Hobby 2000 BF-109 E4 1/32

[paddy]

I think...not sure but this is the Dragon kit.
I really like the Hobby2000 kits, a lot of the are Hasegawa. they are nicely boxed good glossy colour instruction. High quality decals, all the ones i have built include some PE and canopy masks and frets are individually bagged. Best of all they are priced at less than the original boxings as far as i have found.

First up was the instrument panel..
The kit part is nice but its quite small and the kit doesnt include decals for it. I decided to buy a PE set but this was pretty poor as well. Incidentally although marketed as HGW, once unwrapped its all marked Eduard.

The dial have not been printed very well... or at all in I did comment about this too #Hannants and they said, they had looked at the others in stock and they are all the same but it wouldn't notice on the finished model.......well if it wouldn't notice, why sell them They did in fairness offer a refund.
I gave it some thought and i have some individual decals from airscale so i decided to use the parts above as a template and simply put new dials over the old and then give them a coat of future to fix them...

First test fit showed......i had got some dials all crooked and some just didnt line up.lol Come on Paddy, pull your finger out ....
Anyway the 2nd attempt has worked and i now have a passable instrument panel

Bit rough round the edges but that is intentional

 

[paddy]

Next up i am looking at the engine. Again i could buy an Eduard high detail effort but i have found that although they are very nice there is usually some consequences, ie: never straight forward. So lets see what we can do with the kit parts and save a load of Dosh

this is what you get, its pretty comprehensive so i am off to google Daimler-Benz DB 601

Probably best not to mention it but i think they have put this in upside down

 

[moon puppy]

Probably best not to mention it but i think they have put this in upside down

This from a guy who drives on the wrong side of the road.

Let's scrape those molded spark plug wires off and up that game!

 

[Sharkmouth]

Since Dragon only made the Emil series in 1/32nd scale, this must be the Hasegawa effort. However, I don't recall Hobby 2000 releasing a Kurfust in 1/32nd scale. Would you be able to post a photo of the box top?

 

[paddy]

Its not going to happen Bob. I have looked in to it but i dont have drills small enough to drill the conduit, smallest i have is 0.4 mm , about 12 thou, and thats the smallest my pin chuck will take. I am just not set up for work that small although i spent a lifetime as a toolmaker where 0.4mm was enormous. I used to surface grind to less than 5microns as a std tolerance so that was 1/5th of a thousandth of an inch ....

 

[paddy]

This is 1/32 Paul

I chose this because its very much what i think of a Battle of Britain aircraft and in the colours i would expect.

 

[paddy]

This from a guy who drives on the wrong side of the road.

Actually its because we beat the Germans .............we still drive on the correct side of the road

 

[jknaus]

Next up i am looking at the engine. Again i could buy an Eduard high detail effort but i have found that although they are very nice there is usually some consequences, ie: never straight forward. So lets see what we can do with the kit parts and save a load of Dosh

View attachment 173859

this is what you get, its pretty comprehensive so i am off to google Daimler-Benz DB 601

View attachment 173860

Probably best not to mention it but i think they have put this in upside down

The K4 used the DB 605 engine so the 601 is going to be a bit off for references Paddy. OOPS, this is an E4. I changed your title from K4 to E4. Ignore the rest of this answer.
James

 

[Sharkmouth]

OOPS, this is an E4. I changed your title from K4 to E4.

This is why I was head scratching that this was a Dragon release... So I asked for the box top. Yes, it is the Dragon/Cyber Hobby Wingtech Series release. It is a nice kit. You can see inside the box by clicking the box top:

 

[paddy]

Oh dear... not a great start then, at least i got the Dragon bit right. loads of unused parts so you need to be careful and as your in box pics show, a bomb and fuel tanks on an E4 ( but not in the instructions) so they were thinking E7 and others no doubt...I did spend a little while on the wrong instrument panel before i corrected my self.
My advice would be to used the diagram of unused parts to remove them from the sprues before you start.
Thanks James/Saul

 

[moon puppy]

BTW...

 

[centaur567]

Looking forward to this. Gary S.

 

[Greg Kimsey]

I think...not sure but this is the Dragon kit.
I really like the Hobby2000 kits, a lot of the are Hasegawa. they are nicely boxed good glossy colour instruction. High quality decals, all the ones i have built include some PE and canopy masks and frets are individually bagged. Best of all they are priced at less than the original boxings as far as i have found.

First up was the instrument panel..
The kit part is nice but its quite small and the kit doesnt include decals for it. I decided to buy a PE set but this was pretty poor as well. Incidentally although marketed as HGW, once unwrapped its all marked Eduard.

View attachment 173856

The dial have not been printed very well... or at all in I did comment about this too #Hannants and they said, they had looked at the others in stock and they are all the same but it wouldn't notice on the finished model.......well if it wouldn't notice, why sell them They did in fairness offer a refund.
I gave it some thought and i have some individual decals from airscale so i decided to use the parts above as a template and simply put new dials over the old and then give them a coat of future to fix them...

View attachment 173857

First test fit showed......i had got some dials all crooked and some just didnt line up.lol Come on Paddy, pull your finger out ....
Anyway the 2nd attempt has worked and i now have a passable instrument panel


View attachment 173858

Bit rough round the edges but that is intentional

Passable?!! Your idea of passable is very similar to my idea of spectacular! That looks frikken awesome my friend.

 

[Greg Kimsey]

This from a guy who drives on the wrong side of the road.

Let's scrape those molded spark plug wires off and up that game!

I can almost guarantee that is going to happen. Pad’s got game!

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Watching and taking notes.

 

[Greg Kimsey]

My advice would be to used the diagram of unused parts to remove them from the sprues before you start.

I did that on the 1/32 F-16 Israeli jet. It made things infinitely easier for me.

 

[paddy]

I have chickened out of the engine while i try and think of a way to improve it without after market. so
this is the Pit. Its just balanced together here as there are a few problems.

The first problem is the rudder pedals foul a box on the side of the fuselage stopping the whole ting sitting in place

You can see here the rudder pedal up against the offending box.

may be just remove the box, its not going to be seen once its all buttoned up. I just wish someone would test build these things before they go into production, especially when it goes into production for a second or third time with a different manufacturer. I am also told the fairing panel over the guns here is a well know problem on this kit .... no excuse for this sort of thing really.

To others building this. The cockpit section above involves a lot of parts which have to align with others so you have to look ahead, dont follow the instructions sequence, you will end up ungluing parts to fit others that should have been fitted first. The cock pit assembly above does not include everything called out in this step. To fit those parts now like the lower wing centre section would make the chances of the whole assembly then fitting well between the fuselage side pretty unlikely as they would be too many contact point that would have to align.
Its not a major problem but be forewarned.

 

[moon puppy]

Think I would cut that box down to a slither of it's original size. Looks like it's far over stated.

 

[paddy]

This is the Eduard/HGW armour plate for the rear of the cockpit

as you can see it fouls the protrusions near the top ,,, but hang on, it looks out of shape anyway ?

here it on the back of the panel as its flat. The angles at the top are not symmetrical so its always going to look wonky

Scrap that then.....this is the kit part

and painted...who needs PE anyway

 

[moon puppy]

Eduard didn't fit? Say it ain't so!