Tamiya 1:48 Bf109E-3 ‘Macky Steinhoff’ – Tom Meyers Memorial Build

I was a regular over at another website that I joined about a year before Tom’s sudden death in 2008. I became acquanted with Tom at a relatively early stage as the first Fellowship Build on the site  was organised by him. The build was a competition in association with Accurate Miniatures as Tom was the company’s Art Director and required entrants to simply select and assemble anything from AM’s catalogue. I chose their Il-2 and was lucky enough to win.

Tom was a believer and one of the original members of the site and after prayer and consultation with his family and those on the forums a memorial build in 2009 was agreed.

I chose as my entry, Tamiya’s ultimate ’slammer’, their Bf109E-3 with Tom’s Possum Werks decals for ‘Macky’ Steinhoff’s bird during the Battle of Britain. I hope, when it’s finished, that it will do justice to Tom’s memory. I’ll certainly try…

Eduard’s now quite ancient brass fret for the Tamiya E3 and E4 kits was dragged out of the spares dungeon and yielded a selection of bits to busy up the pilot’s station. You’ll spot belts in there obviously and these pass through an oblong hole in the seat obligingly created by me and ringed with an etched oval of brass so tiny I left the CA alone and fixed it in position easily with gloss enamel varnish. The etched leather strap for what I think was the battery cover was dobbed in with enamel gloss varnish too. I’ll be loosing the hard edge wash staining beside it any day now…

Etched trim wheels, stand and chain were added. The chain terminates in a sprocket but has nothing else to connect it with the fuselage wall, so the Punch & Judy set yielded a disc of card to suit. The etched double panel had the instrument acetate back painted in light grey, not white, as it drops the contrast and looks more in keeping to my eye but that’s just a personal thing. The acetate was ‘glued’ using enamel gloss varnish to the panel rears and further dabs filled in the ‘glass’. The instruments themselves need edging in black and in this scale I ditch the enamel black for artists oil mixed with the UK version of Japan Dryer, Liquin. This viscous paint stays put and is perfect in this application.

Etched seat rails sealed the port side of the deal. The only addition on the starboard side was the etched map case holder – lots more convincing than the moulded version. It’ll grow a map later in the build. From there it was a simple case of closing up the fuselage, adding the wings and sending the lot into traction…

Here’s a gallery of full sized images from this part of the build -

Sunday 15 August 2009:

Just a short update. This is the first aircraft model where I’ve had the foresight to fit the canopy so’s it can weather in with the rest of the paintwork at the same time. Previously I’d leave it off then try to recall what I did to the airframe as I’d frantically try to make the two match…

The white, narrow lines are oil paint used to blend parts together. The kit provides dropped flaps and deciding to buck the trend I whopped mine up. The upper and lower rear fuselage seams were zapped with CA then reinstated with a scriber ala the advice Floyd Werner hands out. The joint on the real aircraft was in the form of lapped panels but this is close enough.

Again, with uncharacteristic planning the rads were given a prep with RLM65 and the chin rad with gelb.

To be continued…