Final Review: 1:48 Hasegawa Bf 109 K-4

 

 With the K-4 finally done (okay, maybe there are one or two details I missed – I blush, I forgot the wingtip formation lights, so she’ll be coming out of the display case for a quick spot of red and green…) I can finish my work in progress articles with a roundup of this kit’s qualities. Hasegawa’s kit #09063 (JT63) is quite the gem. It has many unused parts from other variants, different cockpit sidewalls, the droptanks and underwing gunpods of G-series bomber-destroyers, three different tail wheel struts, three different instrument panels. You need to keep a careful eye on the instructions to make sure you select the right parts for the variant you’re building.  

 Marking options are supplied for two aircraft, Yellow 4, “Ingeborg,” of II/JG 3, March 1945, and a second contemporary airframe. Markings include a full suite of stencil data, even including the Werk numbers which may or may not have been carried on the tail of Yellow 4, depending on the sources you consult. I was originally a little put out with the engineering of the cockpit, but from that point onward the model literally fell together. The propeller attachment could have been smarter, trying to accurately align the fuselage halves while trapping an un-glued rotation piece in a channel at the front end was quite impossible for my dexterity and I settled for gluing it in place as a fixed stub, thus creating a non-turning finished prop. Parts alignment was superb for the most part, my only criticism is a tiny fore-and-aft mismatch on fuselage right and left detailing, which is only really visible where the aft fuselage segments are delineated on the underside. The flaps were marred by a long sink mark on the upper surfaces, which was only visible in certain lighting, virtually guaranteeing the parts were mounted before the problem was noticed. Similarly, the leading edge slats can be mounted open or closed, and while the deployed configuration adds visual interest the separate parts come with the usual penalty for assembling them closed: they don’t fit as well into their bays as the slats of the real plane would.  

 But these are minor quibbles, really. The surface detailing is accurate for a K-4, the hatches and access panels are in the right places, the Erla Haube looks convincing, and with a few extra details scratched together (the radiator pitch rods, battery bay hatch and flap ribs which I covered in my first post on this kit) it builds into a visually convincing model. I could have added hydraulic lines from fine wire but I was out of time and application on the project, that’s something for future builds. Another detail which I had meant to use was Quickboost’s exhausts, beautifully cast with open throats and midline weld seams, however they did not provide the locator slot for the glare shields of the late-series 109s, molded as separate kit parts, and I didn’t fancy scratching this detail at so late a stage. The resin AMs ended up in the drawer against a future build.  

 The decals went down actually quite nicely, reacting well with Microscale chemistry, though the spiralschnauze tried to curl up on the paper and was broken into pieces to be applied, and the big open crosses silvered somewhat. The 60 or so decals make a visually ‘busy’ aircraft, even if the real “Ingeborg” may not have carried a full suite of stencils (references and reconstructions do not, as you would expect, always agree.) Promodeller panel wash and MiG pigments created the worn appearance, the carbon stains and dust that denote a service aircraft being hard-flown, and EZ Line provided the radio antenna. Without going to the extent of AM cockpit and wheels, opening the canopy etc, this model makes a sweet display piece that really captures, the gutsy, brutish yet still graceful lines of the ever-more powerful ultimate Messerschmitt 109. I would recommend this kit to anyone with a few builds under his or her belt: while the multi-tone camouflage will be a challenge and the many decals will certainly occupy more than a couple of evenings, the basic soundness of the kit engineering will foster an attractive finished product if approached with care, forethought, and above all, patience.