Notes on building Hasegawa's 1/48 Bf 109F/G/K kits

Some notes on building Hasegawa's 1/48 Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6. They may apply to other variants as well.

Cockpit: it would probably be best to glue some scrap plastic to the back of the instrument panel and then sand it to fit the curvature of the panel. That would make the bond to the inside of the fuselage better. Also, glue the sidewalls to the fuselage, rather than to the cockpit floor. When the sidewalls were glued to the floor, the floor did not fit against its mounts.

Cowling: make sure it fits smoothly. Probably need to sand the parts it mounts against.

Sand the grills that mount in the wings. It might be beneficial to add butt support to the join.

Paint the mottle before painting the top of the fuselage. As a matter of fact, it may be advantageous to paint the mottle before the tops of the wings. Also, paint the mottle before attaching the air intake.

Either make large (1 mm) holes in the top of the wing for the tire bulges, or sand off the pins. Otherwise it is difficult to align them.

Mount the gun blisters before assembling the fuselage halves.

Glue the grill to the vent under the engine before gluing the vent to the fuselage. I didn't and the grill slipped into the fuselage, never to be seen again (although it was heard). Note: if you glue the grill on before attaching the wings, you can get it if it falls inside. Perhaps it would be best to glue some kind of barrier (perhaps thin plastic rod) over the cover before putting the fuselage halves together.

On the F/G-2, try gluing small plastic rods or metal wire to the edges of the area the cowling covers to support it. It might be best to attach each cowling half to its respective fuselage before putting the fuselage halves together. Cut the cowling machine gun barrels off and attach them inside the cowling.

When painting the RLM 76, don't forget: landing gear covers, aileron balances, exhaust shields, rear wings.

Recognition stripes on P-47's

I found this information in this forum topic.

Vertical tail - 12" band, centered 26" from fin tip on very early P-47s and moved down to centered 32" on most everything after the P-47D-5-RE.

Stabilizers - 16" band, centered 33" from outermost point

Cowl band - 24" from front lip

Bf 109 bagged kits in box

Tamiya mixes 25 Dec 2018

Bronze Green: XF-70 IJN Green (2) cut about 60/40 with XF-2 Flat White. This has a slight bluish tint, good for Grumman cockpits (I think). Also P-47 cockpits - again, maybe.

FS34102: 3 parts XF-5 Flat Green, 3 parts XF-13 JA Green, 1 part XF-2 Flat White.

FS34092 (Euro Green): XF-26 Deep Green cut about 60/40 with XF-2 Flat White. This might also serve as Medium Green as part of disruptive camouflage on US planes.

US Army Olive Drab: 3 parts XF-62 Olive Drab, 1 part XF-60 Dark Yellow. This is per Steve Zalonga's recommendation.

Tamiya paint mix references

Per the 1/48 Bf 109G-6 kit, use XF-54:3 + XF-63:1 for RLM 75 and XF-24:1 + XF-27:3 for RLM 74. These are new mixes. XF-54 is Dark Sea Grey, XF-63 is German Grey, XF-24 is Dark Grey and XF-27 is Black Green.

This page on Hyperscale shows mixes for RLM 76 and RLM 74, but not RLM 75. It does have photos of the colors. The subject is Eduard's original tooling of the Fw 190.

This page on world-in-miniature at blogspot has a review of the Tamiya Fw 190F-8 and includes mixes for all three RLM colors (76, 75 and 74).

PRU Blue, which is BS636 (British Standard) or FS35109, is XF-8:3 + XF-2:4. XF-8 is Flat Blue and XF-2 is Flat White.

This IPMS review of the ISU-152 shows a mix for 4BO (Soviet armor) using Tamiya paints.

This page shows another Tamiya mix for 4BO, using XF-58 Olive Green and XF-4 Yellow Green, 50/50.

This (archived) post on Armorama has a reference to XF-58 Olive Green and XF-49 Khaki 50/50, but I tried this and it really didn't look right. The post does talk about lightening the mix if needed.

For Soviet armor, try NATO Green, Field Grey, or JGSDF Green, or RLM 62 per Tom Cleaver in Tamiya 1/48 KV-1 review on Modeling Madness Note that Field Grey is a match for RLM 62.

This topic on Hyperscale lists XF-49:2 + XF-5:1 + XF-3:1 as a mix for Soviet green. This also didn't look quite right - it seemed a bit too brownish (undoubtedly due to the XF-49 Khaki).

Tamiya JSDGF Olive Drab for British tanks? or (more likely) Korean War Sherman?

The IPMS Dayton page on Tamiya mixes shows XF-70 IJN Green (2) for FS34058, which is Bronze Green, used in many US cockpits. XF-70 might be a bit too dark.

This page has a mix for Olive Drab for US armor.

This post on the Hyperscale forums has Tamiya mixes for US colors, both aircraft and olive drab for armor.

Miscellaneous, including links

A page on ww2aircraft.net documenting a build of the Eduard 1/48 Spitfire IXc.

This post on britmodeller.com is by a guy who is not terribly impressed with the Airfix 1/48 P-51D.

This page on airfieldmodels.com shows some good images of the F4F landing gear.

Pixels and Plastics has a lot of great models.

A good photo of a stash.

Beyond The Sprues

Look at Kaizen tracks or Modelclub tracks or Spade Ace tracks for armor. See link here.