I have decided to run this article seperate from Rowan, Jean-Luc & Stefan's builds of the Eduard Bf109G, as I don't wish it to seem as though I am hi-jacking their blog!!!

Their excellent builds, out of the box, show just how nice this kit is to build.

I want this kit to stand along my other 109 builds and not to look out of place which is why I am attempting this fix plus as stated above it's, despite the faults, an excellent kit.

I know Stefan thinks this is likely to cause unforeseen problems, but I'll try to do it anyway and will happily accept ' I told you so!' if it fails!!

This first part is a repeat of my post on Rowan's article ( just in case you recognise it).



Back to the Eduard kit!
I’ve been following some of the other forums on line in the ‘knock the new Eduard 109’ debate as well as the builds on Aeroscale. Having pre-ordered the kit, falling prey to the manufacturers claims for the kit.
On opening the box I was extremely impressed with the contents, a Bf109G in todays standards. Then I began to see the criticisms of the kit and decided to check them out.
Deciding to standardise on references I used the Kagero 1/48 scale plans and comparison to Hasegawa’s 109s.

LET ME EMPHASISE HERE THESE REFERENCES WERE A PERSONAL CHOICE FOR MY 109 COLLECTION.

I am not a ‘rivet counter’ (spent too much time in the ‘60s & ‘70s sanding them off!!!) but do like my finished collection to look as they were produced by the original manufacturer i.e. Messerschmitt or one of their sub contractors.

Anyway to begin with I do not believe Eduard’s 109 to be overscale, yes it is too long in fuselage length and wingspan (this is where Eduards claim turned round and bit them). However compared to the Kagero plans the outlines are accurate in my opinion, wing chord and fuselage height are correct. In comparison the Hasegawa kit is shorter and slightly lacking in height. Comparing the kits together Hasegawa’s comes in a little undersize.

So I set about modifying Eduard’s 109G to my references using the Kagero plans and the HT Model Special Bf109G-6.

I cut the Eduard fuselage just behind the cockpit, laid the forward part of the fuselage on the plans, which match up really well. Then I carefully sanded the forward part of the rear fuselage, all the time comparing it to the plans. Eventually the fuselage length matched the plans and wonder of wonders all the panel lines matched the plans!!!!
Admittedly I have lost some of the rivet detail but I think under primer and paint most of the rivets will disappear anyway. A couple of plastic tabs joined the fuselage back together and a little bit of filler completed the job.



This photo shows a comparison of;-
top: Hasegawa Bf109G-14 unmodified
middle: Hasegawa Bf109G-6 modified
bottom: Eduard Bf109G-6 modified







You will also note I have added plastic card to the exhaust ports to reduce them by approx.1mm as they are too wide. exhausts will also need to be reduced to fit but are usable.

As regards the nose being too bulbous ( it does look like an AS engine cowling!)some sanding down will restore it to the shape required.

At the moment I am detailing the cockpit which is fantastic straight out the box,but can always find a few extra details to add.

I will continue this post with modification of wings,control surfaces, slats,undercarriage length and rake.I also need to reduce the length of the cockpit as compared to the plans.

One last word I do wonder if Eduard have given us a kit of a restored 109G with all the restorations mistakes!!!!!

If I try this again I would cut the fuselage, as below, to shorten it as this would help with the reduction in cockpit length. Which my references and comparison to the Hasegawa kit show this is necessary and this way of cutting the fuselage will make it easier to rejoin after shortening.



Below are a couple of shots showing the cockpit interior built with kit parts and a few extra bits.






I will post further reports of my progress in due course.

Andy

Back again with update on progress of this 'fix'.

I have joined the fuselage halves together and have added gun cowl and tail fin top.I have also added a piece of 1mm plasticard at the rear of the cockpit opening to reduce the length of the cockpit, as my refs. and comparison with the Hasegawa kit, show this to be too long.



As mentioned previously cutting the fuselage differently would do away with the plasticard addition. This is certainly the way I do it on another kit.

Below are a few more views of the fuselage, which has had the undersurface of the nose sanded to reduce the AS engine shape the kit has.I have also backed the exhaust openings with plasticard, I will modify the exhausts later so that they can be inserted after painting.



[imghttp://i1291.photobucket.com/albums/b548/andyjames51/30052013186_zps62d8b4f3.jpg[/img]





The canopy does need reducing in length, this can be done by gentle sanding and trial fitting as you go along to make sure too much isn't taken off. I concentrated mainly on the rear portion of the canopy, the rear frame is wide enough to allow sanding back without encroaching on clear parts.





Onto the wings which have too wide a span. Using the Kagero plans I cut off the offending pieces, removed the locating stubs from the seperate wing tips then glued it altogether.
I also blocked off the cartridge ejection ports.





