The Mikester
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Posts posted by The Mikester
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Brett Green's review from Hyperscale:
As a rule I trust Brett's reviews, he actually builds models but is conscious of accuracy as well and is usually pretty level headed. I think this kit is a definite upgrade over the older Hasegawa kit, however 1/48 is not my scale so mehhhhh....
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I'm calling you out on this garbage: Link to some examples please... You claim hundreds, I wonder if you can even find one... In ten years of looking at many forums, I remember four notable put downs, three of which related to colour, not the model: -1 One involving a sort-of fictional color scheme of a Ki-44, 2-another for a heavy wash in the panel lines of a P-40, leading to a huge argumentative thread, and a third (by the same guy complaining in #1), who ridiculed the weathering on an unpainted in-factory C6N Saiun... I think the same guy was involved in all three, and not one was related to not correcting a kit's flaws...
I remember a fourth one involving a Lancaster built by a French modeller on Aeroscale (Brit modellers being adamant a window should be blanked/moved), and that is the only put-down I remember seeing that involved an actual kit correction issue.
Back up your prejudice, or expose it for what it is...
Yes there is a far better kit out there: Combine a Zvezda with a Vector G-2 conversion set, and then borrow some cowl bumps from cheap Hasegawa, Otaki or Hobbycraft kits that pollute everyone's stash...
Hal said it best about the spine, and the square lower nose is even worse...
The conclusion about the Eduard Me-109G is that it is a great encouragement to buy their Spitfire Mk IX; you don't see many rivet counter complaining about those, do you?
Robertson
Relax, Gaston. He wasn't talking about you, nobody considers you an expert.
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BF109G-6/AS
in Props
In 1/32 you can use the Hasegawa G-10 to build a G-6/AS with some minor mods. You'll have to source some earlier propeller blades and oil cooler and you may have to trim the oil line bulges off the lower forward end of the cowl. The G-10 kit does include the smaller wheels and wheel bulges though. Maybe re-scribe a filler hatch or two as well, don't recall off the top of my head.
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Wanna double your money? I'll give you $70!
How's that Erla review coming along? You have pretty much set the standard for a comprehensive review. Waiting patiently for your feedback on the new Revell kit. :)/>
The Erla G-10 review is behind schedule! Hopefully a couple more weeks and we'll have it up.
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Also there is a cockpit set from Eduard
Not cheap and I can't comment on quality but it looks good to me.
I did a review of the Eduard set a couple of months back:
http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/1990-eduard-brassin-cockpit-for-revell-132-bf-109g-6/
The quality is very good but it is a little pricey.
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Just went on Amazon, figured I'd treat myself to this book. It's listed at $299!! Want to loan me your copy? :)/>
Wow! I think I paid about $35 for it. Books get crazy expensive when they go out of print.
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I've got other references on "Green 7" that show the aircraft to have red/white/red bands and a solid RLM82 (dk green) fuselage, not the mix of 81/82 and blue / white / blue bands shown on the EagleCals profile.
I agree that the Barracudacals seem to offer a bit more variation. Speaking of which, they also are doing "Yellow 5" and as above, show the fuselage to be solid dark green, not the mix of brown and green as shown by EagleCals.
Regardless, it's nice to see more decals coming out for this kit.
I've seen that too and I'm tempted to do it that way but still don't think I've seen any proof that JG 6 used RVD bands. Would make a good looking model though!
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I'm all for being open minded IRT to new information that comes to light but when we start changing conventions that we've used for a long, long time it just gets confusing as hell. So 83 is now bluish and 82 is dark green, what designator is light green? Do we have RLM 82, light and dark? I'd really prefer we stick to the standard conventions in the name of simplicity, historical correctness be damned!
And on the subject of "RLM 84" what about the straw tinted variant?
As far as the book I like it. I'm not really in 100% agreement with all the color interpretations, but there's a reason we call them interpretations! Some of the "K" schemes apppear a little far fetched, especially since Messerschmitt maintained a pretty fair degree of consistency of paint schemes from batch as opposed to other late war aircraft that were all over the map. Japo's "Messerschmitt Bf 109K Camouflage and Marking" is a great study of the subject.
