Correcting the Italeri Bf 109F

[Touvdal]

For a number of years I have been hoping for a mainstream affordable F, but non so far accept the Italeri.

But it has some serious issues that are visible to the naked eye.

1: Wheels to big

2: landing gear to wide

3: Spinner to flat and short

4: Panel lines and slats wrong

5: wheel well to wide, missing teardrop flaring.

There might be more, but none that I consider serious.

This is not a state of the art conversion, just a try to make it look like a F.

So I thought I would try and see what I could do about it, without putting to much work into it.

1. Wheels had some in the spare part box so no problem and aftermarket are to find.

2. This challenge needed some surgery, cut the wheel well more into the middle of the underwing section, removed the original landing gear mountings, and replaced them with some plastic tubing more to the middle.

3. Spinner also came from the spare box, donation of a Revell G-10, witch has to have it prop replaced as what is I this set is unusable, aftermarket are also available here.

4. Gave it some green putty, and sanded it down, I do not believe that panel line are visible I 1/72, so I did not bother to rescribe. The slants on the otter hand I rescibed as the together with rudder lines are clearly visible.

5. Inserted some 0.25mm plastic card, made them look better.

6. The of course had to make some new landing gear flarings, used some plasticcard.

7. The teardrop flarings where made as copies of some from a Acadamy wing, just took a piece of plastic heated it until soft, pressed over the flaring, and used it as a master to press a other piece of heated plastic into to get the teardrop flaring, worked quite well.

It is now more or less finished, gave a coat of 76 to show how it look with a bit of paint also.

I have used the 1/72 drawing from one of AJ-Press books as reference, for measurements.

Cheers

Jes

[Touvdal]

[Touvdal]

[Chuck1945]

Nice improvements, looks good

[dancho]

This kit is an abomination. I admire your courage. Did you lengthen the landing gear struts? You need to do this if you replace the oversize wheels. The larger wheels give the kit the right "sit" because the struts are too short! What a mess.

[Ham]

I also salute you. And I'm ordering another Fine Molds Bf 109F kit.

[Abakan]

This kit is an abomination. I admire your courage. Did you lengthen the landing gear struts? You need to do this if you replace the oversize wheels. The larger wheels give the kit the right "sit" because the struts are too short! What a mess.

+1

You, Sir ( OP ), have my respect. I would not dare to touch that POS of a kit and just get a Finemolds 109.

WTH were they thinking?

[J.C. Bahr]

Like the rest, I gotta applaud the attempt, but any amount of extra work that has to be put in that kit totally justifies the extra cost of the Finemolds version!

On the day I bought the said "abomination" if there had been an Italeri rep near me I would've thrown it at them! About the only thing salvageable out of it is probably a few extra pieces and the decals to do Galland's bird out of another kit, but even then I suspect there'd be some questions to accuracy since the rest of the kit is trash.

[crazydon]

I also salute you. And I'm ordering another Fine Molds Bf 109F kit.

What he said (I just got another batch of 3 last week, plus others... )

Edited November 19, 2010 by crazydon

[Touvdal]

This kit is an abomination. I admire your courage. Did you lengthen the landing gear struts? You need to do this if you replace the oversize wheels. The larger wheels give the kit the right "sit" because the struts are too short! What a mess.

Well the landing gear legs are actually the right, lenght have checked aganins the drawing.

cheers

Jes

[Shawn C.]

What he said (I just got another batch of 3 last week, plus others... )

Don, What is a good, somewhat affordable source for FineMolds -109's. I bought two or three from you a few years ago (I think it was you!) and now I need some more to build.

[crazydon]

Don, What is a good, somewhat affordable source for FineMolds -109's. I bought two or three from you a few years ago (I think it was you!) and now I need some more to build.

Depends on what you define as affordable, I've used this site for my last few Fine Molds runs

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/plamo/

http://www.1999.co.jp/search_e.asp?Typ1_c=...ne+Molds+Bf+109

As you can see, USD price ends up to be about $21.00 bucks, a tad pricey for some but outside of the US Nats a couple times or luck on Evilbay (I nailed a G-2 and Ki 61 for $5.00 each once over the summer, with shipping they ended up $9.00 apiece but that was pure luck :P ) their the most reliable and best price if you buy in batchs like I did.