I placed the control surfaces on the plans (scanned from the book and printed thus the sellotape join down the middle!!)
This, to my suprise, showed the aileron to be correct in length, as was the radiator flap. The over length item is the flaps, so these will need reducing as will the slats. I compared control surfaces with Hasegawa's sure enough all but the flaps and slats matched in size!



Below shows the exhausts, one modified so I can add them after painting is finished. The partially modified u/c legs, reduced in length but still with the oversize brake lines to be removed.



Hopefully when flying surfaces are attached to fuselage with canopy added it will give more idea if this fix is working!

Andy

Andy,
Your corrections to what I consider an outstanding state of the art model, looks like a doable project for most modelers who are concerned about those issues. I really like your 2nd idea on how to reduce the length of the fuselage, although adding some cardstock just makes the cut that much easier. Your cockpit looks really well done.

I must admit that while the flaps are a little oversized, those slats are really way too long, which surprised me.

Thank you for sharing your build with us. Looking forward to your next update.

Joel

you haven't mentioned how you've attached the tips back onto the doctored wings which - unlike the rounded tip parts- have a pronounced aerofoil section, ie they don't match up.

Wow, just wow. Look at all the work an experienced modeler feels is necessary just to get this kit dimensionally correct! If I had known it had this many problems I would have held off buying one. When you get to the point where you are cutting fuselages to create the proper length and, especially, making major modifications to shorten the wings, I think it's clear the product launch is a crash on takeoff.

I do have some sympathy for Eduard, and especially the lead designer of this kit who was brave enough to identify himself and do a company-sponsored blog about it. http://www.eduard.com/blog/interview/bf-109g-6-interview-with-lead-designer-stanislav-archman/. I certainly agree with the sentiment that the customer base can be hyper critical, and that an aircraft like this, which was subject to soooooooo many modifiations apparently even within the G-6 model, can be extraordinarily difficult to "pin down." But major dimensional errors? Ah, no.

I consider Eduard one of the true industry leaders and innovators in our hobby, which is much better for its presence. BUT, the real mark of an industry leader is admitting mistakes and fixing them. I'm no company executive, but if I was I would go into damage control mode on this one, go back to the drawing board, and produce replacement parts (free) to address the legitimate customer criticisms. Other companies have done that with flawed launches, and made up for the cost in future goodwill.

Just my two cents, but that's what I think Eduard should do here.

I must admit that I didn't notice the lack or aerofoil section on the tips!! I just removed the offending extra length of wing.
Then the tabs from wing tips, a few strokes of wet and dry on wing cut and wingtips. The wing tip was butt jointed to the wing, making sure the bottom surface of wing and tip were flush.
After joint was dry I sanded both top and bottom, adding a little filler where necessary, and ended up with a modified wing.

The end result looked good to me, any problems will show up when it's given a coat of primer.






I don't wish to get into the discussion of Eduards mistakes with this kit. I am disappointed that they made simple errors in dimensions, especially after the 109E fuselage length was pointed out in reviews!
I wait to see Eduard's reply to the criticisms levelled at this kit, before I judge them. My only hope is they try to get the 'F' fuselage right (& wings!!!!)before it's released.

In terms of this is a lot of work to get the 109 kit right, maybe, but in terms of kit building it makes a change from the 'shake the box and out falls a built model'. I am not saying kits shouldn't be designed properly but the odd one or two can offer the builder a little more of a complex build!

Anyone who is happy to build the kit as it comes, great, it's still a well made and detailed kit for them !

Andy

After finishing my above reply, I went onto Eduard's website to find that in the June info they have admitted the dimensional errors in the 109G kit.They have also stated that after the issue of the Royal Class Edition we will be seeing some sort of rectification to their 109 series of kits.

Doesn't it always happen after you start something

Extract from Eduard's June newsletter.

Our brand new Bf 109G-6 has already been feeding various Internet discussion boards for five weeks now, and it doesn´t seem like things are about to change. Despite there being plenty of discussion regarding the details of this new release, this has been totally eclipsed by many forum ‘flames’ which singled out the dimensions of our new kit. Unfortunately, we do have to ad­mit that our kit is definitely larger than the scale for which it was designed, and therefore oversi­zed. It is our fault. We admit that. We wrongly calculated the expected dimensional attributes of the final model, in comparison with the master model we were using. In our case, this is a virtu­al 3D master model. If we accept 9020 mm as a correct length of the real aircraft, then we are about some 3 mm longer in scale, which means the kit is about 1.5% larger than it should be, and therefore gives an overall scale of 1:47.26. Concerning the wingspan, we are wider in ove­rall span by about 2.6mm on each half of the wing, giving an average oversize of around 2.5%. I want to let you know that I’m personally very sorry that this has happened. We are cu­rrently finding ways in which we can fix this pro­blem, but please understand that acquiring the correct dimensional accuracy and implementing this with tooling re-works requires time.
The destiny of this release is in your hands now. You have to decide, if the dimensional problems are so huge, and so dominant a factor, that it de­stroys the other qualities of this kit. By this, I mean the quality of our overall detail. I also mean the quality of the surface details and the fit of the parts, which are exceptional, without a doubt.

