Beychevelle

Thanks guys! The manufacturers plate seems legit, but let's forget about the red stripe. On to the next question

The AV is just an abreviation of the company... Acrylicos Vallejo S.L. Vallejo RLM75 (Model Air 71.259 Grauviolet) and RLM74 (Model Air 71.258 Graugrün). So far I only seen the airbrush version (Model Air). I guess not all the shops carry them yet, but the Luftwaffe Colors 1941 to end war set Art.71166 (set of 8 RLM Colors) seems easy to find.

Vallejo has new RLM colors. I agree the old RLM 74 and 75 were way off....the new ones are great imho. New colours are: RLM 74: AV 71258 RLM 75: AV 71259 RLM 76: AV 71257 I use the new 74 and 75 on the 109 I'm building atm. WIP here: http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/4676-132-revell-bf-109g-6-early-white-17-7-jg-53-italy-late-1943/ Hope this helps, Rob

I tried the (new?) Tamiya masking tape for curves. It's available in 2, 3 and 5mm width. It's a white flexible plastic tape...thicker than the regular Tamiya tape. It bends very nicely, but it has it's limits. The tape sticks to the surface nicely, but it's easy to remove again. It won't rip your paintwork off. It wont leave glue behind when you peel it off and you can lift it several times....its stays workable. Best to cut it with scissors, because of the flexibility it's not that easy to cut it with a knife. Handy stuff! Highly recommended Rob

I have a 109 question...and since more questions will pop up in my head sooner or later, I'll start a "general Bf 109 Q&A" topic. Others might have questions about this (very popular in model lala land) plane also, so we can use this topic to help eachother out. My first question.... spinner markings? On this restored 109 G theres a manufacturer plate and a red alignment bar on the spinner. I tried to find contemporary photo's with them on it, but so far...no luck. Are these historical, or is it "artistic freedom" from the restoration team? Thanks! Rob

Lovely! Never seen this kit before....and I'm vintage also!

The wood, the fabric, the rigging...all beautiful. The rest also btw. Such a delight to look at. Rob

There is no cure for a 109 addiction I'm already thinking about what to do next. So tempting to do another Revell G-6 or G-10....also have a 1/24 G-10 or K-4 whispering in my ear. But...I also want to do the Dutch East Indies Brewster Buffalo or the D.XXI...and...and the Dragon 110D-3...and the Uhu. Leaning towards the Buffalo, but....

that was my 2nd choise...you have my blessing

Looks really good! The brass reinforcements (and pins) surely must be helpful...very neat kit it seems. When you gonna build it...my vote goes towards the Spanish Civil War version!

Dear diary... Sometimes things go wrong for reason: stupidity To my disgust I noticed I placed the right side national marking too high. At first I thought: "ah well...it's not even 2 mm, so forget about it and move on" But it annoyed me to bits and it's visible...specially when looked at from above, so I had to fix it. I feel better now Next were the exhaust stacks... I don't think the Revell exhausts are bad, there's only so much you can do with injection molding. The shape is ok, so it's a start. Opened with a small drill bit. Made the weld seams and painted them. Dropped in place through the open front. Note the rubber sealing strip mentioned before. Painted black grey. On some photo's this strip is highly visible...not on others. My guess is...the strips were factory painted with the rest of the plane, but paint doesn't stay on rubber very well and damaged strips got replaced with unpainted ones. also seen photo's with the strip missing...just a huge gap. Now working on the Barracuda prop... Painted the blades dull aluminium, because cast aluminium has a grainy dull greyish look. Salt next. Insert: the loop antenna. The bakelite base is too flat, so I beefed it up with a few layers of enamel paint. Well...that was picture heavy and not even that much happened More soon! Rob

And I soldier on... Done the mottling and the fuselage band. While doing I noticed the HaD gruppe bar decal was too short, so I decided to mask and airbrush instead. And...while doing that I decided to do the same with the national markings. A bit of salt involved also again. First time I painted the markings, but it wasn't that difficult. I used insane amounts of Tamiya tape, so I might as well use after market masks next time. Likely easier also And made up my mind about the WGr.21 tubes I'll use a 7.15mm aluminium tube and 1mm aluminium tube for the attachment points. Also found a 1.0mm x 0.6mm brass L profile. To be used for the 3 internal guide rails. Next: smaller bits and bobs...landing gear, prop, canopy, etc. More soon! Rob