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One thing not mentioned in any reviews is the flash abpnd the sink marks that plague the G-6 kit.
I hadnt looked closely until i watched Phil Florey's review.
Sink marks all over sime of the sprues others fine.
Very average qc indeed and hoping the G-10 is better and the same for the rest of the family.
I'm not sure that this a problem with all the G-6 kits. My review sample had only a small amount of flash and only a couple of very minor sink marks. Perhaps your kit was just from a bad lot?
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Not sure how you came to that conclusion. His review of the previous Revell G-6 was pretty fair. He noted most (not all) of the defects on that kit, while also praising the good points. Seemed pretty even-handed to me.
His review of the G-10 also seems to be decent. He noted a couple of issues but was also complimentary on the majority of the kit.
LSP had a crackin' review of the earlier G-6 on one of their forums, hopefully they will devote some time to the new G-10 as well.
Actually it was at Large Scale Modeller, Revell 109G-6 Review not LSP, I wrote that review along with Matt Low. We've already begun work on the Erla G-10 review and you can expect the same level of detail that we devoted to the G-6, although the Erla G-10 is a bit a harder due to the fact that's there's not exactly a plethora of information on it.
Brett Green's assesment of the Revell G-6 was fair. He didn't point out every single issue but he certainly touched on the major ones and gave you a good feel for the kit. He failed to mention that the kit can be a bit fiddly, but it was an "in box" review so that's to be expected.
Cheers,
Mike
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All the Hasegawa 109s are imaginative fiction, and the length is among the smaller of their numerous troubles: The cockpit sill width is too wide over a much smaller dimension than the length, so the error there is a lot bigger than 2 mm over the whole length: On the 1/48th kit it is around 7% off in width while the 2 mm length error amounts to about 0.8%... The cockpit width error is similar or worse on the 1/32 kits... (Actual cockpit sill width 625 mm, canopy top width 360 mm, max fuselage depth 1288 mm at rear of tilting canopy)
So most people keep talking about a fuselage length error that is proportionately almost ten times smaller than the fuselage width error...
This 7% is actually made worse by the belly flattening out straight, reducing the fuselage depth by well over 3% at the engine firewall, since the nose is less than maximum depth and thus takes the same height loss over a smaller distance, totalling probably around 4%... This seems to have given the whole kit a "nose up" look, squeezing the exhausts upwards, certainly on the entire 1/48th range at least.
This adds up to an 11% discrepancy (1950s Aurora territory you know), completely distorting the nose's appearance. I would think 11% in width beats 0.8% in length, but hey, what do I know?
Hasegawa fixed the spinner on the F but not on all the G/Ks, so that looks awful too. I have barely looked at the 1/32 Revell kit, and I still know it beats the Hasegawa by planetary amounts...
Robertson
Gaston, you don't build 1/32 (or build anything actually, at least that you finish), you most likely don't even have either kit in 1/32 in your possesion so you just regurgitate the same drivel you've been spewing for years about the 1/48 Hasegawa 109. If you ever wonder why no one takes you seriously and why you've been banned from nearly every forum on the internet here's a good place to start.
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I read that thread over on LSP, and I thought I'd entered a rivet counter's convention!!! One guy must have had a serious vendetta against Revell, and I just laughed at him. The revell kit is the new king unless somebody like Zvezda upscales their 109's. Folks just don't want to admit that their $60 kit is no better than a $27 kit. We saw the same whining with the 1/72nd scale JU88, and some of them still won't admit it! Technology just moves on, and the better mousetrap you get today maybe surpassed tomorrow. Just life!
gary
And what exactly makes the Revell G-6 the king? The price, it's new? First off the whole world doesn't pay $60 for the Hasegawa kit, I've never paid more than $35 for one. If you pay full retail all the time you're not trying very hard. BTW, the Revell G-6 is a $50 kit here in Japan.
The Revell kit is more accurate in a couple of areas but it also has it's share of issues:
MG 131 Beule are badly mis-shaped
Oil cooler mis-shaped
Mis-shaped propellers
Spinner is slight improvement over Hasegawa in shape but still not 100% correct, additionally devoid of detail and poorly engineered
Three piece landing gear struts difficult to assemble and rickety feeling once installed
Cockit engineering leaves large gaps between fuselage and cockpit walls that must be filled after cockpt is painted
There are more, but I'm not going to pick nits.
