1/48 Hasegawa Bf-109-K4

by Franck Oudin

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Here is the result of my work, a Bf109 K-4 from Hasegawa, with the Kommandeur decals, so I am writing a little article about it.  This a/c is a Messerschmitt Bf 109 K-4 "5800" Wr.Nr Unknown, maybe 335800?,it could have been a Staffel Fure's a/c from I/JG11,the a/c was found at Munchen-Reim in May 1945.

I chose this scheme because it was a bit different than the normal K-4,with a mix of colors like RLM 76,81,82,83,84 and a light gray for the underwing, and the large yellow band on the fuselage.  I decided to use the magnificent Adeco set from my friend Vincent Kermorgan, and i did not regret it at all.  The resin kit is the best on the market, in terms of fitting absolutely!  No work is required to fit the resin kit into the a/c - you just have to replace the kit parts with the resin ones and paint it, and that's it, there's nothing missing in this very nice interior.

I used as well an Eduard PE set for the K-4,where there is lot of details to add to the kit. I engraved the panel lines and opened the wheel wells to give some more accuracy to my K-4, although this kit looks very accurate to me already!!!!  The fitting of this kit is just perfect, so I just used the sequence, starting with the interior, fuselage, and then the wings. This is a" Putty Free" kit, the only extra details were the brake lines on the landings gears, and I forgot to mention a pair of True Details wheels (Thank you Milo!!).

As for the painting, the entire model was sprayed with SnJ and then buffed, then I sprayed the RLM 84(Gunze H-74) on the entire fuselage,  masked and sprayed the gray, (the best match to me was IJA gray (Gunze H-60),for the underwing) ,then the RLM76 for the engine cowling (Gunze 416).  Next, I masked and sprayed the RLM 81 and the RLM 83 camo pattern, then remasked the fuselage and sprayed, this time using RLM 82 with a RLM 83 mottling (OK- still following me???) Apparently this a/c as been reworked, that's why you have some parts of the a/c with different colors.  For the details, like wheel wells I decided to leave them NMF, with  RLM 66 landing gears.

When the complete a/c was painted, I sprayed a coat of Tamiya X-22 clear gloss, then I  applied a wash of black enamels on the panels lines. Now, it was time for decaling.  I used the brilliant decals From Kommandeur, and again it was a real pleasure to use. The decals went on with no problems with a little setting solution.

At the end, I glued all the details such as antennas, wires, pitot tube etc.  The resin wheels had been glued with 5 min. epoxy, to have solid bonding, (and by the way, that was the same for the resin interior).  Then the entire model was sprayed with a mix of 7/3 Tamiya gloss and Tamiya Flat base, and finally the result is what you see in these pictures.  I am very happy with this model -it was a real pleasure to do, especially since it was the 109, which is one of my favorite a/c.

So folks,  I think that's it for this one, but don't worry - there will be more 109s from me because I do have another 18 from the shelves to be made!!!!!!  I would like to especially thank Brown Ryle from Kommandeur decals for his help, and Vincent Kermorgan for his very good knowledge on the 109,and the German expert Bernd for his help on this project as well.
Thank you all, and all the best - 

Franck

Photos and text © by Franck Oudin