1:32 Bf 109F-4

The glazing of the Friedrich at close quarters

The cockpit of the F version was reworked against the early Emil: some of the bars disappeared, the windscreen received an inset armor pane and an option for a steel headrest was added above the pilot's head. The shape of the canopy is highly rounded and in 1:32 scale it contains more than ten separate areas that are very hard to outline with tape by hand. A die-cut stencil saves most of that work.

The inner face

The sheet divides the masking into an outer and an inner part. The latter is decisive on large models, because the whole inner framing is visible through the sizeable clear areas and its color is meant to be the same as on the outside. Alongside that, two insignia stencils are enclosed.

A practical tip

The framing is sprayed in the interior shade from the inner face and in the camouflage shade from the outer face, with the surface allowed to cure thoroughly between the two steps. A gray base under light camouflage helps to keep the frame from getting lost. Leftover pieces of film come in useful for masking the wheel rims.

Radiators in the wing

The F series moved the cooling into shallow duct radiators recessed into the lower surface of the wing and thereby shed the drag that the older forms had. The wing machine guns disappeared entirely, so the leading edge stayed smooth. For the builder that means a clean lower surface with a few hard boundaries on which leftovers of masking film from this sheet come into their own.

Classification

The item is listed as a masking aid for large-scale aircraft models and does not include the model itself.