The Hasegawa does have some issues too (well documented by now), although I seriously doubt 99.9% of modelers would ever notice or be concerned about the nose and cross section errors, these have been grossly exagerrated IMO. The Hasegawa goes together much easier than the Revell kit though, the engineering and fit are superb and no nonsense.
Truth is both are very good kits and both have some errors. Which one you choose will probably depend on how much you can get it for and what type of build you want. Having built both kits I can say that I prefer the Hasegawa (and this is a sentiment expressed by several people who have built both) based on the fact that it just a much easier build. The Revell kit has more options and some great features but the multi-variant engineering causes some construction headaches. Certainly not the king, but another option which is a good thing.
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Thanks, that forum really helped! I guess its just going to take more practice, but I have one question. Are some of the camouflage (like the circles) just random? or were many of them planned?
Really hard to say, many of the more exotic/interesting schemes were field applied. Factory mottles tended to be more consistent but there was still significant variation in the pattren, size and density of the mottles
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I think most were done in 74/75 but you might be able to find a few in 75/83.
Also forgot to mention, if you're doing an Erla production G-14/AS the two bumps on the front of the lower cowl would not be present. If it's a Regensburg production leave them there.
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Take a look here:
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The Hasegawa 109E is ancient and not all relevant any more.
The Eduard 1/32 109 is not all a bad kit. It does have a couple of issues, eveything but the slight bulge behind the cockpit is easily correctable though, and IMO the bulge is really not that noticeable when built up anyway. For absolute accuracy the Dragon/CyberHobby kit is probably the best but it's a more complicated build than Eduard. The Eduard has very nicely done rivet detail which I like too.
The Trumpeter just has too many problems to make it worthwhile unless you've got a well stocked spares box.
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Being discussed at LSP:
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The Hasegawa G-10 has all the necessary parts to do a G-14/AS. Just use the small wing bulges and the ealy style main wheels. You may have to source an earlier tail wheel, the G-14/AS was observed with both style tail wheels. Leo, is correct there is no conversion set and even if there was buying a G-10 would be much, much easier.
Here's one I did:
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Don't mean to question his knowledge of the subject, just thought that the 81/82 colors were a bit uncommon a G-14 (however, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a novice in this area).
Every time someone comes up with a somewhat unusual late-war German color scheme, it seems that there are 30 other "experten" that jump on him and claim he is mistaken.
Personally, I really like these colors. Now I just have to find some suitable decals.
I agree, 81/82 seems "iffy" at best. For later war 75/83 or 81/83, 81/82 was observed on the 262 though.
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I know I have references to figure this out, but I worked a night shift last night and I'm foggy - how hard would it be to do a G-2 from the Revell G-6? I know the kit is set up for them to be able to do any G-1 thru K-4, but who knows when that might happen??
I'd wait for them to release a G-2 (if they do).
1. You'd need a new upper cowl piece.
2. The wheel bumps in the wings are realistically portrayed on the underside (concave) as well so you'd have a hole in the wing where your removed the bump.
3. Early spoked wheels and 7.92 MG not included in kit.
The other mods required are fairly minor. I think we'll see a G-10 before we see any earlier variants since they've already included some of the necessary parts in the G-6.
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I hear you! I'm an old school modeler as well and also recall the good (bad?) old days. I did my share of scratch building and I've got some old models that I still believe are superior to the latest stuff out there.
However, in the case of the Revell -109, I don't think many folks have the ability to accurately scratchbuild replacement mg ammo bulges. At least I don't.I was on the fence with regard to purchasing this kit, however my desire for a late-war G-14 and the new A2Zee correction parts has pushed me over the edge. Sorry for all the comments I made over the years about boring WW2 Nazi subjects, I'm in!
Exactly, the Beule are a complicated shape, easy to say "just scratch-build it" but much more difficult to execute with acceptable results. A more realistic approach (assuming you have the spares) is to use the Beule from the Hasegawa kit, which I has several of in my spares box.
