1/48 Fujimi Messerschmitt Bf-109 G-6

Gallery Article by Vidal A. A. Costa & Joao F. Bertoldi on May 26 2010

 

This is the old Fujimi kit and it has been around for some time. It was a nice kit when it was first released, and it still can be built into a reasonable replica of the "Gustav"... but it isn't exactly an easy task and this one was a bit of a struggle to finish. The whole thing started years ago, when my friend and fellow modeler Joao Bertoldi acquired the kit... already started and gathering dust in a friend of ours "unfinished projects" stack. He thought it would be a perfect subject to practice his airbrushing, but it quickly evolved into a boring exercise, thanks to Fujimi's desire to have all possible late versions of the 109 in one single kit. By the time he finished fixing the gaps and correcting the misalignments he had used up all his good will and abandoned the model for several years. I knew about it and I kept telling him to finish the thing... and last year he asked me to help him... I allow him to convince to be a part of the whole nightmare.

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We started again and worked during weekends for quite a long time sanding and filling and rescribing and adding some photoetched seatbelts and other bits and pieces. We decided to build the version flown by Alfred Grislawski (JG. 50) because of its curious story... it was a foolish idea: a squadron to try and hunt mosquitoes with 109s... they never manage to shoot down any "wooden wonder" but Grislawski (being an ace) was capable enough to shoot down two B-17s instead.

The final stage was the tedious paintjob... and since my friend wasn't really enthusiastic about the project I ended up doing all the painting. No German camo is easy, but this one wasn't the worst of the lot... all grey: RLM 74, 75 & 76. I used Gunze Mr. Color for the camo and the weathering was all done with oil paint washes. In the end, after many troubles and tribulations, the model managed to win a silver medal in the local IPMS Convention and a gold one in a previous Model Convention.

Vidal A. A. Costa & Joao F. Bertoldi

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Photos and text © by Vidal A. A. Costa & Joao F. Bertoldi