Eduard Bf-109, 1/72, Swiss

[opus999]

I haven't done a WIP in a few months... it's been hard to find time to get to the bench, much less spend any time here on BM.  Things have lightened up a bit,  so I think I'll have a go at doing a WIP for this project.

 

I'm going to take an Eduard Bf-109G-6 overtrees set and build J-704 of the Swiss Air Force.  There are good pictures and discussion about colors here:

 

I've built J-704 before.  I made the less-than-stellar Airfix G6 kit which had J-704 in Luftwaffe colors and a small tail.  I understand there was a repaint involved because of a crash landing.  Maybe that's why the later pictures of J-704 have the tall tail?  I don't know, did they replace the tail?  Is it even the same airframe?  I've read that it is, but only through word of mouth on the internet.

 

Here's my first J-704:

 

 

At any rate, I'm using the pictures in the link above to determine which parts on the overtrees to use, and how to paint it.  I don't have markings so I'll cut some masks using my new Silhouette cutter and will find some stencils in the spare decal box.

 

Monday night I painted the cockpit parts RLM66 and last night I drybrushed the cockpit in silver and painted the details.  I was also able to add the PE seatbelts to the seat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't get pictures of it, but I was able to put the fuselage halves together and the wings attached last night as well.

 

[Parabat]

Great start.

[Adam Poultney]

This should certainly be a good thread. The kit builds really well, I've done quite a few of them now. Certainly much better than the Airfix attempt which somewhat resembles a Bf109G6. 

[ModelingEdmontonian]

really excited to see this, @opus999! I ordered an Eduard Bf 109G kit the other day, couldn't resist any longer! 

[kruzikrucken]

nice to see a Swiss Gustav! I confirm that the tall tailed J-704 is the same airframe. All Swiss Gustav were retrofitted with the taller tail. The source of them is however still a mistery.

[Mals Way]

Very crisp and sharp cockpit indeed,

and make things real pop out in this scale, 

 

like it alot sir.

[mark.au]

Very happy to see this one, and looking forward to following along. The cockpit looks great, I like using a metallic for light dry brushing too, it really pops the details without overpowering the base colour.

[opus999]

On 4/17/2025 at 1:09 PM, ModelingEdmontonian said:

really excited to see this, @opus999! I ordered an Eduard Bf 109G kit the other day, couldn't resist any longer! 

That's great!  It really is one of the best kits I've ever made. It amazes me how precisely everything fits together.

 

5 hours ago, mark.au said:

Very happy to see this one, and looking forward to following along. The cockpit looks great, I like using a metallic for light dry brushing too, it really pops the details without overpowering the base colour.

I agree -- although, I don't know how much will be seen when its all buttoned up, but i'll have the pictures at least...  

 

So, Wednesday and Thursday nights were overcome by events and I didn't get any bench time.  Today also got busier than expected, but I got a little bit done.

 

First, here's where I left off Tuesday night:

 

 

I forgot to mention that I painted all the RLM02 parts before assembly:

 

 

Today, I set about fixing the few seam issues I found.  You can barely see this one, and its likely my fault from not being careful with the knife:

 

 

This area behind the cockpit had the base for the ring-shaped antenna.  It had sink marks on the port side, which was a bit surprising.  I had to cut off the base anyway, so I needed to work on the area anyway.

 

 

The area in front of the cockpit had a little gap.

 

 

After all that was done I set to finishing the assembly.  Didn't get any pictures when I was done because I was called to dinner, but I'll get some here shortly.  I'd hoped to paint today, but alas....

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

50 minutes ago, opus999 said:

The area in front of the cockpit had a little gap.

 

 

I’ve built 4-5 of the larger variants & on the 1/48 cousins that gap if memory serves is for the cowling piano hinge. Which is a fiddly breakable .5 mm thick piece. So that maybe why it is here on the smaller scale cousin.

Edited April 19 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[opus999]

4 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

I’ve built 4-5 of the larger variants & on the 1/48 cousins that gap if memory serves is for the cowling piano hinge. Which is a fiddly breakable .5 mm thick piece. So that maybe why it is here on the smaller scale cousin.

