Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3

by Brian Criner

Tamiya's 1/48 scale Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3 is available online from Squadron

This is the the Tamiya 1/48 scale offering of the Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3.

The colour scheme represents an aircraft flown by Dr. Erich Mix, JG 53's technical officer. I decided to build this aircraft after running across the Aeromaster decal sheet at a local hobby store. At first I thought the scheme might be a fanciful one, as I had never seen a photo of a 109 that looked like this. When Lynn Ritger assured me that this was a legit scheme, I knew I had to recreate it.

I decided to use the Aires interior for the kit. I love the detail Aires cockpits offer, but I am often frustrated by the state of disrepair of the kits after opening them up. My kit had several pieces missing, part of the cockpit tub was broken as were several other delicately molded pieces. Since I already had a boxful of photo-etch for the 109, I decided to move forward with what I had and improvise where necessary.

Once the repairs were completed on the cockpit pieces, the interior was sprayed RLM 66 with Testor's enamels. Various pieces of photo-etch were added from the Eduard set to enhance the interior just a bit more.

After thinning out the cowling to a more realistic thickness, I assembled the fuselage and wings and got started on the painting.

Colors used are all from the Model Master Enamels line offered by Testors. The scheme is RLM 02/71/63.

Weathering of the model was done by performing a preshade of panel lines with a darkened Burnt Umber.

After painting, select panels were sprayed with a slightly lighter shade of the top color.

Once the decals were on and sealed with a coat of Future, and a coat of Testors Flat, I applied a wash of Grumbacher Artist Oils Burnt Umber to the panel lines. A Q-tip lightly moistened with Turpenoid was used to clean up the excess paint. When rubbing out the Turpenoid, I occasionally rubbed through the top coat of flat. This was fixed by simply spraying a very thinned second coat of flat after the wash.

I frequently hear modellers complain about a glut of Bf 109s appearing on tables at contests and on the internet.

Frankly, with so many different and interesting schemes, I'm surprised we don't see more!

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2003 by Brian Criner
Page Created 03 November, 2003
Last Updated 05 May, 2005

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