1/32 Hasegawa Ju 87 G-2

Gallery Article by Luc Janssen on Nov 26 2012

 

 

When I decided to build a Ju 87 G-2, I had in mind to make a heavily weathered winter- camouflaged tank hunter. However, after checking different books and publications I was very attracted by the usual German ‘every day’ green – green camouflage with a lot of dirt marks and oil strains. To obtain a good contrast, I decided to make a green-green Ju 87 G-2 parked on a snow covered airstrip. I found many photographs of such scenes.

An article about this Ju 87 G-2 was recently published in Air Modeller (Nr 43).

Building
Although the Hasegawa kit is beautiful and well detailed, I wanted to change some parts and I used following aftermarkets sets, namely:

  • Robert Schatton 37 mm gun barrels

  • Eduard Ju 87 G-2 Stuka Interior 

  • Eduard Ju 87 D/G Stuka Cockpit Set

  • Voyagermodel Weighted wheels

Assembling the model is fairly easy as the parts fit together well and only a minor correction with putty is needed. The Eduard Cockpit Set is extremely well detailed, but rather difficult to install nicely. I went for a very good cleaning of the parts and different dry-fits of the whole cockpit interior to be sure of the correct construction and a perfect installation in the fuselage when closing.

Once convinced of the right fit of the parts of the interior set, I assembled the whole using Super Glue. In the left fuselage I positioned the side wall with the floor while the right fuselage received only the side wall. Some parts were left apart to be painted separately.

For the seat belts I wanted to use the Eduard set, but the general impression of these belts, although extremely well detailed, is too artificial!  With lead foil from an old toothpaste tube I made new belts and formed more realistic poses. These new belts were hand painted, some decals were applied, coated with varnish and weathered. 

As the Germans sometimes dismantled the wheel covers when mud lodgement could cause trouble, I decided to present an uncovered landing gear. Although I had bought an after -market set of gear forks from Master Casters , they did not impress me and I went for scratch building! With thick sprue I made rough U-shaped forms using the kitchen oven and the force of gravity! The sprue was placed on a rod with the right diameter and put in the oven. When the sprue began to weaken and bend nicely over the rod, I opened the oven to stop the warming up and I obtained the basic form. With lots of sanding (and lots of patience) I succeeded to make well looking gear forks on which I added the necessary details.

To give the model a more dynamic look, I changed the angle of the elevators in the upside position. The separation of the elevators and the mass balances was done with a dental tool with very sharp point. By repeatedly running the point of this needle- shaped tool over the joints, the parts come loose without problems and with sharp edges. The elevator trims now also had to be adapted and I made new ones from sheet styrene. The kit trim actuators were partly replaced by stretched copper wire. 
As the kit actuators of the flaps and ailerons are on the heavy side, I replaced them by pins . At the top of the tail I added the attachment point for the wire antenna.

The gun pods from the kit need further detailing as well, thus I added some small bits and pieces and wiring. The holes in the attachment brackets were drilled out and the brass 37 mm barrels dry fitted to be sure the finished pods would have the correct look once painted and installed under the wings.

For the landing light I used a small piece of Acryl that I prepared to fit precisely in the existing recess in the wing leading edge. The back and the sides of this piece were then sanded and highly polished and glued in the recess. Once the glue had hardened, I formed the correct look of the landing light cover by sanding and polishing the Acryl. The navigation lights, which are not foreseen in the kit, were made from the shafts of old coloured tooth brush.

 

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Painting
Reference pictures of Stuka’s show different ways of applying the camouflage colours although, knowing the ‘Deutsche Gründlichkeit’, the pattern is always the same. Some photos show neat lines between the colours, both between Dark Green (RLM 71) and Black Green (RLM 70) upperside and the Light Blue (RLM 65) underside while other photos show sprayed paints limits with a ‘misty transition’ as well between the upper side colours as between the upper- and underside colours. I decided to go for the ‘misty transition’ upperside with a sharp line with the Light Blue underside.

I do not paint models using the ‘pre-shading system’ but prefer to give colour tone effects with pastels .

I started to give the model a coat of Dark Green (RLM 71) on the complete upper surfaces. Using the camouflage pattern printed on the building instructions of the kit, I cut out the Dark Green parts of the pattern on aluminium foil, creating masks. Then, with tape used to apply mirrors to walls or cupboards, I put these aluminium masks on the model (as the ‘mirror-tape’ is very adhesive, it always has to be applied on Tamiya tape before to be put on the model itself). This way, a small gap is created between the surface to be painted and the mask and a nice and constant separation is obtained between the colours.

The masks in place, I sprayed the Black Green (RLM 70) with low pressure ( 0,5 bar), carefully keeping the airbrush vertically on the edges of the aluminium covers.