Yeah, actually the gap I was referring to is aft of that, just directly in front of the cockpit.  I was able to get the fiddly breakable piece into its place with out breaking it, so thank goodness for small favors!

 

So here's where I left it tonight.  Everything that is going to get glued on before painting is glued on.  I also filled in a couple access ports or panels that I couldn't see in the pictures of the real aircraft.

 

 

 

So I think I'll be ready to paint tomorrow.  I will have to draw up the masks for my cutter, but they should be straightforward.  The numbers might not be, but we'll see.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

13 hours ago, opus999 said:

Yeah, actually the gap I was referring to is aft of that, just directly in front of the cockpit.  I was able to get the fiddly breakable piece into its place with out breaking it, so thank goodness for small favors!

Oh … Yea thats on the big ones as well. Its a design flaw if you ask me. 

[opus999]

I drew up my stencils in Inkscape and cut them on the Silhouette yesterday.  They look really good -- I was pretty nervous about the lettering being too small to cut properly, but it turned out great.  Then I turned to masking.  

 

 

I always underestimate how long masking will actually take. So, I had big hopes of having both the red and white on by the end of the day, but no luck.

 

A nice coat of Mr. Surfacer 1500 black later....

 

 

Then I painted the white.  I did some marbling, but I didn't want to overdo it because this was likely a fairly clean aircraft.  White being what it is, it didn't take long to wipe out any effect the marbling made.  Oh well.  I was so fixated on making sure it didn't look too worn/dirty, that I neglected to think about how white (and red when it goes on) are strong, bright colors and need a little exaggeration in the marble effect to look right.

 

 

I've got a few things planned today, so I don't know if I'll get to the red or not, but that's certainly my goal.

 

 

 

[opus999]

I forgot to mention, I really had to scrutinize the photos to figure out which windshield to use.  Eduard provides every possible permutation (which is great), but without instructions to guide me, I had to be very observant with the photos.  Luckily, it turned out to be pretty easy to figure out.

[bigbadbadge]

Looking good so far, great job.

Chris

[opus999]

8 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looking good so far, great job.

Chris

Thanks Chris!

 

This morning I put on the masks that I cut with my Silhouette cutting machine.

 

 

 

I wanted to have a marble effect, but using black to do it seemed like it would be too much contrast.  So I used Mr. Color's Red Brown instead.

 

 

Over that I sprayed red and removed the masks.

 

 

I realize it might have been a good idea to leave the masks on for when I do the camouflage, but I wanted to see how it looked and it will be easier to mask than the first time.  I'm disappointed that there was a little bleed under and a few places with "under spray", so I will need to fix those.  Those will be easy, but tedious, fixes.  Then it will be time to paint the camo.

[opus999]

Monday night I had just enough time to spray the green.  I chose RLM 71, and used my Hataka paint.  I could've sworn I took a picture but I didn't.  You're not missing much, though...

 

Last night I printed the camo masks and cut them out (I plan to get a low-tack backing for my Silhouette so I can have the machine cut it instead of me.  It's a bit tedious.).  I used little rolled up pieces of tape to apply them.

 

 

With all the masking it looks terrible.  Next I sprayed Mr. Color RLM 79.  Between the RLM 71 and RLM 79, I tried to make it look slightly worn, but not over do it.  So, i used my usual black based marbling and just overpainted it until it was just barely noticeable.  

 

Then, off came the masks!

 

 

 

yeah, I'll take that!  The eagle eyed among you may notice that the lettering is not there yet.  Well, those were masked as well and I had to be a little more careful taking those masks off.

 

 

Ta da!!!

 

Here it is with the rudder dry fit.

 

 

That'll do!  So RLM 65 on the bottom tomorrow and a couple of RLM 71 touch-ups.  Then it will be gloss coat time for the 3 or 4 decals I actually need to put on. 

[ModelingEdmontonian]

Wow, quick work and she looks amazing!

[Adam Poultney]

That looks fantastic! I'd be interested to know more about what you're using to cut masks... I could certainly use that capability myself 

[Sam]

Nice to see a Fighter in my colours!

 

Let me chime in with what I know about J-704. 

