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1/72 AZ Models Bf 109G-6/Trop "White 9"


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Why so few Messerschmitts? Ok yes, this is BRITmodeller, but no reason to leave out the most important Axis fighter in the MTO!

 

I have a number of AZ 109s in the stash, and one of my favorite ones is  White 9 ever since I saw it on the box of the older Italeri kit. According to the box, White 9 was flown by Staffelkapitan Emil Clade of JG 27 and operated from "Malemo" which I suspect is a typo of Maleme, Crete.

 

I started work on this kit last week hoping to finish it by Thursday of next week as I am off on holiday and won't be at my modelling desk until the new year. Let's see if I finish.

 

Here's the construction stages up until painting which I hope to do tomorrow. First off, spraying RLM 02 and 66 on the relevant bits

 

IMG_20161208_200559.jpg

 

Cockpit pic taken with flash

 

IMG_20161208_204343.jpg

 

All built up. Lots of putty...

 

IMG_20161209_230432.jpg

 

 

 

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Impressions of this kit:

 

I'm rather underwhelmed by this kit, despite so many people raving about it. It has numerous annoyances that most reviews seem to have ignored.

 

1) Fit is not great. I had to sand off sides of the cockpit piece so that the fuselage sides would fit and even then, the fit wasn't that great. There are noticeable seams on smaller pieces, and others like the cap (?) on the hole behind the rear wheel are impossible to fit without some major surgery. The ammo bulges also have some space on the sides, the radiator also has awful fit and there's some needless complexity in other areas.

 

2) Too many small pieces (with bad fit). Ok I get it, there's so many variants of the 109G that this was bound to be a problem but I think AZ went the route of "minimum molding effort" and could have saved the modeller a lot of headaches if there were a few extra pieces. For example, the starboard ammo bulge comes as the Trop version, which means if you want a non-Trop you have to surgically remove the extra bulges and it's nearly impossible to get a proper rounded shape again. Why couldn't AZ just mold two of these pieces?

 

3) The cockpit is nicely detailed but... what's the point if the canopy can only be displayed closed?

 

4) I expected the spinner to be locked in place by friction but that is not the case. If you don't want to fall off, you'll have to either glue it or scratchbuild something to fasten it from the inside (the manual does not mention this). Again, was it that hard to mold a fastener? No it wasn't.

 

5) The overall feel of the kit is that of a very sophisticated short run kit... or a very unsophisticated steel mold kit. There's minimal locator pins but feels a bit rough around the edges at times. 

 

I do look forward to their F series which from the looks of it has some simplified engineering. But be warned if you're building a Gustav. I guess for the definitive post-Emil 109s we'll have to wait until Eduard decides to have a go at them.

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Ok, I forgot to take a picture of just the paint job so next up was with the decals already in place

 

Decals, as usual with Eastern European kits, are quite fragile and tend to curl. However, this was only a problem with the bigger decals. The stencils were quite easy to place. On the plus side, they conformed to panel lines quite well, without even needing Microsol. They are very thin and defintiely looked painted on in the end.

 

IMG_20161211_182359.jpg

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