2x Bf 109 F-4 (1/48)

[Steven000]

Hi all,
Jakko : He measures 34mm without the hat, that's 1m63 in 1/48, although possible he does look sculpted as a tall person imo.
Rick : Yes that might work, if I'll use him he will get send to the back :smiling2:...
Jim : Thanks!

Another update :

First of all I received the new airbrush-seal,
I ordered a PTFE (white) instead of rubber, but as you can see it was slightly larger in diameter :thinking:
From that point I had lost a bunch of pictures due to a problem with the SD card (I think it's solved now), but what I did was cutting off very tiny bits with a knife until it was the right size. And after changing the seal the airbrush was working properly again.


Yesterday I gave a second coat of sand yellow, the first coat was a bit speckled because of the airbrush problem.


Today I added the blue and white, I used this 'camo masking putty' for the first time,
I rolled some sausages


I used this putty because I didn't want a very hard edge between the sand-yellow and blue color... (like you get with masking tape)
I'm not yet sure if I like this putty material very much,
It feels sort of greasy and to me that's never a good idea when you're painting things.
An other downside is that it very slowly moves towards gravity, after a few minutes I had to move it again upwards.


Here I'm masking the rest of the model, it looks a bit strange I know :smiling5:...


When the blue was dry I started masking the white areas


And more strange masking :smiling5:...


I masking the spinners and sprayed the propeller blades black.


The trop version on the left, the other I gave some extra masking.
I wanted to do a spiral-spinner but I couldn't find a single picture of a bf109F4 with a spiral spinner, it seems they started painting spirals only in 1944 (and thus G versions).


And this is what I have at the moment,



Thanks for reading and kind regards ; )
Steven

[Guest]

Amazing paint skills on show there Steven.

[Wouter]

Strange masking perhaps but that paintwork turned out nicely ^^.

Regarding the seal...cutting down that PTFE part :dizzy:. Why didn't you make life a bit easier and order the right sized part? :smiling2:

Cheers

[Guest]

Looking good. It’s not strange masking if it works

[Jason Crausby]

Hi Steven
Just catching up with this now...what a superb job so far!!
Jason

[AlanG]

Steven i regularly use blu-tac for soft edge masking so your masking is normal for me lol

[Steven000]

Thanks guys!

Regarding the seal...cutting down that PTFE part :dizzy:. Why didn't you make life a bit easier and order the right sized part? :smiling2:

Well in the shop I ordered them from they didn't had the rubber ones, and the PTFE product reads "for all H&S models" :thinking: so I was convinced it would work. Strange but I got it working :smiling5:...

Tonight I started with decals, I sprayed a bit of gloss paint this morning


This is the one I'm trying to do, still have to spray the rudder red etc
The "14" decal looks not realistic so I will spray it on with a mask I'll make with Tamiya tape :thinking:
No swastika is included like most kits these days, I will try that one too with masking tape


I used microset and microsol for the decals, that seems to work very well at first glance (panel lines).
Before I used the Vallejo version but it was less effective...


Thanks and kind regards,
Steven

[adt70hk]

Hi Steven

Apologies for being a bit behind. Got so say these are looking very good indeed. Well done for preserving with the intricate masking it's paid off.

ATB

Andrew

[Wouter]

Seems you got good quality decals indeed...in combo with Sol and Set they sure sit nice in and around the details. Looking forward to see you mask the number and the swastika :dizzy:

cheers

[Steven000]

Thanks guys :thumb2:

Another small update :
I made the numbers and swastika's by cutting Tamiya-masking-tape, I used the picture from the book (last post) as a reference for the size and shape.
It was a bit tricky to draw the lines onto the tape with a pencil (difficult to mark the tape).
Then I cut them out with a small blade.


Today I used those masks to spray the number and swastika (both sides).


Masking the rest of the plane...


I sprayed a thin layer of white as a base for the yellow number.


Then sprayed the yellow '14' and black swastika's on the tail.


Then removed all the masking tape, moment of truth... oop:


I did an attempt to save the used masks, hopefully I can reuse the swastika's for the 2nd plane...
(I've put them onto a piece of plastic sticker paper)


Then I masked the rudder and sprayed it red (as in the reference picture)


This is the result so far,
the swastika should get a white outline but I'm not sure if I will be able to pull that one off :thinking:


Next I'll have to add a few more decals-details and then a 2nd coat of gloss...

Thanks for reading and kind regards,
Steven

[AlanG]

Those DIY masks came out great Steven

[scottie3158]

Steve,
That is a cracking job mate the stencils came out really well.

[Guest]

Top job on the stencils :thumb2:

[Wouter]

oh the effort of masking really payed off!

Cheers

[Mini Me]

I'd leave well enough alone on the swastika, It looks the bomb as is. Everything looks very crisp and well executed. Well done Steven.
Rick H.