We are searching for a way in which to make wing shorter without loosing the proportions of the kit. As the kit is larger in scale than it should be, it is important that we keep in proportion the parts of the model as a whole. I already read about one solution, which was to cut the wing down in the last outboard panel, be­fore the wingtip. Don´t do it! The wingtip shapes may look strange, and you may proba­bly not find these shapes and dimensions on any published drawing of the Bf 190G-6, but I assure you that it is indeed correct. We traced the actual shape for this area around a real aircraft wingtip. This also answers the question about what we do in the museum; if we don´t actually record the correct scale dimensions. It is simple. We never take ge­neral dimensions. We always verify the dimen­sional details for problematic areas/shapes of these most noticeable areas. There are plenty of such problems during the design of any kit, and because 2D drawings are not always correct, these pictures often depict the shapes of these areas in an unclear manner. Cross-sections can be particularly problematic, with the side view and subsequent plot not matching as they should. What we are really interested in is how they look on the actual machine. How does this subject really look? As I have already said, we never take general dimensions. That’s simply not the way that Eduard works. The topical issue here is a technical error; not one of unknown dimensions. The published dimensions are correct, the length of 9020 mm, the wingspan of 9924 mm. I am sure we will find a solution to these issues, and we will have these corrections implemented for the boxings which will follow the Royal Class edition.

Vladimir Sulc

Well, this is certainly an interesting thread. Herein is the map showing a way to correct inaccuracies of the Eduard kit, as offered by a true modeller who appreciates a finely finished kit as true to reality as possible. Well done 'stukaace'. You have the talent and ability to show the way in an educational fashion.





I believe Eduard will do OK with this kit, as it is; just because the greater mass of modellers simply want to build a nice looking model, and this looks like a nice G model.
It is warming to know that Eduard is concerned about inaccuracy and is attempting corrections. That is a welcome future event that might or may not take place. However, if I desired a more perfectly accurate representation today, then I would reach out to educational threads like this and purchase the kit.

I'm very glad this type of thread exists.

Of note is that the Eduard wingtips are noticeably pointier outward, and thus more accurate, than the drawing used above: Keep them as is...

I am seriously thinking of measuring up the wingspan, and the span of each control surface, of my local Me-109F, just to have a better idea of what is going on...

Gaston

Firstly thanks for your comments, unfortunately progress has slowed due to 'life interruptions' and the announcement of Vlad.Sulc (Eduard) of corrections to future kits after the Royal Class Edition. Although I notice that it is now the Bf109G Edition allowing builds of the G2/4/6/14 but not any Fs(the first corrected edition)???

Back to my 'fix' for anyone who may wish to try to correct their kit, maybe the original boxings will become collectors items!!

I had added a plasticard 'bulkhead' to the rear of the cockpit to reduce the length. I then sanded down the kit cockpit bulkhead, till it was 'wafer' thin then using the rear canopy as a guide glued it to the plasticard bulkhead.



As an aside I test fitted the Hasegawa Bf109G canopy to the Eduard kit, it fitted fairly well, except for the rear part of the canopy. The Hasegawa kit shows a different cross section of the rear fuselage (one of the errors of Hasegawa's 109 series). See pic. below




Eduard's canopy below:-



Eduard's canopy needs careful sanding of the rear and middle parts of the canopy with constant test fitting. Eventually you will have a shortened canopy which fits the shortened cockpit!
I used, for the first time, the fabric seatbelts made by Eduard, very authentic. Only thing was the swear jar was empty when I started, but I now have enough cash for another kit

My next job was to attach wings to fuselage, this ended up with filler being used a fair bit. Some of the joins were not as Eduard intended,but were due, to my surgery on the kit I assume.










As you can see, from the pics., I have added all control surfaces as they were supplied except for the ailerons. I did state previously that I thought the flaps were too wide but rather than cause extra problems decided to shorten the ailerons by approx. 2mm each. this does not detract from the look of the kit. In actual fact they now match the length of the ailerons in the Hasegawa kit!!!!
I did however have to take off the wing tips to re-adjust them to fit the wing with the ailerons added. Thus the use of filler on the wingtip/wing join.

