Subject: Re: Ju188 submission for ARC
From: "Steve Bamford" <[email-masked]>
To: "Ian Robertson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 00:17:39 -0800

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Robertson" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 1:15 PM
Subject: Ju188 submission for ARC

Hi Steve,

Attached are several scaled images (640 pixels) of my DML/Dragon Ju188 in
1/48 scale for your consideration to display on ARC.  A brief article is
included below.

All the best,
Ian Robertson

Junkers Ju.188A-2 Rächer

by Ian Robertson

Description

The Ju.188 evolved from the basic Ju.88 design, with a large tail
characteristic of the Ju.88G series, extended wing tips, and a distinctive
"egg-shaped" cockpit gondola.  Operationally the Ju.188 participated in
pathfinding operations, bombing raids over England, anti-shipping strikes
and reconnaissance missions.  The Ju.188 seldom equipped entire units,
rather it was distributed primarily to Ju.88 units for specialized missions.
My model depicts an oddly camouflaged aircraft from KG6.

The Model

I converted Dragon's 1/48 Ju.188E-1 kit into a Ju.188A-2 using parts from
Dragon's Ju.88G-1/G-10 kit.  The conversion was necessary because the
Ju.188E-1 had a BMW radial engine whereas the Ju.188A-2 had a Jumo 213
in-line engine.  Luckily, the Dragon Ju.88G-1/G-10 kit contains both engine
types, so I scavenged the parts without compromising my future Ju.88G model.
The kit went together well, although typical for the Dragon Ju.88/188 series
there were minor fit problems at the wing roots and the attachment point of
the cockpit to the fuselage.  The engine nacelles also required some work to
fit them smoothly to the wing.  I dropped the flaps using resin replacements
from Cutting Edge.  Etched brass gun sights, cockpit details and cable
cutters were supplied with the kit.  I added seatbelts from Reheat and
weighted resin tires from True Details.  The seal where the nose cannon and
cockpit meet was made from thin plastic wrap attached with CA glue and
painted brown.

The upper fuselage and right wing have patches of RLM76 interrupted by
RLM66, whereas the left wing has the standard RLM 70/71 splinter scheme.
The inconsistent camouflage styles may indicate that the original photos
were taken while the aircraft was in the process of being re-painted.  The
black undersurfaces were painted using a mixture of RLM66 and black.  The
propellers and spinners were painted RLM70, and the undercarriage RLM02.
Highly thinned black paint was sprayed unevenly over the upper surfaces to
give the plane a dirty overall appearance.  All painting was done using
Polly Scale acrylics.  Clear parts were dipped in Future Floor Wax prior to
assembly and painting.

Photography

All images were taken outdoors on a bright autumn day with a SONY S-75
digital camera set at its highest picture resolution (2048 x 1536 pixels).
Other camera settings were as follows: 200 ISO film speed (even though it is
a digital camera!), 800th/sec shutter speed, F-stop 8.0, and fixed focus
distance of either 20 or 30 cm.  Images were cleaned up using Adobe
Photoshop 6.0 for the Macintosh.  Specifically, the interface between the
base and background were merged using the software's "blur" tool.