1/48 Hasegawa Messerschmitt 109G-10

by Brad Main

Photos by Steve Bamford 

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The Plane

I built this plane purely because I wanted to build a plane with Hartmann’s signature all over it, but couldn’t decide which of his 109’s to build. The hypothetical aircraft with small snipits of info on it is a Bf-109G-10 from I Gruppe JG52 flown as the Gruppenkommandeur April 1945. There isn’t a whole lot of proof that he even flew this plane with this WrkNr, and even worse, he might not have flown a G-10 with the cowl bulges on it to make room for the new DB 605D powerplant. There is a single picture showing him by the cockpit showing a smoothened out refined cowling.

The Model

I built the kit right out of the box, with the exception of a small piece of craft wire for the fuel line inside the cockpit and after market decals from Aeromaster. I used sheet # PAF 48-04. 

I used Model Master Acrylics and painted the kit using shades of Panzer Red-Brown as RLM 81 (MM RLM 81 looked too green for me) and RLM 82 for the upper surfaces/mottle and RLM 84 for the lower fuselage and under surfaces. I say the word shades because I mixed a ¼ portion of flat white with the base colors. 

I used shapes of stiff bonded paper for the camouflage and a template with cut out holes in different shapes for the mottle. I used RLM 04 for the fuselage band, under the cowl and underside of the wing tips. I had to strip the paint scheme twice before I got it the way I wanted it. I should have followed the paint up with a coat of gloss, but thought that the semi-gloss MM paint would be enough to apply the decals. Boy was I wrong. All the stencils showed silvering which would probably wreck any chances of this model competing in a show. After the decals, I applied a coat of clear flat, which toned down the aircraft from looking new, but it still wasn’t quite where I wanted it. After 24 hours of drying time, I looked to find a way to fade the paint. After asking many a question of my modeling buddies, I took a very, very thinned paint cup of flat white and carefully misted this on with my airbrush at a low airflow pressure as possible. This seemed to work. 

I am not great at weathering, so I left that alone, but did use a wash of burnt umber oil paint to all panel lines, wheel wells, doors and struts. I also used pastels for the exhaust and the underside of the cowling.

(click on the image below to load the full size photo)

This was only my third attempt at modeling with an airbrush and as you can see, anyone can do it. I really enjoyed the build of this model, as frustrating as it was at times. I wish to thank Steve Bamford who took the awesome pictures. Steve.....you are da man..!

Brad

Editors note:  You're quite welcome Brad!!!  SB

Photos and text © by Brad Main