 

The Swiss Air Force „acquired“ the 12 Me 109 Gustavs (J-701 through J-712) from Germany in a trade:

In the night from the 28. to the 29. of April 1944 a Me 110 landed by mistake at Dübendorf Airbase. The Germans were afraid the aircraft with its radar and gun-system would fall into the hands of the Allies and therefore demanded it being returned, threatening Switzerland with an air raid to Dübendorf. Switzerland made a questionable deal: To destroy the stranded Me 110 and in return get 12 new Me 109. In May 1944 the Me 110 was destroyed in Dübendorf, under the eyes of high-ranking Nazi Officers.

 

Unfortunately, these 12 aircraft (built by forced labour and parts of it in concentration camps) were delivered in poor quality. They were all assigned to 7th squadron in Interlaken. The Gustavs, after a series of incidents, were soon taken out of active service. 7th Squadron went back to flying „Emils“. 

 

The airframe you are modeling, J-704, was mostly flown by Walter Läderach, callsign „Lädi“. It was (as all first 6 airframes of that series) equipped with the small tail and the old style canopy.

 

“Lädi“ as CO of 18th squadron:

 

 

 

Here is a picture of J-704 on  the day of delivery:

 

 

 

In January 1945, during an engine testrun, the engine started up and did not settle in idle, but high RPM. The technician was not having fun with the following rodeo and jumped off the aircraft. 
 

 

J-704 was subsequently rebuilt in Buochs, now with the tall tail and a new livery:

 

Later in the same year, J-704 lost its canopy inflight and the replacement canopy was of the newer Erla-variant.
 

Finally, in 1946, J-704 was destroyed in a crash landing after engine failure. 
 

 

 

Edited April 24 by Sam

[marvinneko]

Congrats Opus on the fine masking and paintwork. Great job with inkscape and the silhouette. Wish I had one.

 

5 hours ago, Sam said:

Unfortunately, these 12 aircraft (built by forced labour and parts of it in concentration camps)

 

[opus999]

On 4/24/2025 at 12:48 PM, Sam said:

Nice to see a Fighter in my colours!

 

Let me chime in with what I know about J-704. 

 

The Swiss Air Force „acquired“ the 12 Me 109 Gustavs (J-701 through J-712) from Germany in a trade:

In the night from the 28. to the 29. of April 1944 a Me 110 landed by mistake at Dübendorf Airbase. The Germans were afraid the aircraft with its radar and gun-system would fall into the hands of the Allies and therefore demanded it being returned, threatening Switzerland with an air raid to Dübendorf. Switzerland made a questionable deal: To destroy the stranded Me 110 and in return get 12 new Me 109. In May 1944 the Me 110 was destroyed in Dübendorf, under the eyes of high-ranking Nazi Officers.

 

Unfortunately, these 12 aircraft (built by forced labour and parts of it in concentration camps) were delivered in poor quality. They were all assigned to 7th squadron in Interlaken. The Gustavs, after a series of incidents, were soon taken out of active service. 7th Squadron went back to flying „Emils“. 

 

The airframe you are modeling, J-704, was mostly flown by Walter Läderach, callsign „Lädi“. It was (as all first 6 airframes of that series) equipped with the small tail and the old style canopy.

 

“Lädi“ as CO of 18th squadron:

 

 

 

Here is a picture of J-704 on  the day of delivery:

 

 

 

In January 1945, during an engine testrun, the engine started up and did not settle in idle, but high RPM. The technician was not having fun with the following rodeo and jumped off the aircraft. 
 

 

J-704 was subsequently rebuilt in Buochs, now with the tall tail and a new livery:

 

Later in the same year, J-704 lost its canopy inflight and the replacement canopy was of the newer Erla-variant.
 

Finally, in 1946, J-704 was destroyed in a crash landing after engine failure. 
 

 

 

@SamThanks for sharing all of this!  It filled in some gaps in my knowledge.  For instance, I'd seen many models of J-704 with an Erla hood, and I assumed that it had one at some point, but never saw any photos of it.  So, I wasn't sure if the models were accurate or not.  Now I know.  thanks for the great pictures too!

