Subject: Re: My Bf109...
From: "Steve Bamford" <[email-masked]>
To: "Ingebrethsen, Kyrre" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 13:08:32 -0700

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you have never been hurt; and
Dance like no one is watching!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ingebrethsen, Kyrre" <[email-masked]>
To: "'Steve Bamford'" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 5:57 PM
Subject: My Bf109...

dammit... I just sent one to Rob and one to Gnather, and they didnt have any
problems. Jim couldnt read my Spitfire pics either. Weird. I'll have a chat
with my Computer Manager.
Here's the article though. I'll send the pics off from a different source.
Hey, you've still got that See-through Fokker DR.1 article I sent you a
while ago? I thought we could just skip that "contest" and do it as a
regular feature instead? Whatever you like.

Kyrre

-------------------------------------------

1:48 Tamiya Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3 or -4... depending on how you look at
it.

This whole project started off 3 or so years ago. I found the Tamiya Bf
109E-3 and thought I'd have a go at it. Never did like the 109, but if I
ever was going to build one it would have to be a Tamiya kit. Easy to
assemble, no fuzz, reasonably accurate. Apparently others think different
about Tamiya kits. Oh well.
Besides what it included decals from a JG77-machine... White 3 from 4th
Staffel, an E3 that was stationed in Norway in 1940, though it made a
somersault in Sweden with Unteroffizier Fröba at the controls (or lack
thereof) towards the end of that year. Nevertheless I found some decals from
Third Group and decided I'd try something different.. though still a JG77
machine for sure. I also stumbled upon a Hi Tech resin cockpit set, and
thought I'd go for some extra details too...

Enough has been said about the Tamiya E3 kit... The cowling is too steep at
the front, and it was even prominent enough for a 109-novice like me, so I
sanded it down, eradicating some details in the process. Never mind, as long
as the profile looks better I thought.
The hi-tech resin was brittle and tough to work with, but I got it right in
the end. As right as a first resin cockpit effort can be.
A year went by.

Picking the kit up again I got ready to put paint to plastic.
For airbrushing I use Acrylics if I can, preferably Aeromaster or Tamiya. I
found out that the "scale lightened" Aeromaster RLM71 looked too bright. Not
too far from my Tamiya RLM02 actually! So I decided to do the RLM02/71 paint
scheme using Tamiya XF-22 with some sand colour mixed in as RLM02,
Aeromaster RLM70 pretending it was RLM71, while the canopy and spinner ended
up being painted with Tamiya XF-27. That paint might be too dark, but it
looked cool, and that's all I needed.
I ended up with a terribly badly painted E3 canopy, the rounded type, so I
decided to steal the Bf109E-4 canopy from the upgraded Tamiya kit (which I
got for free from our hobby shop when it was released. I still haven't built
it. Ahem.). The new canopy is all square. And so it was that my E3 ended up
as an E4 ... meaning I also had to change what markings I was going to
apply.

Another year went by.
Lt Schirmböck of 4./JG77 shot down a Hudson from 269 Sqn just outside
Stavanger, my home town, on May the first 1940. According to the book
"Fledgling Eagles" he flew "White 10"... That's my aircraft. Got the white
"10" from a JG5 FW190-sheet.
(The canopyless E4 is ending up as a wreck by the way. I've got the
Verlinden detail set for the Hasegawa 109 and I'm thinking that the enclosed
and totally useless etched brass framing will do nicely in a crash diorama.
I'm really looking forward to doing that one too.
Guess the hobby shop owner, the guy who gave me the kit, is looking forward
to that review I was going to do too...)

Happy Modelling,

Kyrre>