The next step were the Light Blue (RLM 65) undersides of the model. After masking the painted Dark and Black Green upper sides with Tamiya tape, the Light Blue was sprayed with a sharp demarcation line as result. I painted the gun pods following the same working method.

The main- and tail landing gear were coated with Green-Grey (RLM 02). 

I sprayed the complete model and the loose individual parts with a first coat of Gloss varnish (1part Varnish – 1,5 parts of thinner) and, after thorough drying, a second coat (1 part Varnish – 3 parts thinner) was applied.

After the decaling and first weathering , I gave the model another 2 coats of a mixture of Dull and Gloss Varnish, the first coat consisting in 2 parts Varnish (5 parts Dull + 1,5 parts Gloss) with 3 parts thinner and the second coat in 1 part of the same mixture and 2 parts of thinner. 

The visible parts of the interiors of the model were painted Black Grey (RLM 66) and dry brushed with a mixture of Grey and White oil paint. To finish the paint job of the interior, the Eduard Stuka interior photo edge set with many dials and placards is very attractive, but in fact too detailed and very fragile. I used only a limited number of these dials and placards and hand painted the majority of the visible details. The complete interior was coated with a mixture of varnish ( 5 parts Dull + 2 parts Gloss) and the paint- chipping effects in the cockpit were created with Aluminium, applied with a small brush and a small sponge.

Decals
I used the decal set of EagleCals Ju 87 G Stuka and applied the decals following the proven Micro Set & Micro Sol system. To avoid any silvering of the decals, I kept puncturing the decals with a needle while putting Micro Sol over and over again until the results were perfect and no silvering could be seen. To loosen the decals, I always use hot water instead of luke warm water, as indicated on the decal instructions.

Weathering
For the weathering of a model, I use my own system which consists of 2 steps, the first on the glossy coat of Varnish and the second on a lightly shiny finishing coat of Varnish.

On the glossy Varnish
With pastel powder bars you can buy in every shop for drawing materials, I make pastel powder sanding the bars on sanding paper glued on a thicker piece of sheet styrene. Depending on the colours of the model, I use darker or lighter tones. For the upper sides of this model, I used a mixture of Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna and Yellow and another mixture of Burnt Umber, Grey and Black. The undersides were treated with a mixture of Blue and Grey. Working with pastels on a glossy surface has the big advantage that, even with intense weathering, the surface is not affected too heavily and ‘overdones’ can be corrected by cleaning with a wet cloth. The panel lines were accentuated with Dark Brown and Black colour pencils, still on the glossy surfaces. On the places where the aircraft is boarded or serviced, some dirt or oil patches were simulated.

On the finishing coat of Varnish
Once the first weathering is completed and the basic look of the almost finished model seems good, the earlier mentioned finishing coats of varnish ( 5 parts Gloss + 1.5 part Dull) are sprayed over the entire model. On the final coat a second weathering was done (more carefully than the first one) this time with Dark Brown and Black pastel powder. The heavy exhausts strains and other less pronounced airflow strains were simulated and some dirt and mud patches on the inner sides of the wings were created as well.

Finishing the Ju 87 G-2
All details as antenna, pitot tube, boarding steps, gun pods, wheels, flap- and aileron balances, etc. were put in place. I came to the terrible conclusion that the forward canopy did not fit over the glazed rear part behind it! On the internet I checked other already completed Hasegawa models and noticed that other model builders have encountered the same problem as most forward canopies are closed. The few open canopies to be seen indeed show a gap between the canopy and the fuselage. To solve this problem, I constructed the sliding slots for the forward canopy and added sliding pins to the canopy itself. This way the canopy could be installed more correctly. About the rear canopy it is important to remember that the rear gunner’s machine guns were only installed with the canopy almost closed. 

The ground base for the Ju 87 G - 2
Simulating a snow covered base was fairly simple. With a broad brush I applied a thick coat of satin White paint on a piece of unequal vinyl carpeting. The paint still wet, I abundantly scattered icing sugar over the surface and created some tire tracks by rolling 2 wheels, attached together respecting the same distance of the wheels of the model, over the thick layer of paint and icing sugar. Once completely dry, the excess of icing sugar was simply wiped away with a brush. 

I weathered the snow covered base with some light pastels and constructed an ‘in the field made’ sledge, painted and weathered it and loaded it with 2 barrels, some cases and the MG’s of the rear gunner.

Now the Stuka and the sledge were placed on the base, et voilà . . . my Hasegawa Ju 87 G – 2 was finished !

References

  • Aero Detail 11 Junkers Ju 87 D/G Stuka

  • Airlife Junkers Ju 87 Stuka

  • Famous Airplanes of the world Junkers Ju 87 Stuka

  • Kagero Junkers Ju 87 Vol II +III

  • Luftwaffe Colours Stuka

  • Squadron/Signal Ju 87 Stuka in action

Luc Janssen

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Photos and text © by Luc Janssen