Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141B: Part 3

At the end of my previous post, I’d finally managed to assemble the complicated crew gondola of my aircraft. After that, I finished off masking its many, many windows, and then set about airbrushing the underside in RLM 65 pale blue enamel, and the topside in a splinter pattern of RLM 70/71 greens, all from Sovereign Hobbies.

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, basic painting 2
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, basic painting 1
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, basic painting 3
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All surfaces were sealed with a layer of Plastikote gloss, ready for the kit’s relatively small supply of decals.

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, underside decals
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, topside decals
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Then I belatedly turned my attention to the propeller and engine. The Bv 141B’s 14-cylinder BMW 801A engine proved to be its downfall, because these engines were scarce and going to other aircraft The kit’s representation of the engine is half-hearted—just the front seven cylinders, and those undersized. But the engine will be largely concealed by the fan mounted behind the propeller (which, mercifully, the kit has rotating in the correct direction, unlike its rendering of the propeller, which I had to replace).

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, propeller and engine parts
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The fan of exhaust stubs, to be mounted behind the engine cowling, provides sixteen rather randomly positioned exhausts. It’s difficult to be sure from photographs of the real thing, but I believe I count twelve outlets, arrayed in a 2:1:3 pattern on each side, with the 3-cluster set a little higher on the starboard side.

Bv 141B exhaust reference
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Here’s the kit part, before and after corrective surgery:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, exhaust revision, before & after
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After a little painting of the engine parts, it was time to glue all the big bits together and strip off the canopy masks, producing something that (almost) looked like an aeroplane. Here’s the result after a little weathering (dry-brushed silver enamel, LifeColor Liquid Pigment, and some Tamiya powders) sealed with Plastikote matt:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, matt finish 1
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, matt finish 2
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, matt finish 3
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Only a little tidying up was required when I popped off the hatches and upper turret:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, fore gondola
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(There’s a little flake of paint sitting on the main spar in the photograph above, but I fished it out with a cocktail stick.)

The way the kit parts are configured forces the upper gun to point directly backwards, but that would foul the open hatch, so I did a little surgery and swung the gun around to a half-left position:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, rear gondola
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I added the Eduard photoetch gun mount to the underside of the turret, with a little bit of styrene strip added to provide the mounting cross-bar, and then slid the final assembly over the gun barrel and into position. Then I sealed the hole in the dome with a little blob of Kristal Klear:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, upper turret
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, top turret 1
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Which I then painted red-brown to emulate the leather weather-seal around the real thing:

Bv 141 upper turret
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, top turret 2
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The undercarriage went on:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, gear 1
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, gear 2
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Then I flipped it the right way up to add a final few details, including my little punch-out panel frame, and the open hatches:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141, canopy panel
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Finally, I applied a bit more weathering with Tamiya powders. These aircraft seem to have faded and chipped fairly readily:

Bv 141 weathering 1
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But I wanted to emulate the more subtle pattern of fading visible in some photographs:

Bv 141 weathering 2
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Here’s the final result:

Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 1
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 2
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 3
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 4
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 5
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 6
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 7
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 8
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 9
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 10
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 11
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 13
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 14
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 15
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 16
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 17
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 18
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Hobby Boss 1/48 Bv 141 completed 19
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