Remove Before Flight Steel

Published: February 9, 2017
Company: Eduard

Every type of aircraft that has an ejection seat or explosive cartridges has a safety item that can be removed to make them safe to be around. That item is a Remove Before Flight safety pin. Every pin has a red tag attached to it so it can be removed before flight. Funny how that works.

Eduard has offered Remove Before Flight tags before in their normal line. They worked but they were very stiff. These new tags are much thinner and can be bent much more realistically.

Inside the usual Eduard packaging is one colored fret with coloring on both sides. The printed “Remove Before Flight” is only on one side. One set has some printing on the other side. The printing is crisp and looks great.

You will have to make the chords from wire. But that makes it easy to adjust… more

Bf-109F-4 Photo Etch

Published: January 11, 2017
Company: Eduard

When you purchase an overtree kit, Eduard also offers an ‘minimalist’ photo etch to upgrade it. The LEPT set normally includes just a pre-painted fret, but in this case there are actually two frets. One pre-painted that is primarily for the cockpit, and the other is a brass fret.

Packaged in a ziplock baggie with a card stock stiffener, this set is just the right amount of detail that is needed for the kit. These are things that I would want to add, Eduard just helped me out. The first fret is the pre-painted fret. It is designed primarily for the cockpit. It has the pre-painted instrument panel, which I absolutely love, along with other pre-painted parts. This fret also has the seatbelts. Some people have complained about the ‘pixelization’ of the pre-painted parts. I don’t… more

Bf-109F-4 Overtrees

Published: January 5, 2017
Company: Eduard

The least expensive way to get an Eduard kit is by buying an Overtree kit. These kits are only available for a limited time, typically about one month after the release to the Profipack. This kit is typical of the Overtree line. The kit comes with just plastic. No decals, no masks, no instructions, no nothing but plastic. This is bare bones but I love the concept. I have lots of decals so I don’t need to worry about marking options.

The plain white box is about half the height of a normal Profipack box. This doesn’t diminish the quality of the plastic. Mine had a very small amount of flash on a few parts. Nothing to worry about. There are four sprues of light grey plastic and one sprue of clear plastic. The two main sprues are the same as the ones in the G-5 and G-6 kits. You… more

Bf-109F-4 Wheels

Published: January 4, 2017
Company: Eduard

The Eduard Bf-109s are some of my favorite models to build. They look great when done up. Of course there are limitations that plastic can do. So that is one of the reasons that we do resin aftermarket parts. Brassin is the Eduard resin line. It combines resin and photo etch in perfect harmony.

This set is designed for the Eduard Bf-109F series. Contained in a typical vacuformed plastic container you get five pieces of perfectly cast light grey resin and a masking set.

Removal of the parts from the sprue is easy enough. Nothing dramatic except the molded in detail which is impressive to say the least. I did have to sand down the spokes for both wheels. Each wheel is beautifully rendered. The tail wheel assembly is a single piece and looks great despite being a single… more

Bf-109F-4 Canopy Masks

Published: November 12, 2020
Company: Eduard

The Eduard Bf-109s are some of the best engineered models ever. I’ve enjoyed building them from the get go but there are parts of modeling I don’t overly enjoy. The main one is masking the canopies. Eduard has designed the kit and the canopy masks.

The Eduard masks are made out of Kabuki tape similar to Tamiya tape. I think this is some of the best masking material available. It is pliable and conforms to compound curves.

Since Eduard makes the kit and the masks they fit perfectly. The Eduard masks for the G-5/6 gives you the inside mask for the rear canopy. This set does not. No big deal just an observation.

The other thing about this set is the mid frame canopy is broken down into two parts with a thin canopy frame in the middle. This is not the norm on an F.… more

Bf-109F-4 Photo Etch

Published: November 12, 2020
Company: Eduard

With the release of the new Bf-109F-4 from Eduard we are treated to numerous ways to upgrade the kit should you want to. Eduard has always been known for their photo etch so it is to be expected that they would offer something in photo etch for this kit.

This set of photo etch comes in the normal Eduard resealable package with card stock keeping the photo etch safe. The actual fret is brass with really good detail. The primary areas addressed by this set is the wheel wells, landing gear doors and the flaps.

The wheel well portion offers an accurate rendition of the wheel well insert with the appropriate cutouts. The landing gear doors provide you with two different styles of landing gear covers. I chose to use the ‘normal’ doors. They worked out just fine but you will… more

Bf-109G-6 Essential Big Sin

Published: November 14, 2016
Company: Eduard

Eduard continues to amaze with the release of its Bf-109G series of models. They’ve taken the kit and provided you with some impressive detail right out of the box. However, they also have their photo etch line and the Brassin line of resin. It was a natural to add this detail to their kits. The problem was that as you add more stuff the aftermarket stuff would become cost prohibitive. Eduard has an answer for that. They offer options in the BigSin series that bundles some of their sets into a lower cost offering. Same great aftermarket but at a lower cost.

This BigSin set offers the new Brassin multi-media cockpit set, fabric seatbelts, and a photo etch set. There is no part of the model that is not addressed. Let me look at each set separately.

The new Brassin cockpit… more

Bf-109G-5 Overtree and Bf-109G-6 Overtree

Published: November 14, 2016
Company: Eduard

Eduard has four levels of models that they release. The first is normally the Profi-pack with all the plastic, instructions, photo etch, masks, and decals. This is normally followed up by adding Brassin parts that the modeler can choose to add to the kit. The third one is the Weekend Edition which includes the plastic, instructions, and decals. Just a basic kit. The final version, which is normally released just as the Profi-pack is, is the Overtree kits. This is just the plastic parts. It is the least expensive. It does not include instructions, photo etch, masks or decals. The instructions can be downloaded from the Eduard website. So that is taken care of. Now some would think why would they do that? Let’s admit we all have extra decals and may not like what decals come in the kit.… more

Bf-109G-5 Photo Etch

Published: November 13, 2016
Company: Eduard

When Eduard releases their Weekend Edition or their Overtree issues they release a small ‘essential’ fret of pre-painted photo etch. Such is the case with the latest release from Eduard.

This one fret of photo etch provides the modeler with a pre-painted instrument panel, seatbelts and interior parts. They also provide radiators, exhaust deflectors, antennas and an access panel. Really, can you paint as well as Eduard prints on their instrument panels? I know I can’t. I love the pre-painted instrument panel and the seatbelts.

Typically, these sets don’t come with instructions but the downloadable kit instructions show where they go.

The key to these LEPT frets is that they are only available for a limited time, normally about a month after the release of the… more

Bf-109G Stencils

Published: November 12, 2020
Company: Eduard

The new Eduard Bf-109 is an exceptionally good kit and a lot of fun to build. What do you do if you have an Overtree boxing with no decals? Well you can get these decals to handle the stencils.

Eduard has started to print their own decals. One of the first ones they’ve done is the stencils for their Bf-109. Packaged in a self-sealing plastic wrapping with a thin cardboard backing, the decals are printed on a 2 ½ x 4 ¾ decal sheet. Also included is a sheet of instructions are included on a half of an A4 sheet. The finesse of the writing is legible in this scale. The colors are perfectly in register. The decals are very thin. So you will have to use plenty of water to move them around on the model once you add them, but they work flawlessly. Even if you don’t use setting… more