not only are they hard to position properly inside the molded canopy, but aligning them with the outside framing is nearly impossible, for me at least. And after all the effort, the interior framing is never something that stands out to the viewer. Solution: I use only the exterior framing, but I paint the interior color on the back side before gluing the framing to the canopy. This helps with the illusion that there is interior framing when in fact there isn't.

 

 

And all glued up:

 

 

Canopy glue requires 24 hours to fully cure, so I will resist the urge to mess with this until at least tomorrow afternoon. The canopy flexes quite a bit while cutting it out, so a full cure is required to help prevent separation of the frames from the canopy.

 

Before adding the canopy I will need to build and install the gun sight as well as the armored headrest, which is a feature that was not found on the earlier E-4.

[ccoyle]

A very quick update, sans photos.

 

After cutting the canopy free of its molding, I discovered that it was too large to fit the model. I dimly recalled having the same problem with the E-4. So, as on that model, I will be forced to display this one with the canopy open. Needless to say, that will be one of the very last steps of the build. In the meantime, I have assembled the propeller and its hub. This, too, will not go on until the very end.

 

One of the things I need to do very soon is decide whether to add the structure for the E-7's drop tank. I will likely not add the tank itself, as I'm not overly fond of drop tanks visually, but I may change my mind. I'm still reading up on whether all E-7s had the drop tank hardware or whether it may have been removed in the field for whatever reason. The kit artwork allows for either option. Stay tuned!

 

If all goes well I may be able to wrap up this build this weekend, but we'll see how it goes.