Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4 Trop 1/72 Eduard

    Excited about the CS-199 build I didn’t hesitate to put a new tool released Bf-109 F made by Eduard on my workbench. The first look of unboxed kit suggested it is the best best Bf-109 F in the 1/72 scale.

    However, for those with high expectations there are a few imperfections. The kit gives me the impression it was made by someone who is not a modeller. For example, the strange and useless “lock” for fitting the firing channels into the fuselage. For me it’s an extra time of puttying and rescribing the area. Other things I would mention are:
– the assembly of the gunsight is taken over from the 1/48 brother with a flat fitting plane. However, I would expect better “click-clack” solution as in smaller case is more dificult to position and glue the part.
– the front section of fuselage-vertical stabilizer joint has a significant rised plate. I don´t prefer that kind of “excessive” detail and corrected it in way to get smooth transition with panel line.
– the exhausts fit well, but as often happens, the clearance margin for a thin layer of colour is forgotten. So when gluing the painted exhausts on the nearly finished model, I had to adjust it.
– The canopy mask of the middle section is wrong. There is not thick frame, but only thin line depicting the two separate canopy “windows”. Also, attention must be paid to gluing the armor plate, because the lock for the plate in the clear part reaches the frame edge and when viewed from the top, a white sheen can be seen.

There are also features which are very impresive. It is the assembly of landing gear and fuselage guns. I have not seen a better solution in both cases anywhere else. The part with machine guns is the only one that depicts real subject in scale and is nice compared to other kits I have build (AZ model, Zvezda, Finemolds).

Despite higher expectations due to the previous build of the simpler CS-199, I think the kit is very good. In addition to the imperfections mentioned above, I added a lot of my own. For example, I can see from the photos that I didn’t manage well to paint the white rubber at the tail wheel. I traditionally filled the fuselage longitudinal panel line to keep a uniform look on all models built at the time, when I was not aware of a panel split on the Bf-109 fuselage.

The camouflage represents the last “F” piloted by the famous ace of the African theatre, Hans-Joachim Marseille. As I consider Eduard’s decals almost useless, mainly due to the ugly digitally printed colors, I used Life Like Decals instead. The decal sheet dedicated to Marseille´s Bf-109 Fs is a really excelent example for other decal makers. In the sheet we find graphically and color-wise perfect decals with good register. Yellow 14, on the other hand, is too saturated that I tried to tone it down a bit. The sheet also contains detailed descriptions of each Marseille´s aircraft. Furthermore as bonus, there are decals for Marseile’s Kubelwagen with the name OTTO.

As usual, I have more Bf-109 F2,F4,G2,G4 kits in my stash than I have built so far. I am currently having a good time building my second “F” so I think I will be able to turn the ratio stash/finished 🙂