With the release of the Eduard Bf-109G kit, it was inevitable that Eduard would produce aftermarket products in their Brassin range. One of those sets is the radio compartment for the Gustav. The set, like all the Brassin range, is designed specifically for the Eduard kit and is a drop fit.

The set comes with seven pieces of perfectly cast grey resin and a fret of pre-painted photo etch. The resin is typical of the Brassin range and perfect little miniatures of the real things. The two biggest pieces are the sidewall details. Care must be taken to remove the resin wafers between some of the parts. Nothing too difficult but use caution.

The first part of the upgrade will be to remove the access hatch on the left side fuselage. I chain drilled the hatch and cleaned it up with files. I used a Small Tool Shop Photo Etch Bending & Rolling Deluxe Brass Assist (Part# SMS006) to impart a slight bend in the radio compartment photo etch to match the fuselage side profile. This was then added to the fuselage half with superglue. The fit was perfect. You have to take your time to get the photo etch to fit properly, but the extra time is worth it. Don’t forget to bend the photo etch hatch too.

Assembly of the compartment is easy enough. Just some nice painting and your set will look great. Running the cables to the oxygen bottles was actually pretty easy. I thought it would be a big pain but it wasn’t.

After that adding the parts to the fuselage proved no problem at all. The fuselage mated up perfectly. There is enough room to see everything inside the compartment.

This set is a nice upgrade to the Eduard Bf-109G. Some care will be required when removing the kit panel and when you decal the model but nothing that an experienced modeler shouldn’t be able to do. Unlike the Spitfire you’ll be able to see a lot of that detail inside of the hatch.

Highly recommended

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