IPMS USA is grateful to Eduard for kindly providing yet another magnificent example of one of their new items to review, and to the IPMS USA reviewer corps leaders for sending it to me..

This add-on release is designed for the new and vastly improved 1/48 ME-109 series. This propeller and spinner set is designed to be used on the ME-109G-6, but also works on the G-5 and probably others.

The six-part set (including the prop installation Jig) makes easy work of a tough task. The spinner is better defined than the kit plastic, as are the propellers and the hub and backplate. Also included is a prop shaft with a highly-detailed castellated installation nut and hollow gun tube. This would be a great set for a diorama!

After carefully sawing off the casting block off the back of the backplate and prop hub asembly, you will need to make sure it the part is ightly sanded flush with the backplate itself for true assembly. The prop jig allows you to insert the prop hub into the center witness hole, and then (CAREFULLY) cement the prop blades to the hub with the correct pitch angle one at a time. Epoxy or superglue works, just be careful.

I painted the back plate and spinner separately, along with the prop blades, to see how it all worked. The blades fit snugly but allowed adjustment, which was good. The spinner is better than the kit item by having better defined screw detail, both on the mid-chord and the base and backplate. The gun opening is designed to be replaced with a photoetch ring, and the pour stub for the spinner requires you to remove it from the front of the spinner where the gun sits. Fortunately there are two muzzle rings in the set, as I plinked one off into the stratosphere. Gator glue worked great as far as holding it in place.

I tried to push the spinner backplate into the shaft fitting, thinking it would be an easy fit. Probably due to the paint on it, I was not successfully able to push the spinner into place. Stupid on my part, as I had a 1MM gap between the backing plate and the spinner. Prying carefully around the circumference was ultimately successful (I didn’t break the resin) so I removed the hub nut and shaft, and just cemented the backing plate to the spinner. This meant I had to touch up the backing plate paint, as the original aircraft appears to have the spinner painted off the aircraft, leaving the black green of the original with a white bit where the spiral originally was located behind a prop blade. Wahoo!

All in all, Eduard’s new ‘109 is a great effort… and this prop and spinner set adds a worthwhile amount of detail to the model. I recommend it without reservation. Well done Eduard!