Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

[Second Air Force]

I've decided to start a new thread on the early Messerschmitt Bf-109 family. These early versions are quite interesting and have a combat record that isn't spoken of much. Both Hobbycraft (Academy nowadays) and Classic Airframes have produced Jumo-powered machines in 1/48 scale.

The Classic Airframes kits are very nice and quite accurate.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Both an early kit with extended leading edge slats and a later version with the "normal" slats have been produced on a short-run basis as was the norm for Classic Airframes. They are also quite EXPENSIVE nowadays, being more of a collecible than a model kit. They are also quite superb and accurate, especially the resin cowlings and interior parts. In my C kit I also found a set of the early long slats as an optional choice. I've only test-fit this and it is somewhat typical of a short run kit, needing a few tweaks here and there to get a perfect fit.

The Hobbycraft/Academy kit is much more plentiful and fairly inexpensive.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

The Hobbycraft kit suffers from some inaccuracies in the cowling and firewall forward area that should be corrected for an accurate machine. Lynn Ritger performed a nice upgrade of the existing kit parts by filling and scribing panel lines and gun troughs. On this project I'm thinking of doing some kitbashing to achieve the desired accuracy.

More updates in a few days......
Scott

[No.1]

Just one question- did anybody make prototype of Bf 109V1?

[Sall]

This will be great topic!!

[Second Air Force]

Just one question- did anybody make prototype of Bf 109V1?

No.1,

Sorry I didn't post this earlier, but YES there are options for the Bf-109V1! MPM made a 1/72 full kit as stock #72029 and Replicast made a resin complete kit in 1/48, stock #48001.

I feel strongly that I'll end up building a V1 somewhere down the road, whether I find a kit or scratchbuild the Kestrel nose I don't yet know.

[No.1]

All right mate

[Second Air Force]

Here's a small update on the early Messerschmitt project.

First, the accurate resin bits from the Classic Airframes kit that I'll be incorporating into a Hobbycraft/Academy (I'll refer to it as the H/A kit from now on) Bf-109B.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Now a couple of photos of the two cowlings, both mounted to Hobbycraft fuselages. Notice that the kit cowl is far too short, thus putting the guns and gun troughs too far forward. Also the cowl must be shimmed in the back to match the fuselage opening. Additionally the exhaust outlets are far too short on the H/A kit. These flaws can be fixed with filler and rescribing, but this is a lot harder than using the CA cowl. To fit the Classic Airframes resin cowl I simply cut off the plastic of the H/A fuselage and carefully fitted the CA cowl. Note that this conversion will be a B model and the Hobbycraft radiator bath is fairly accurate. When I convert one to a C/D I'll use the deeper CA radiator bath also, scrapping the entire fuselage forward of the wing on the H/A kit.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

[No.1]

Nice fit mate, very nice

[Second Air Force]

I assembled the cockpit sides and did some modification to them also, then painted RLM 02.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

[Sall]

 

[Second Air Force]

This Hobbycraft/Academy kit has a simplified radiator bath and wing interface. I preferred to open the radiator exhaust flap in the same way that the Classic Airframes kit is designed. With that in mind, I cut out the flap section of the fuselage halves. Next was to fabricate the exhaust ducting from styrene. Finally, the leading edge of the wing/fuselage section had to be filed and sanded to give a smooth radius where the air flows past. After this it was a simple matter to glue the duct to the wing center section and fit it to the fuselage opening. The first photo shows the H/A wing at top and the CA wing in darker grey.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

[No.1]

And finally it fit perfect

[Sall]

 

[Second Air Force]

The fuselage halves are now glued together. Next was to make the small baggage compartment hatch on the angled bulkhead. Pretty simple, but often overlooked. Additionally it covers up a portion of the seam in that bulkhead!

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

I should mention, since I'm working on this area. that one of the problems with the Hobbycraft/Academy kit is that the cockpit opening (from front-to-back) is quite a bit shorter than any other 1/48 Bf-109 I've run across. I'll show this in a little better detail later.

[No.1]

Thats good mate

[Second Air Force]

I mentioned the "greenhouse" area being a bit short on the Hobbycraft/Academy kit. Here are two photos of the H/A canopy sitting on other manufacturers' fuselages.
First, the new Airfix Emil:

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Next, the Tamiya Emil:

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

The Classic Airframes kit also has a longer opening. However, for a shelf model, the H/A greenhouse won't look too bad, especially if the canopy is opened. This highlights another drawback to the H/A kit in that it only comes with the one canopy, all in one piece. Vacuform or spares box, I reckon.

Back to the actual build, I had to do something about the lack of detail in the radiator inlet. First I cut some plastic screen material I have on hand to simulate the radiator. Next were two diagonal braces from stretched sprue and the characteristic drain tube that runs down the middle of the inlet.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Next was to lengthen the leading edge slats. The airplane I'm building was a very early Bf-109B with the long slats. Rather than model them open I decided to simply fill the inboard line of the original slats and scribe new extended sections.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

Next up was to begin assembling the major sections so that I can fill/sand/prime the airframe. I must say that this H/A kit has a pretty nice fit in most areas, the wing joint being quite nice on my sample.

Jumo Powered Bf-109s In 1/48

All in all it's been fairly relaxing so far. Once the primer is satisfactory on the airframe I'll fit the new C/A cowling and match up the C/A fixed-pitch propeller.