Hasegawa 1/32 Messerschmitt Bf 109K-4 IV/JG 53
By John Alexander
This model is the last in my stash of 109s (for now!) and the last in a series of quick builds that I've been working on. This one, however, took a little more work, given the more complex paint scheme and some extra details that I added. In addition to the basic kit, I added an Eagle Parts spinner with the cannon blast tube made from aluminum tubing. The main focus was to correct some of the details on the belly, as the Hasegawa kit misses some of them, as they pertain to the K-4. A big "Thank you!" goes out to fellow member, Mike Horina, for hooking me up with a great article on how to go about doing that. The kit cockpit has some additional scratchbuilt bits to enhance the cannon breach cover, Revi reflector sight, new oxygen hose and some additional wiring. I also added PE rudder pedals from my spares and some added bits to the canopy and rear deck.
The paints are mostly Model Master enamels and I weathered with oils and pastels. Most of the markings on this one are painted on. I used Maketar masks for the first time and they happened to be the Kabuki tape style masks. Since I'm used to using Montex vinyl masks, this was new for me and I found the kabuki type to be much more challenging to apply. However, they do stick better and I think they gave one of the cleanest masking jobs I've ever done. I highly recommend them if you have the patience for it, or have a few full-on masking jobs under your belt. The rest of the markings (stencils, Wk. Nmr. and tail hakenkreuz) are from an Eagle Editions set, which also went on very well. There's probably more that I forgot, but it was a flurry of activity, so I didn't document much. I just dove in swinging and came out with this.
© John Alexander 2017
This article was published on Monday, September 11 2017; Last modified on Monday, September 11 2017