Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10

by Anthony Manzoli

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10 is available online from Squadron.com

This is Hasegawa's 1/48 scale Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10.  Much has already been said about the Hasegawa line of Bf 109's so I will stick to the build of this kit. 

I chose to build it out of the box with some minor augmentations such as adding seat belts from Extra Tech, fuse wire for brake lines, ribs made from plastic card for the inside flaps and antennae wire from invisible thread. The insulators are made from Krystal Clear. 

I followed the instructions step by step with no need for filler.  Primary steps include assembling the cockpit, adding any details such as the seat belts, painting it as well as the inside portions of the fuselage RLM 66 Dark Grey. 

Once painted I dry brushed the raised details using a light grey mixture of oil paints. 

With the cockpit  painted,  the major assembly of the kit can take place. This includes gluing the fuselage  and wing halves together as well as the tail.  I usually do not glue the landing gear on until they have been detailed and painted, but I did use a small amount of 'Blue Tac' to hold them in place to aid in painting later.  I added some small ribs to the inside lower flaps and glued them in the open position, the slats were glued in the open position as well.  All the small details were glued on except for the antennae wire. 

The canopy was masked and glued in place, and the kit was ready for painting.  

My first choice was to paint the G-10 in ANR colours, but I decided to save that for my G-14 kit. Instead I opted for the 2nd choice on the instruction sheet.  I only used the instructions for camouflage placement, but I should point out the colours on the instruction sheet are backwards on the upper wings. 

I first painted the panel lines with matte black, when this was dry I painted the RLM 76 right up to the top of the fuselage.  The preshading usually gets covered up on the sides but remains on the underwings and lower fuselage, but this can be fixed later with post shading and fading.  

After the RLM 76 has dried,  I set my Aztek A470 at it's finest setting and painted the RLM 75 Grey Violet on the upper wings as well as the upper fuselage.  As I brought the colour down I went lighter into the mottling.  Some of the camouflage may appear dark at first, but when both RLM 75 and 82 are applied you can touch things up with the RLM 76.   I allowed the RLM 75 to dry over night and then made mask using post it notes.  I blue tacked these down leaving a tiny gap to allow a soft edge to be produced.  Once in place I painted the RLM 82. 

With the basic colours now on the model I mixed some of the RLM 76 with the RLM 82 and RLM 75 and began lightly painting the centre of the panels, this gives the model a weathered appearace without having to dry brush or use allot of pastel chalk later. 

Once the fading was completed I masked the fuselage and painted the RLM 04 and RLM 23 RV band of JG301.  I should point out at this stage that the kit instructions call for the decal to be used which that of JG7, but from what I was told this plane was actually from JG301.  With most of the painting done, all that was left was masking and painting the wheel wells, the inside of the flaps, and the struts with RLM 02  and painting the prop and spinner RLM  71.  

When the paint had cured for a good two days, I used Pascoes Long Life and applied it with a flat brush.  This product is much like Future and is self  levelling. 

With the major parts of the aircraft glossed, I applied the decals.  The kit decals are a little on the thick side so solvent is needed to help them settle into the panel lines. 

The final step in the finishing is matte coating the plane and lightly weathering it.  I use Tamiya Flat Base mixed with Pascoes Long Life for the matte coat, this works pretty good and allows me to increase or decrease the amount of dullness I desire. 

I used a sharpened pencil for most of the panel lines, and a very thinned down black and brown ink from Citadel's range of paints for the remainder of the washing.  I also added some pastels to tone down some of the weathering which I did with a silver pencil. 

The final detail was adding the antennae wire which was made from invisible thread and insulators made of Krystal Clear.    

This was a quick build and I basically wanted to stick to out of the box for the exception of the minor details I added.   I didn't have much reference material to go by for this particular plane but from what I have been told, Eagle Editions is going to be releasing a book very soon which will have some interesting information about this aircraft "White 44". 

There is also an article on Hyperscale written by Floyd Werner that describes how to change the cowling on this kit to the "Type 110 Variant".  This being an aircraft from werknummer block 150 would have had this type of cowling.  

I hope you like the finished product, I enjoyed building it as most who enjoy the 109 do and it was fun trying out some of the painting techniques I have been picking up reading articles on HyperScale and magazines. 

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2003 by Anthony Manzoli
Page Created 28 August, 2003
Last Updated 17 March, 2004

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