Hobby 2K Bf 109E7

Decent size box with some goodies that were requested. I'm not big on aftermarket but I have to admit, these bits are nice. The real letdown is the instructions that are unhelpful at best most of the time. Other than that, it's a great kit. The fit and engineering are amazing. 

The Yahu instrument panel is a work of art, but their instructions are even worse than the kit's! The red arrows are the only guide for placement. I guess Yahu figures if you're up to tackling the kit, you're up to figuring out where things go. Still trying to puzzle out where to put the bit in the yellow circle. If anyone knows, I'm all ears. 

More details of the Yahu panel. Really has to be seen to be appreciated. 

The dials even have a glass effect. Pretty inexpensive too considering the level of detail.  

Basic cockpit assembly and some RLM02 I brewed up. If you tackle this one, be VERY sure you know where things go and test fit before committing to glue. You'll be very glad you did. 

Minor seat chipping. Most of if will be covered up by the 3D harness decals but oh well. Only other thing added was the reinforcement around the hole the harness passes through which was made from 0.010" sheet and embossed with a dull needle. 

While really, really good, the fit of the kit isn't perfect. There are some well-known issues with the front cowl and canopy fitment. Turns out these are caused by the fuselage bulging too wide and that's caused by tabs trying to fit in the marked slots. The RLM02 looks pretty close in this light. Again one of my Tamiya mixes, 1:1 ratio of XF-22 and XF-49. 

The offending tabs are here. Once you shave those off, it fits perfectly flush. 

The rest of it fits amazingly well. The only thing holding it together is that small piece of tape and with a little pressure that gap vanishes. I'm a confirmed hater of putty in all its forms, so I will go to lengths some may consider disturbing to avoid using it. Sheet plastic will fill gaps and I will shave and trim so that only a smidge of CA will be needed (and sanded) to close gaps. You can see some here. The gap at the back will probably be filled with CA and the whole bottom panel line recut with a razor saw. JLC makes a great one. That is the only other (minor) issue with the kit; there's a lack of rivet detail. That's not as bad as it sounds as the Bf was flush-riveted but in this scale and since I can't leave well enough alone, I will add some shallow lines of rivets with a rivet tool and some dymo tape for guides. Now just need to scale some line drawings to 1/32. HGW makes some rivet detail decals but I'm not up for that! 

Basic cockpit assembly 

Great level of detail in this kit but everything is very tight so some minor trimming required.  

Starboard sidewall details and instrument panel. 

Starting to come together. Only additions are the gunsight projector lens built up with glue and gloss clear, a spare decal for the oxy bottle gauge and a bomb arming selector on the lower instrument panel. 

More assembly. The unpainted pieces require some trimming so the cowl fits flush. 

Electric junction box added. Needed a trim as well to fit behind the rudder pedal. 

Port sidewall detail. The throttle handle was beefed up as the kit part was pretty anemic. 

Dry fit with a spare windscreen. So far so good and no filler should be needed. Continually impressed with the fit and engineering on this kit, but oh boy, do you need to dry fit before committing to glue. If you build this kit, be prepared to invest some time in that as the instructions would have you glue things that, while they fit, will prevent you from gluing subsequent parts. For example, a lot of reviews specifically mention F44 (F43) as being a problem. They can be added, but you have to use the fuselage halves to align them and then wait to glue the electric junction box AFTER to cockpit is attached to that sidewall which requires some fiddling. Like I said, everything fits, but it's tight. On the plus side, the location aids for major parts are perfectly aligned and rock solid, though again with the caveat that smaller parts may need trimming to get a flush fit. 

As well as the rest of the parts fit, starting to run into issues here. Apparently this kit was not meant to be built with the cowlings buttoned up. The upper cowling has a huge step on top where it meets the taped piece and you can see by the worn paint on the engine mounts where it's rubbing. 

Since I plan to close it up, I didn't do much on the engine. It really is a well-detailed engine so it's a shame to hide it, but that's the way it goes. 

Some surgery on the upper cowl. Still doesn't fit and it's getting thin, so will move to trim the motor mounts and accessories, though I hate to do it.
 

Cowl is fitting closer now but required trimming the upper part of the engine, ditching the oil return pipe and some other mods. Even when it fits flush, now it intrudes into the lower cowling, so will require further trimming. I would have just ditched the engine entirely, but it locates the prop, oil cooler, etc. 

