John Irwin

I added a few small bits (including the underfuselage FuG-25 IFF antenna (not included with the kit) and the canopy retaining wire, painted the insulator on the IFF antenna black-brown, did a bit of touchup work and am calling this one pretty much done. Still have a few small odds and ends I'll pick away at. I also need to add the radio antenna but this is currently on hold until I figure out a good way of doing it. Here are a few last shots of my progress and some obligatory "beauty shots" (if you can call this -109 beautiful). IFF antenna: Canopy in place, wonder how long before it get's broken off? Will be repositioning the retaining wire: General shots:

Still moving at my usual blistering pace. The canopy is pretty much done. Only additions were the metal bracing behind the "Galland-panzer" armor glass. Instead of dipping it in future, I used plastic polish. I find it is much easier to apply and it still enhances the clarity of the clear plastic. The late-stye Erla Haube canopy had it's framing painted in a darker green color. These canopies were manufactured at small, dispersed sites, well away from the main factories and were often painted with different color paint than what was used for the rest of the aircraft. I figured that being an early G-6, the canopy would not be fitted with the defroster piping seen on later versions, so this part was omitted. The canopy: Another shot, with it resting (roughly) in place. I'll glue it in the open position at the end of the build.

Very nice, especially the painting. Question - should all the 30mm ammo be black tipped? I thought the Germans used a mix ( could be totally wrong, just curious)? John

Real easy, just a very fine section of sprue with the tip cut at an angle to give a very sharp end. The paint was testors silver with a bit of black and white added (I find that it is too shiny out of the bottle to replicate scratched aluminum). Just lightly dip the tip of the sprue in the paint, dab it off to remove excess paint and then drag it lightly across the surface. The main trick is to do this lightly. Like anything else, practice makes perfect. Apply randomly and you should be good to go! John

Great looking IP, very nice detail painting! Looking forward to more updates. John

What a fascinating color scheme. Is that RLM81 on the undersurfaces of the wings? Never seen that before. Also, what color is used on the uppersurfaces of the wings - RLM76 or RLM77? Any links to pics of the real thing? I'd love to get more info on this aircraft.

Thanks for the compliments guys. Small update - I added the radio direction finder aerial to the fuselage spine. The base was a di-electric housing that was usually left in it's natural red-brown. The antenna itself was a dark metallic color. I also removed the masking on the windscreen. Always a bit nervous doing this, you never know if you will find out that you screwed up the masking and have paint on a clear piece. This time around, it came out ok. A bit of paint that had to be removed with a sharp wooden toothpic (this tends to remove the paint while still not scratching the clear plastic). I used a plastic polish prior to masking and painting. I think it that it also protects the clear parts and makes it easier to remove bits of dried paint. In the past, I dipped all the clear parts in future. This is a bit hit or miss, I think I'll stick with the plastic polish moving forward. I also did a bit of touch up painting. In the color picture of the real thing, you can note a patch of darker brownviolet paint on the starboard vertical stabilizer. Whether this was part of the camo scheme or some paintwork over a repair is unknown. I hand painted this and also a smaller patch of what looks like a light brown primer on the fuselage cross. The DF aerial (BTW, those with sharp eyes will note that one of the shoulder harnesses is missing, this came off when I unmasked the cockpit, I'll add it next): The undersurface with decals in place. Note that despite this being a latewar paintscheme, the earlier solid black crosses were used. Proof again that there is an exception to every rule when painting late war Luftwaffe aircraft. If you went by the book, you would have used the outline-style crosses. A couple of overall shots Getting close to the end, which is good. This project has been a huge amount of work due to the fit issues and the complex paint scheme.

Getting close to the end. Since the last update, my progress has been limited. I added the wingtip navigation lights (drilled through the interior and filled the hole with clear red / green to replicate the bulb) and I've added the decals. Prior to applying decals, I sprayed multiple light coats of future, cut 50% with windex. I learned this trick on ARC, seemed to make the future go down a bit smoother. I also dropped the pressure in my airbrush from what I normally use for paints. After giving the future a day to set up and lightly buffing the model with a cloth, I started on the decals. I used mostly kit decals for the underwing crosses and stencils. I found that the kit decals were a bit on the thick side and didn't go down very well with micro sol / micro set. Another disappointment was that the kit decals did not include a swastika. So if you are building one of these kits, be prepared to purchase aftermarket decals. In my case, it wasn't a major issue since no decal manufacturer has Yellow 5 as a subject. I ended up purchasing an old Eaglecal decal set that had a G-10 with yellow 5's on it. The numbers required a bit of trimming, as the style was a bit different than "my" Yellow 5. Not the most cost-effective way to build a kit, I spent (with shipping) nearly $27 for two decals! That being said, I really had no other choice, it was that option or just put the model on the shelf and hope I can find someone who would sell me the specific decals at a lower cost. The other plus was that Eaglecal also provided a nice comprehensive stencil set and the swastikas. I ended up replacing some of the kit stencils with the Eaglecal ones. The available pictures show that Yellow 5 had most (but not all) of the fuselage stencils. I added the ones I thought were appropriate. To minimize the chance of silvering, I used a sharp artist's pencil to outline the hand / foot holes on the fuselage sides. These look more authentic (weathered) than using decals. Once I was done, I sealed the decals with coating of satin Testor's lacquer. German paints seemed to have a decent gloss to them, so I opted not to use my regular Testor's dullcoat finish. Anyway, here are some pictures: [url=http://s285.photobucket.com/user/11bee/media/IMG_6590_zpscaf675f9.jpg.html][/uR

Not much else out there except speculation. Great guy, great products. Loved his 109G-6 correction set for the Revell kit, it a wonderful set at a very good price. Had I seen this coming, I would have bought a couple more. Hope it all works out for him.