 

On 4/24/2025 at 6:38 PM, marvinneko said:

Congrats Opus on the fine masking and paintwork. Great job with inkscape and the silhouette. Wish I had one.

 

Thanks David.  I hope at some point you're able to get one -- it's opened up all sorts of new possibilities for me.

 

On 4/24/2025 at 11:23 AM, Adam Poultney said:

That looks fantastic! I'd be interested to know more about what you're using to cut masks... I could certainly use that capability myself 

Sure!  I have a Silhouette Portrait 3.  I know there is a 4 out there and also a line called the Cameo.  I have the Portrait 3 because @mark.ausaid that's what he uses and I figured if it works for him... I'm part of that minority that uses neither Windows nor Apple (I drive Fedora Linux right now, but was an Ubuntu Linux guy for a long time), so I draw my masks up in inkscape, transfer them to my phone and use the Silhouette app to send to the cutter.  It may be easier in Windows, but I have no complaints.  Once I figured out how to draw lines and curves in Inkscape, I found I could whip up some masks very quickly.    What I've done is used images (portraits, or I've scanned decals too), and traced them in inkscape, and save them as svg files.  The hardest part is getting the measurements correct, but even that's not too hard.  I haven't tried to see how small I can cut yet -- I seriously doubt I could cut 1/72 RAF serials for a Spitfire, but I don't know that for sure.  Being a 1/72 builder, the small and intricate markings are still out of my reach unless I buy some decal paper and print my own.  I hope this info helps.

[opus999]

Yesterday I had a couple little touchups on the RLM71, and painted a couple of odds 'n' ends that I missed:

 

 

Also, when looking carefully at the "post-crash" photo, I noticed that the green patch on top of the cowl was not connected to the one on the starboard side of the cowl.  It's hard to see in the photo, because there is glare coming off the top part of the cowl.  I felt that I couldn't live with having it wrong, so I masked it:

 

 

...and now its fixed.

 

 

Finally, I masked and painted the RLM 65 on the bottom and gloss coated the whole thing with Alclad aqua gloss;

 

 

Looking closely at the photos of the real aircraft, it looks like they didn't bother with stencils after the repaint.  It looks like they only put on the octane triangles on.  So, that looks like, maybe, 4 decals?  It may seem a little silly to gloss coat the whole thing for 4 decals, but I worry that there may be a color difference between a gloss-coated area and a non-gloss-coated area, so better safe than sorry.  Besides the decals, I have to paint the prop, the spinner, the tires and the tail wheel.  After that is final assembly and some light weathering.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

52 minutes ago, opus999 said:

on.  So, that looks like, maybe, 4 decals?  It may seem a little silly to gloss coat the whole thing for 4 decals, but I worry that there may be a color difference between a gloss-coated area and a non-gloss-coated area, so better safe than sorry. 

You were smart to think this, I have made that mistake before. 

[marvinneko]

1 hour ago, opus999 said:

I haven't tried to see how small I can cut yet -- I seriously doubt I could cut 1/72 RAF serials for a Spitfire, but I don't know that for sure

 

I've done 1/72 serials for my Norseman, Ventura, and Harvard (a Silhouette 3 at a uni, and a Roland at a library). Setting the cutter to lift before changing direction can help. Cutting more than you need then taking the best helps, too.

[opus999]

Sunday is always chores day around my house, but I did get an hour free to put on the decals.  I rummaged around in my spares box and found all the ones I needed.  Then I matched them up to what I could see in the photos.

 

 

 

There weren't that many so it didn't take long.  It's hard to see, but on the starboard side, I put the electrical outlet decal on.  I could see something there in the photo, but it was too fuzzy to make out exactly what it was.  It was in the right spot and was the right size to be the electrical outlet marking, so I went with it.  The other puzzler was the octane triangles.  They were too fuzzy to make out the numbers.  Other kit instructions had a "C3" above the exhaust (an odd place to put it). and an "87" by the filler cap.  C3 was 96-100 octane and 87 was 87.  So it seems odd that these kitmakers have both decals on the aircraft.  If I had two 87s I would've used them (since I can't read the triangles on the original aircraft picture).  In the end I put on the C3 and the 87, but it bugs me because it seems weird to me.