Hopefully someone will offer these as a separate item, the Allee Cat set looks nice but much of it is just convenience items, patches removed from control surfaces, molded on seatbelts removed, etc. These are all items that can be easily done to the kit parts, whether you want to spend the money for these time savers is up to you. I'd prefer a less comprehensive set at a lower price that just addresses the errors in the kit.
I'm almost finished with kit, IMO here's what it would really benefit from:
1. Replacement Beule
2. New landing gear. The three piece landing gear assembly is over-engineered and rickety even when assembled with copious amounts of glue. I think Eduard might be doing a replacement set in metal.
3. A new spinner (included in Allee Cat set). Revell did a good job with the shape but it's poorly engineered and missing detail at the spinner base.
4. Decals: a word of warning, the decals are thick and resistant to solvent. Revell is fielding complaints on their quality and working to resolve them. The slection of A/M decals for the G-6 is staggering though so really not an issue.
Obviously the kit will benefit from A/M exhausts and guns but this is true of Hasegawa as well. The Revell kit is more difficult to build than Hasegawa, this is primarily due to the multi-variant engineering. The parts fit well but you'll be filling and sanding in areas that you won't have to with the Hasegawa.
The Revell kit is an upgrade over the Hasegawa kit in regards to a couple length and contour areas, although IMO these are areas that 99% of people wouldn't notice or get stressed about anyway. A couple of areas are major upgrades (the landing gear bay for one). But I think for most people the decision over what kit to go with will boil down to price. I live in Japan and the Hasegawa kits are very reasonably priced here (mid $30 range) so price really isn't an issue for me. I'm sure I'll buy a few more Revell kits (especially if they do an Erla G-10) but Hasegawa is still my preferred kit due to the engineering and ease of assembly.
Whichever kit you choose will be a solid starting point that will take a little A/M to get up to snuff.
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We'll be kicking off a "build-off" at the LSM forums in a couple of weeks for this one. Five of us will be doing a concurrent build-up/review, we've got some knowledgeable 109 people and great modelers involved.
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Aaaand.... RLM 83 was Dark blue.
I'm not going to start painting my 109's blue quite yet. The fact remains that there were two late war greens, what we've been referring to as RLM 82 and 83. I've read the "RLM 83 is blue theory", but to me at this point it's a theory.
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Thanks! The grass mat (this one is AUTUMN BROWN SAVANNAH GRASS MAT) is by Silfor, good stuff but a little pricey. They come in 12" x 19" sheets, It took 2 1/2 sheets of them to completely cover the piece 1/4" poster board that I use as a base, but actually two of them would suffice for the majority of 1/32 projects. I've been eyeing them for a long time and finally bit the bullet to buy six of the mats a few months back.
Full range here, always had great service from these folks too:
http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1042&pagenumber=1&sort_on=&sort_by=
New Eduard 1/48 Gustav. What's the assessment ?
in Props
Posted
Indeed and there is probably an even larger amount of people parroting misinformation they pick up and talking out the side of their neck which is why many people have developed an aversion to many of these self-proclaimed experts. There are several people who I hold in very high esteem on the subject of 109's, others should abide by the old Mark twain quote "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
We also have a segment of the hobby who have pretty much forsaken building models in favor of finding every possible flaw so they have an excuse not to build them. I'm concerned about accuracy, I'm also concerned about kit engineering and how to actually fix flaws on the kit. Some of these guys have no clue to go about that since they're no longer modelers or never really were to begin with.
Most people found it pretty humorous, myself included. If you can't laugh at yourself occasionally you're taking a hobby way too seriously. I don't have a problem with people pointing inaccuracies on a kit, it's the ridiculous commentary and hyperbole that usually accompanies it. Someone posted an exceptionally well done Eduard 109G at another site and of course one somebody had to chime in with "nice job, too bad it's not 1/48". Really? If you wonder why some people don't have a lot of tolerance for rivet counters there's your answer. The heavy-handed commentary and more than a small measure of elitism that some people possess are every bit as responsible for the arguments as those of the "just build it" crowd. It takes two to tango.
I'll pass. 1/48 is dead, it just doesn't know it yet! ;-)