Eduard releases a ProfiPACK of a new kit with all the bells and whistles and at the same time, they release an OVERTREE kit with no bells or whistles. An Overtree is for people like me who have a lot of decals and don’t mind not having the pre-painted fret or the masks. Now those things are available separately. Personally, I like the pre-painted photo etch and the masks and since I have a bunch of decals, including leftovers from the ProfiPACK, that I don’t mind. Even the box is devoid of anything that belies the beauty inside the plain white cardboard box. It just has an end sticker.

But it is what is inside that counts. Inside the box, you get four sprues of light grey plastic. Two of the sprues are the common 109 sprues. They had very minor flash. Nothing drastic and no detail was compromised. There is are two new sprues, one for the fuselage and the other is a new lower wing with the normal 109 upper wings. A clear sprue is included with three Erla canopies and two front portions, only one is applicable to this model. The OVERTREES don’t include instructions, photo etch, masks, or decals so that is it, just plastic parts. You can download the instructions from the website or if you are like me and building a ProfiPACK and OVERTREE kit just use those instructions. Since I also had to review the photo-etch set and TMasks for this kit I will incorporate them in this build. Which makes it almost a ProfiPACK.

Construction starts in the cockpit. The cockpit is very complete, especially when incorporating the photo-etch parts, but even without the PE the cockpit is very nice. The only things that would be missing is the seatbelts and shoulder harness. These are big items but they are available in a variety of ways from Eduard or others should you want to include them. I used masking tape on the rudder pedals. You could do the same thing with the seatbelts. The sidewalls are different than they were in the earlier kits. I painted up my interior with Tamiya German Grey. Detail painting was done with acrylics. A wash of Lamp Black artist oils was used over the entire interior. Dry brushing of light grey artist oil and some Model Master Metalizer magnesium put some wear and tear in the cockpit.

Joining the fuselage halves was easy enough. The fit was near perfect. The only area I had issues with was on the panel in front of the canopy. I always screw that up. Luckily for me, Eduard includes a scribing template for the handholds on top of the cowling. Just impart a slight bend and it works perfectly. The rest of the fuselage fit perfectly and just needed some light sanding. The upper cowling fit perfectly, even better than the early variants.. I left off the supercharger intake until later.

The tailplanes were added and they fit perfectly. The same thing could be said for the wings. No problems were encountered.

The only problem area was the join of the fuselage to the wings along the trailing edge. I needed some superglue and accelerator to fill the seam. This made me lose some of the fastener detail but many of them were barely visible anyhow and had to be redone with a beading tool. Also, the panel line on the panel under the center section has to be extended back to the first fuselage panel line. So Dymo tape and a scriber were required. This has to be done on every Eduard Bf-109F/G so it didn’t come as a surprise.

The lower surfaces were built up with oil coolers and such. I drilled holes along the leading edge of the cooler and inserted a rod to replicate the stiffeners and actuators in them. Then I put a drop of superglue over the hole and sanded them smooth.

Don’t forget to fill the access hatch on the right rear fuselage. It is easy to miss.

I added the landing gear now to protect the flaps. After that, it was time to mask up the canopy pieces. I used the TMasks for this model so the only thing different is that the interior is masked off and painted, PRIOR to adding the canopy to the kit. I painted the inside and outside in Tamiya German Grey. Before adding the front canopy, don’t forget the gunsight. The front canopy fit perfectly.

With that, the model was masked up with Tamiya tape and then wiped down with Testor’s Plastic Prep and given a coat of Alclad Primer. Any offending areas were cleaned up again and re-primed. Then the model was sprayed with Alclad Aluminum on the bottom side of the wings. This was left to dry and then masked off where appropriate. The remainder of the model was pre-shaded with Tamiya Dark Grey. Then Mr. Paint RLM 76 was sprayed over the underside and fuselage. Then I found a picture of my subject aircraft in Brett Green’s Late War Messerschmitt Camouflage. I determined that the fuselage aft of the engine cowling was the late war GrunBlau, sometimes called RLM 84 or RAF Sky. I masked off the appropriate panels and then used Mr. Paint GrunBlau and loved the way it looked. Very much like what I saw in the pictures. Mr. Paint RLM 75 was added to the top of the wings and fuselage along with mottling the fuselage sides. Mr. Paint RLM 74 was added in the appropriate camo pattern. After that had all dried, I added the RLM 25 Green to the fuselage band after taping it off.