I now have 3-4 each F variant plus dups on the entire line I would build more than 1 of that way. I figure since I like the Bf 109 might as well not mess around trying to scrounge the suckers.

You also might try Rainbow 10 but I think these guys are better to deal with

Couple things to know if you use them. If you want to get the G-6 get this boxing.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10056964

It's listed there as a G-4 but is a G-6. It has both style canopies in it plus the underwing cannons if you want to do a gunboat G-6.

If you want a G-4 get the Hartman boxing, it has the cannons also.

Edited November 19, 2010 by crazydon

[Chuck1945]

Depends on what you define as affordable, I've used this site for my last few Fine Molds runs

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/plamo/

http://www.1999.co.jp/search_e.asp?Typ1_c=...ne+Molds+Bf+109

...

Couple things to know if you use them. If you want to get the G-6 get this boxing.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10056964

It's listed there as a G-4 but is a G-6. It has both style canopies in it plus the underwing cannons if you want to do a gunboat G-6.

If you want a G-4 get the Hartman boxing, it has the cannons also.

Yes the Finnish AF G-6 is definitely the way to go because of the alternate canopy. The only disappointment is that now the underwing 20mm cannon barrels are now plastic and when the initial G-6/R-2 boxing was done a couple (or more) years ago, the cannon barrels were nicely done metal barrels.

All the G series lower wings have flashed over holes for the cannon gondolas, so you really are able to mix 'n match armament options.

For Jes (the OP) - in spite of the opinion of most that the Italeri kit is best reduced to stretched sprue, you have opted to make a few corrections to the Italeri kit spending labor time that you have instead of $$ that you may not have - as long as it works for you, great! For many of us the cost difference between the Italeri kit and the FM isn't enough to justify the labor involved in correcting at least some of its faults.

[crazydon]

For Jes (the OP) - in spite of the opinion of most that the Italeri kit is best reduced to stretched sprue, you have opted to make a few corrections to the Italeri kit spending labor time that you have instead of $$ that you may not have - as long as it works for you, great! For many of us the cost difference between the Italeri kit and the FM isn't enough to justify the labor involved in correcting at least some of its faults.

Ain't that the truth :P

[The Mikester]

Guys, I have a very large stash of FM 109's that I am thinning out due to my new affection for 1/32. I can cut you a good deal, I would prefer to sell in bulk rather than nickel and dime and them out though (getting ready to move overseas and my time to run down to the P.O. is limited and these are in storage at the ex's place).

PM me if you're interested.

Edited November 19, 2010 by The Mikester

[crazydon]

Guys, I have a very large stash of FM 109's that I am thinning out due to my new affection for 1/32. I can cut you a good deal, I would prefer to sell in bulk rather than nickel and dime and them out though (getting ready to move overseas and my time to run down to the P.O. is limited and these are in storage at the ex's place).

PM me if you're interested.

PM sent, I promise not to be a pig guys

[dancho]

Well the landing gear legs are actually the right, lenght have checked aganins the drawing.

cheers

Jes

Well, if you replace the wheels and don't alter the struts, the result will look funny sitting next to any other 109 kit. I know this because I did it. All the 109's had their noses pointed in the air at the same angle, except for little Eye-tie. His nose wasn't pointing up enough, and the others made fun of him.

[crazydon]

Well, if you replace the wheels and don't alter the struts, the result will look funny sitting next to any other 109 kit. I know this because I did it. All the 109's had their noses pointed in the air at the same angle, except for little Eye-tie. His nose wasn't pointing up enough, and the others made fun of him.

Sounds like my Fine Molds 109's sitting next to my Tamiya Emil's that scale, the FM kits all call the Tamiya ones "Stumpy" or "Shorty"

[Touvdal]

Well, if you replace the wheels and don't alter the struts, the result will look funny sitting next to any other 109 kit. I know this because I did it. All the 109's had their noses pointed in the air at the same angle, except for little Eye-tie. His nose wasn't pointing up enough, and the others made fun of him.

How did you get that idea ??, compared your self ??

Here you can see no serious difference between the Acadamy left and Italery right.

cheers

Jes

Edited November 20, 2010 by Touvdal

[Chuck1945]

If in fact the Italeri gear legs are too short, your relocation of them into new mountings probably also mostly fixed any length issues.