I added the front and rear parts of the canopy, masked them and used filler, then sanded to blend in. I modified the supercharger intake mounting to take into account the curve to clear the 'beule'. Umbrella mountings have been removed, the nose intake has been added, after opening the rear outlet flap. Nose has been given a little more refining to remove the 'AS engine' look to it, fuel drain pipe outlet added underneath fuselage plus mounting for antenna.
The supercharger intake has been glued together, but I have left the join visible to imitate the weld line visible on the actual intake.
Just to be awkward I decided to 'convert' my 109G-6 into a G-5, simply because I really liked the look of the G-5 on EagleCals sheet EC83 from 9/JG54 'yellow 11'. To this end I used the oil pump cover from the Hasegawa kit, removing it from the 'beule' and then grafting it onto Eduard kit. The small intake scoop was made from scratch. A hole was drilled in the port wing to take a small piece of tube, as this a/c was fitted to take a gun camera.







Well that's about it so far, next up priming and painting, after restoring a few panel lines with my scribing tool.
I leave you with a profile shot, decide for yourself if this fix is working



Andy

Andy,
Your corrections are not only well done, but photographed and explained in a manner that the average modeler can understand and duplicate. Looking forward to your next update.
Joel

Hi Joel,
Many thanks for your positive comments on my 'fix'. I decided to do this to show the Eduard kit is not a total loss to the modeler who likes their kits to be reasonably accurate.

The other part is I wonder whether a lot of these 'oversize' kits may appear on Ebay at silly prices!!!

regards Andy

Hi Andy, the work you have shown here is unreal. I cant wait to see it completed. Cheers Phil

Just a quick update to show I am continuing with my 'fix' of the Eduard kit. Nice to see that the furore over the kit has calmed due to Eduard's statement of modification!

The following set of photos shows the almost completed kit from primer coat to end camouflage.

















As I stated before the camouflage scheme is Yellow '11' 9./JG54 from the Eaglecals decal sheet. The instructions for the camouflage scheme are a bit vague stating 74/75 uppersurfaces with mottling. After a little research I found the camouflage scheme to be a standard 74/75/76 scheme complete with 74/75 mottle on fuselage sides. The airframe was then oversprayed with 76 leaving patches of 74/75 patches showing through, but with the original mottle left on the fuselage.

Hopefully my next post will show the completion of my 'fix'!

Andy,
Really nice camo work. The final camo scheme (2nd to last picture), is completely different in appearance then the original scheme for the upper wings. From what you said, they just over sprayed the new camo, but the old shows through? Sorry, but I got a little confused following along.

Joel

Hi Joel,
Yes it was a little bit confusing
Basically the original scheme was standard 74/75/76 then a meandering spray (similar to wave-mirror) was added to upper fuselage,wings & tailplane to give the end result. Hope that explains the scheme a little more clearly.
many thanks for your positive comments.

Andy

Hi Andy

Absolutely fantastic! I'm thoroughly stalled on my "un-fixed" build (or any modelling) through pressure of work at the moment, but I do hope to get back to it before too long...

All the best

Rowan

I'm back again this time with my project of a fix for the much maligned Eduard 1/48 Bf109G-6 at an end. Have a browse of the following photos of my completed kit, just to be awkward I 'converted' the G-6 back to a G-5!
















Well at the end of the day it now has the correct dimensions of the prototype and certainly doesn't look out of place with my other 109s (inc Zvezda's accurate 109Fs).

The final assembly was straightforward everything fitting well,I had some problems with the stance of the undercarriage. This was probably caused by my own variation of altering the forward rake. I chose to sand the fitting, in the wing, down at the front. After taking off part of the rear lug at the of the top of the leg this then gave me the forward rake required, well after removing and re-glueing the u/c half a dozen times!!!!
I converted it to a G-5,simply because I had the EagleCal sheet with this great camouflage scheme. I removed the oil pump cover from a Hasegawa kit and simply grafted onto the Eduard fuselage. The small scoop was made from scrap, the only other modification was the head armour made from scrap using the diagrams in the decal instructions.

My overall view of this kit is favourable, and with Eduard hopefully correcting the dimensional problems will be a winner in future!!
As I've said previously I don't believe the kit to be out of proportion, certainly the aftermarket decals fitted well (they were probably intended for the Hasegawa 109 family).

Many thanks for the positive comments received, I am now awaiting the 109G Royal Class boxing so may be able to repeat this 'fix' or not???

I leave you with a couple more shots of my kit in a temporary vignette.





Regards Andy

Great work, turned out really nice!

At the moment I got both Eduard's 48th-scale and AZ Model's 1:72 scale kit under construction, the latter having the priority.
What I've done so far with the Eduard kit is mostly getting the wing together and shortened. I'm going to turn over to the fuselage soon.

Beautiful, beautiful build. The cockpit is stunning.

Hi Andy,

Excellent result indeed!

Jean-Luc

Yes Andy, very nicely done, a beautiful result

Many thanks for all your positive comments, makes the build worthwhile.
Thanks again Andy

Hi Andy

Fantastic work! You should submit it as a Feature - there'll be plenty of people with the kit who'd benefit from your build for years to come.

All the best

Rowan