1:24 Bf 109E-3

The Emil with the angular canopy

The Bf 109E-3 was the version the Luftwaffe went into the fighting over France and over the English Channel with. Against the later Gustavs its glazing was solved quite differently: the windscreen stood steeply, the side panes were flat and the whole canopy is held by a dense metal framework. It is exactly that framework that makes ready-made masks worthwhile on the Emil. In 1:24 scale every bar is a different width and none runs straight across the whole length of the part, so cutting tape by hand takes hours and still comes out uneven.

Two layers for one canopy

In the package there are cut self-adhesive parts for both sides of the clear plastic. One layer copies the frames from the outside, the other is intended for the reverse side. In one twenty-fourth the inside of a cockpit is ordinarily visible, so an untreated inner frame gives away at once that the work was not taken to the end. Beside the canopy the set carries four sets of masks for national insignia, which can therefore be sprayed with paint.

Why spray the insignia through a mask

A sprayed cross has no carrier film, it makes no step in the paint and it will not break over a riveted seam or over the edge of a cover. In a large scale, where the markings lie across the broken-up places of the fuselage and the wing, that difference shows at once. The order of work is moreover the reverse of what one expects: first the shade of the cross itself goes onto the area, once dry the mask is laid over it and only then does the top camouflage come. The contents of the package are masks only; no plastic parts and no paints are enclosed and the kit has to be obtained separately.