Brave man

One step further... The salt thing is nice to do, but with several colours to deal with...time consuming, but that's okey. I learned a new trick There still some salt grains here and there, I'll see to that later. I did a hasty clean up...eager to make a photo. Since there's aluminium underneath the 74/75/76...I can add more small paint chips and scratches by carefully scraping off top paint layers I spose. I used the new...and imho much better...Vallejo RLM75 (Model Air 71.259 Grauviolet) and RLM74 (Model Air 71.258 Graugrün). Much...much better. The old ones are way off....good move from Vallejo! A whole range of new and improved RLM colours Not too pleased with the new RLM76...too blue I think (too close to RLM65), so I used the "old" one...I like it better. Looking forward to do the mottling. The photo's I've seen of the actual plane show a different kind of mottling than the Osprey and HaD images I have. None...or hardly any in front of the beules, kinda busy streaking mottles underneath the pit and more standard light mottles behind the pit. Its fun to study photo's. I enlarge them to 300% and more to get a good look at what's going on. More soon! Rob

Eye candy! Rob

Yep, and their bigger sister store the Wapstad in Rijswijk. Really nice people and great places to buy paint and tools. okey...so I started with some shades of aluminium... That's because I wanted to try salt paint chipping. Never done that before, so it's something new for me to try At first I only wanted to do the aluminium in places where I want to do the chipping, but I'm afraid the significant difference between base white and the metal will show when I apply a light colour like RLM 76. So...the whole darn thing got blasted aluminium I tried not to overdo it.So far I'm pretty pleased with the result. More soon! Rob

Truly beautiful! Indeed...amazing! Rob

Beautiful! Did you paint the dive lines or are they decals? ...nice touch! Looking forward to your next build. Cheers! Rob

Thanks guys! Ready for some paint now. More soon! Rob

Yeah, thinking about that. Already checked what's available in my model shop yesterday. I need 7mm tube....can choose brass (maybe too heavy?), aluminium (thinnest of the 3) or plastic (easiest to work with). The rivets, weld line and interior guide rails won't be a problem. What makes scratch building tough is the 4 strut attachment points. Good photo of the real thing... Still trying to bend the resin tubes in shape, when that doesn't work out well...I'll make my own. To be decided It paid off to carefully fill and sand the faux panel lines. They're (almost) gone. (the Erla canopy is there to protect the pit...it's a spare canopy, I won't use it) Note the rubber seal strip between the rear side of the engine cover (including the beules) and the fuselage. A good photo showing the rubber strips... Not noticed this strip before and I wondered about the weird double panel line, but Revell did it right...it's the rubber strip. Thanks to the Barracuda beule set. Roy pointed out the strip in the manual. More soon! Rob

I feel sorry for that poor little piece of tape left out. He looks kinda sad and lonely there

Finished the plane to the point where I can start painting. Last bits to go on where the WGr.21 attachment hooks... Also note the 4 holes for the struts. The Brassin set came with handy templates. Fingers crossed I won't knock them off Also...stumbled upon this when I visited my local model shop... New to me! Perhaps I can use this for the wavy camo line on the front edge of the wings? I'll do a test to see how far I can go with this. More soon! Rob

http://luftwaffeinprofile.se/Book%20No5%20printed.html Luftwaffe Night Fighters! Nice new subject....looking forward to get my copy of it Rob

That's because they come in 32ml instead of 17ml

To clear things up, there 3 types of Vallejo metalics. 1. The "normal"...Model Color acrylic metalic paint. For brushing on and when thinned down...can airbrush them also I guess. 2. Vallejo Air...ready to go airbrush acrylic paint. 3. The relatively new Vallejo "Metal Color" airbrush only, ready to go acrylic paint. Imho this new range is superior to the previous 2 mentioned http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/metal-color/family/33 on the bottom of the page is a PDF with the available colors. A review test seen on Youtube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKX8j168IgM