The year 2023 ended with a pleasant surprise! My favourite online shop, Passion132 held an online lottery and I won this kit! Normally I build 1/48 kits, as they can be built with a nice level of details and (generally) do not take up much space on my selves. Last year I did an exception with the Spitfire FR Mk.IXc in 1/24 so I will make another one this year with this model. They will look nice next to each other!
While at first look the kit looks complete, it does lack some details that are almost compulsory for this scale. The most obvious ommision are the seatbelts so I purchased a set from Eduard.
The Machine Gun barrels on top of the engine looked overly simple, so I replaced them with metal ones from Master Model. Similarly, I replaced the gun barrels of the underwing canons with lenghts of brass tube.
Finally, I replaced the pitot tube on the edge of the wing with a length of plastic rod, as the one that the kit provides is clearly out of scale (it looks more like it is in 1/48 scale).
While building the cockpit, I had to add a few more missing details. I used thin strips of Tamiya masking tape for the straps on the rudder pedals. I added some cabling using led wire. Finally, I recreated the external fuel tank feed line, using a length of plastic rod (with a transparent pice in the middle that apparently the pilot used in order to see the fuel flow).
A lot more detail was needed in the engine compartment. I had to add a lot of pipes and cables that Trumpeter ommited. I also had to scratch-build the sparkplug cabling. Trumpeter provides them in black rubber that is impossible to paint correctly.
Finally, one big point for this kit are the ejector pin marks. They are everywhere! A lot of time was spent filling and filing them.
Paints: I used AK Xtreme Metal “Jet Exhaust” which is in fact black with a hint of metal tint for the engine and the machine guns. The details were then accenuated with aluminum drybrushing. The pipes, cables and engine mounts were painted with Mr Hobby RLM74, RLM66, RLM02 and aluminum. The exhausts were painted with AK Xtreme Metal “Burned Metal”. Brown and Black Tamiya Panel Liner was applied on top, to make the engine compatment look used.
For the cockpit, the main colour was RLM66. Then, the color was chipped with a wet hard paintbrush to reveal the AK Xteme Metal “Dark Alouminum” (and VMS Chipping Fluid) below it. The many small details (buttons, switches, cables) were highlighted with black, white, red & yellow. Wethering was done with Brown and Black Tamiya Panel Liner.
The fuselage pieces and the underwing section required filling the seams with some putty. Then, the rivets and panel lines around the seams were re-scribed.
Painting was done with Mr.Hobby colours, in the “classic” Luftwaffe scheme of RLM 70/74/75/76 with splotches on the fuselage sides. In fact I deviated a little bit from the kit instructions. I used the paint scheme for the same plane that I found in the instructions of Eduard’s Bf 109G-2 1/72 ProfiPack (#70156) as I thought they were more clear than the ones provided by HobbyBoss.
The decals provided by HobbyBoss were very brittle. The first two broke up in pieces as soon as I tried to slide them off the backing paper. So, I used self-made paint masks for the crosses on the wings and fuselage and the yellow plane markings. For the rest of the stencils, I treated the decals with Microscale Liquid Decal Film. It worked its magic for 15 minutes and then they could be applied without breaking up!
Weathering was done with pastels and oil colours.
The work in progress
The finished model
Products Used
| Kit | Box | Scale | Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trumpeter Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2 |  | 1/24 | 02406 |
| Eduard Seatbelts Luftwaffe WWII |  | 1/24 | 23003 |
| Master Model German aircraft machine gun MG 17 barrels |  | 1/24 | AM-24-002 |
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