Not a good pic, but the riveting shows up only slightly, which is what I was going for. 

Added some screen to the tropical air filter since the blank plastic looked too plain. Cowling was finally tweaked to fit perfectly, as were the wing root gaps. 

Underside showing some of the riveting on the keel. Should turn out nice and subtle under a coat of primer and paint. Rivets didn't stand out at all on the real thing, so this should be good. Oh, the "DS plastic" of the canvas wheel well linings was pretty trouble free if you ever build this kit, just glue one section at a time until it fits as one of mine was warped. 

Starting to look like an aircraft. Primer coat next. The masks came with the kit and are very handy, but keep in mind the middle of the main canopy is not actually framed as the mask set would have you believe but instead is just a sliding window arrangement. Will represent that with some careful panel line accent. Dragon allows you to have movable control surfaces if you can get the fiddly PE hinges just right. Will probably glue the ailerons neutral and flaps down. Elevators and rudder, maybe. They're pretty floppy so may have to be glued in place with just enough deflection to be interesting. 

Back at this after a hiatus. Undercoat complete and yellow nose done first simply because it's easier to mask for following blend coats. 

The RLM04 nose is about 15:1 Tamiya XF-3:XF-7 as straight yellow was just too stark. The undercoat for the nose was lightened XF-60 (dark yellow) as well as straight XF-3 yellow. Just enough of it came through to make it optically interesting instead of monochrome. You luftwaffe fans know what a pain yellow is to work with. It doesn't cover well at all and the panel line shading took some covering to not be too standout but still be there. Need to touch up a little overspray on the cowl MGs as they were hard to mask effectively. 

Hopefully the gray RLM78 and sandgelb RLM79 will be a little more manageable. 

Underside undercoat. Found a decent color for the fabric control surfaces, a 1:1 mix of khaki & white. We'll see how it turns out under the blend coat. 

Finished the blend coats. The RLM78 and RLM79 turned out pretty well. 

Using a template for the "leopard spots" but will need to come back and work the edges with a fine tip airbrush as they're a little too sharp. Would leave it be in 48th scale but it needs a little tune up in 32nd. 

Happy with the underside 

Still not done with the spots but the nose looks nice against the camo pattern. 

Got some Maketar masks for the insignia. A bit fiddly to work with and there are no instructions so it's a good thing they supply extra masks! 

The trick with the masks is to make alignment marks on the various pieces so you can put them back in place when switching between colors. Also really helps to have alignment guides when placing them down for the first time because once they are down, they are REALLY hard to move. like I said, good thing they provide extras. 

Markings and minor chipping accomplished along with a thin gloss coat for the remaining decals. Not as many stencils as a modern subject but the luftwaffe certainly was fond of making sure you didn't betreten all over everything. 

Decals and some "light" weathering & chipping. Close to the finish line. The kit has Cartografs so they behaved excellently. They were so good, the insignia masks were almost redundant. 

Same theme, not too much dirtying up on the underside. 

Still to do all the "fiddly bits" such as landing gear, canopy armor, exhaust stains, etc. Prop is almost done but the tiny red stripes...going to try decals on these as a masking job would be a nightmare. 

Antenna (another fiddly bit), touching up the cannons/MGs, the list goes on. On the plus side, the added rivets turned out well, just enough to take a little bit of the oil wash but not be all up in your face. 👍 

Closing in on completion, at least she is on her own two feet. 

Canopy will be open, just posed closed for the photo. Involves my least favorite part, tiny PE parts that require a potential paint job-ruining use of CA glue if you make the tiniest mistake. Rigging the antenna, some exhaust stains and a little weathering of the wheels and some final touch ups should see it off the bench. 

Finally complete. Any dust or fuzz in final pics is a result of my own negligence! 

Antenna is EZ line with pipet tips cut off for the insulator guards. 

Exhaust stains look better than appear in pics.  

Officially off the bench. Big-scale Wurger next? 

Lastly, basic reference pic I was working from, mainly for amount of weathering and fading. The spot pattern and number seemed to vary from aircraft to aircraft since it was field-applied obviously, but I went with fewer spots overall because it seemed like it would overwhelm the effect.