Small update, got the wheels mounted and have been plugging away with odds and ends. I touched up some paint defects and have done some additional weathering. Also used a diluted black/brown wash to highlight the various filler ports and access panels. Weathering is a work in progress, I typically find I went a bit too heavy and then go back and do some touch-ups with the base colors. I like the way she looks with wheels mounted. The lack of undercarriage doors highlights the fragile gear legs. I think I read somewhere that nearly as many Bf-109's were lost due to take-off / landing accidents as were lost in combat. The narrow spaced and fragile gear legs made the -109 a challenge for novice pilots. The Germans tried to cure this by adding wider tires in the G-6 version (which required the bulges on the wing tops) and even wider tires in the later G-10 and K-4's (which required even larger bulges) but nothing really helped. In later versions, they also added a taller tail wheel strut for the same reason. All of these bulges and other modifications also ended up having a detrimental effect on the aircraft's performance. It was really a matter of trying to keep a 1930's design competitive with much more modern enemy aircraft. By 1944 despite all the upgraded engines, weapons and structural mods, the -109 was pretty much outclassed by Allied fighters. It says a lot to the courage of those Luftwaffe pilots that they kept getting into their cockpits. Some pics.... Underside (keep in mind that all weathering is still in progress), I've added some oil stains and mud splatters, much more to do. Close up. The oil cooler vent door is just dryfitted in place, I know it's not perfectly aligned. This is the Alleycat part, the kit part was a bit misshapen. This picture also highlights the scratchbuilt MG shell ejection chutes. Some general pictures:

Great work. I love the small details (like the motor oil oozing into the muddy water). More updates!!!!

A bit of progress over the last few days, touched up the outer right wing with some faded RLM75 grey violet. My first attempt was pretty rough, I was trying to show a weathered wing (since this wing was from an older -109, I figured it would be a bit worse for wear) but I over did it in this area. I also tried to replicate some "touch up" work by applying some 75 with a brush but didn't like the way it came out. I faded some modelmaster 75 and sprayed it lightly over my previous work. It doesn't show well in the pic but in real life, it comes across nicely. Here's the (hopefully) finished wing. Next up was the tailwheel, installed turned out to one side a bit. The tail wheel on the -109 was free castoring so it was common to see it at an angle due to the aircraft being pushed to and fro by the hardworking groundcrew. One note on the tailwheel - the majority of 109's had the strut enclosed in a canvas "boot" to protect it from dirt and debris. For some reason Revell doesn't provide this, just the bare strut. None of the pics of Yellow 5 show the tailwheel, so I opted to leave the strut as is. I could have replicated it with putty but my thought was that this -109 was in service for so long, it's quite possible that the canvas boot rotted out and was removed. I then mounted the rudder (at a slight angle just for a bit of variety. On the starboard fin, I added a "touchup" patch of darker greenish-brown. This is very apparent in the color pick of Yellow 5. Also apparent is a lighter colored patch on the starboard fuselage cross. I'll apply that in a bit. I assume that these were sheet metal patches over battle damage, brush painted using non-standard paint. I also added mud splatters along the bottom of the fuselage and rudder. The vast majority of German aircraft flew from grass fields, so IMO, there should have been a decent amount of mud kicked up by the prop during take off and landing. I also added mud accumulation in the wheel wells (still a work in progress, I'll post some pics later). While I was at it, I resprayed the faded black JG 53 fuselage band. I had a bit of white overspray from when I painted the starboard cross, also had a couple of tiny paint spatters from later camo painting. Here's the original band, note the oversprayed white. That's all gone now (as are those two flecks of silver inside the cross). That's it for this update. Quite a bit of work but not much to show for pictures.

Got a little down time this weekend and installed the exhausts. One of the issues with the Revell kit is that the exhausts have to be installed prior to gluing the fuselage halves together. That means that you are forced to paint them afterwards which is a bit of a PITA. They also molded the exhausts solid and neglected to include the prominent weld line on each stack. Alleycat to the rescue. Their correction set includes very well molded individual exhausts, hollow outlets and with the weld bead. I was a bit worried that they would be hard to install but installing all 12 stacks took all of 10 minutes. Very happy with these, they add a lot to the finished kit. I painted the stacks a dark black-brown, then went over them with a drybrushing of dark silver. I filled the hollow outlets with flat black. I also weathered the exhaust shields to show some exposure to heat. Still a work in progress, I'll go back and touch these up later. The pics I have of the Australian War Memorial Bf-109 (the one in it's original paintwork), show these shields to be pretty discolored so I'm trying to replicate that look. A few pics... Poor lighting, the stacks are actually much browner than what is shown in these pictures. This pic doesn't do a good job of showing the nicely cast hollow exhaust. I'll try to post something later that shows this in more detail.

Not much I can add except - great job! Actually, one -question - what's up with the shortened horizontal section of the left fuselage black cross?

Finished weathering the wheels, spring of 1945 was pretty wet and muddy (hence the removed landing gear covers), so I went a bit heavier than normal on the weathering. Also added some small chips on the wheel hubs. I figured the retaining bolts would be heavily worn from frequent tire changes so I pretty much picked out every one of those in silver. That's it for tonight.