I needed practice using vinyl masks for the crosses. Frank Crenshaw designed some German crosses for me. I had to ‘shrink’ the ones on the upper wings as the Mtt/Regensburg aircraft had slightly smaller crosses on their wings, but the vinyl masks were added there and on the fuselage. I painted the appropriate areas with Alclad White Primer. This primer covers really well and is very opaque. I think it is perfect for my needs when spraying white.

I used some vinyl masks for the tail camouflage designs drawn by Nigel Poole cut out on my Silhouette cutter, but first I had to paint the tail Gunze RLM 75 lightened slightly. These were produced by a subcontractor and often were noticeably different colors than the airframe. Since the real aircraft tail is not visible in the photo I elected to go with the hard-edged Dark Green ‘spots’. I used Tamiya Dark Green for the spots.

A coat of Tamiya Clear thinned with Gunze Mr. Leveling Thinner prepared the model for the decals. I only used the decals that I could see in the photos. I used leftover Eduard decals for the individual markings and some Eduard stencils I had in my stash. The Eduard decals grab and hold the model really well, maybe too well, so use plenty of water to float them into position. Because once you tamp it in place it will be stuck but good. When dried everything was sealed with another coat of Tamiya Clear and then Alclad Flat in preparation for weathering.

I added replacement wheels from Barracudacast. I found them to be nicer with better detail than you could find on the kit wheels.

I start the weathering process by adding Burnt Umber artist oils thinned with artist oils. Not only do I add it to the panel lines, but I also add some ‘dots’ here and there. Because I apply this over a flat the oils leach into the surrounding panel areas. It adds dirt to the panels. I also add some of the thicker mixture near the exhausts which is really dirty. This is followed up with a dot filter fading added by using Titanium Buff and White artist oils. This is then blended and streaked with a clean brush damp with turpenoid.

Some silver ink pad, a sponge and pencil are used to replicate the chipping on the wing walk area and some other random areas. Then some dirt was built upon the top and the bottom areas of the wing with Tamiya Buff, heavily thinned.

While I had the Tamiya Buff loaded in the airbrush, I outlined where I wanted the exhaust staining to be and along the circumference of the wheels. The area aft of the wheels was built up slightly to begin the mudding process. The exhaust staining was built up with Mig Pigments. I started with Desert Sand, then added some volume with Russian Earth and finally with Black Smoke. German engines ran on terrible gas which was very sooty and produced noticeable staining in even a little amount of usage.

The next part of the weathering was the mud on the belly. I started at with AK Mud splatter with a little paintbrush and use a toothpick to ‘flick’ the mud on the belly. Then some Mig pigments, namely Dry Mud and Wet Mud, were added to the Barracudacast wheels and the belly. Everything was sealed with a thin coat of flat to preserve the pigments. Finally, a little bit more scratching was added on wing root and the weathering was done.

The canopy TMasks were removed from the inside and outside. This showed the flat inside color really well. Some small details were added, namely antennas along with the canopy being added. An EZ Line antenna was added and the model was done.

I really enjoyed building this kit. The OVERTREES are a great way to get a relatively inexpensive kit. Now I did add the LEPT PE set, Barracudacast wheels, and the TMasks which increased the costs but I really like the way they all look on the model. The finished kit is impressive, so you know I’ll be building more of these kits. Great job Eduard.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Eduard and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can obtain your copy by contacting them at www.eduard.com or your local hobby shop or online retailer.