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Sprue N This sprue is primarily the engine cowls. There are two different sets on here. As there is the option to pose them open in a butterfly position, they are detailed on both sides. The gun covers are split in half which could possibly make for some challenging seam work. The first of two instrument panels is here. This one has the dial faces moulded in situ. So get out the steady hands and a fine paint brush. Sprue O & P The clear parts are split into two small sprues. The parts are very thin and clear with no visible distortion. There is also a clear fuel line that goes in the cockpit. The clear IP has no dial faces moulded on it so you can put the decals behind it for a glass effect. There are two options for the canopy. It looks like the difference is in the aerial mount(?). The instruction booklet sticks to the standard ZM presentation and is made to look like a service manual. The inside is in full colour and has helpful notes to assist in construction. There are photos of completed assemblies to help out and show painting instructions. Vallejo and Mr Color paint numbers as well as paint color names are provided. The decal sheet is printed by Cartograf which is usually a sign of good quality. There are a full set of airframe stencils and the instrument dials are provided as both a single piece and as individual dials. The paint guide for the camo is in full colour and a nice 2 page spread. There are two marking options in the box. The first is for Erich Hartmann's plane and the second is for when the same plane was flown by Anton Kellmayer and had some additional markings added to it. Lastly, there is a resin 2 piece figure of Erich Hartmann. It comes in a box very similar to the one McDonalds used to pack their apple pies in. The sculpting looks very nice. There are nice looking folds and creases in his uniform. Summary Overall, this is a great looking kit in the box. There's lots of details and it sticks to the ideas that Zoukei-Mura has for their kits. The price of the kit is well in line with comparable kits from the likes of Tamiya and the recent GWH Curtiss Hawk 81. The forthcoming Kotare Spitfire is similarly priced and it doesn't have an engine. A bit of a letdown is the lack of an option to do a closed cowl around an engine blank which would allow you to display the engine with all its complex detail beside the finished model. GWH do this in their Hawk kit. Maybe they'll consider it for future releases. The big challenge is for the potential buyer to decide if having all that internal detail is worth it to them plus the attendant complexity and fit challenges that potentially come with it. Carl

Sprue H Sprue H covers the prop and MLG. The legs are moulded in a single piece so they should be suitably durable. They do mount to the fuselage in a prototypical manner so hopefully the kit doesn't suffer the same fate as many real 109s did and have the gear collapse. There are two additional sets of wheels on here. The brake lines are provided as well. The propeller has nice hub detail and the blades look suitably thin. Not mentioned in the instructions are what looks to be open and closed shutters for the supercharger Sprue I This small sprue is composed of parts primarily for the Mk108 cannon. Much of it goes into the cockpit and entails the breech and it's mount.

Sprue C Sprue C covers the inner wing structure including parts of the MLG bays, rads and various linkages. Again, the detail is nice and sharp. ZM use a fair number of small stubs that need trimming off parts presumably in an effort to reduce ejector pin marks. Thankfully the instructions have scrap diagrams showing where they are and what to trim off. Sprue E Skipping over D, we go to E for engine. This is probably the best sprue that epitomizes ZM's philosophies behind their kit design. In their typical fashion, they include the engine pistons and rods which you'll never see again. There is a multitude of thin plastic pipes for cooling and oil. Even the spark plug wiring is moulded here. If you are building a closed cowl, odds are much of this can be left on the sprues saving one the trouble of painting and fitting it. It's unfortunate that ZM don't include a dummy block that a modeler could use instead. After all, they do include an engine stand but it would look odd empty. Sprue F The tail is next up. The vertical tail surfaces are on Sprue F as are the first set of MLG wheels. There's a very restrained fabric detail to the rudder here. There are parts for a tall and short tail but only the short one is mentioned in the instructions. Various oxygen tanks and the methanol tank are here as well Sprue G Time for the cockpit. The detail.on these parts is truly fantastic. A replacement AM cockpit set would be hard pressed to improve upon what's here already Well, except for some seatbelts. In previous ZM kits they would give you the option of a seat with moulded on belts or one with none. In this kit, there's only the no belts option. Perhaps they want you buy their forthcoming PE set that has belts on it. Back to the kit parts, many of the control linkages are included here Oddly since most of the detail is nice and sharp, there is one moulded bundle of cables where the detail just fades out midway. It is disappointing to see especially when the adjacent detail is so sharp. There a cannon on here as well. I suspect it's the earlier 20mm that's not used for the kit version. Lastly, the engine bearers are on this sprue. They look to be very fine and in scale. Hopefully they are up to the task of holding the engine in place especially during all the handling during painting.

Upon opening a fairly sturdy box, you are greeted with 12 sprues of grey and clear plastic. As a bonus to this release, there is also a resin figure of Erich Hartmann, the highest scoring ace in history. There is an instruction booklet, decals by Cartograf, and a small sheet of vinyl paint masks. The kit is labeled as a G-14/U4 but there are several unlabeled additional parts included which would allow the builder to do other variants of the 109. I'll try to point them out as I go along but please check your references for what would be applicable to your particular subject. Compared to previous ZM kits, the plastic is a a bit softer in feel. It's not as hard or brittle feeling like in some of their earlier kits. One welcome change is that they are no longer in different shades of plastic and just a fairly neutral grey. Sprue A Starting in order, Sprue A covers the fuselage and tail. The fuselage detail is nicely done, with restrained consistent engraving of all the panel lines. The fuselage doesn't suffer from an overabundance of rivets. The surface is not completely smooth however and has a very slight texture to it. It will be interesting to see how that impacts the final finish. The horizontal tailplanes are moulded in a single piece that spans across both sides. This means the vertical tail is split in half which allows for a short and a tall vertical tailplane option. Both are in the box. The main wing has separate fillets on this sprue. Hopefully this won't complicate the fit. Sprue B Next up, the wings are on Sprue B. More precisely, the outer wing skins are. Again, the engraved detail is nice and restrained. The builder has the choice of having the slats and flaps up or down. On the underside of the upper wings, there is moulded on detail for the roof of the MLG bays.

The Messerschmitt Bf109 doesn't really need any introductions. It was a low wing monoplane single engined fighter that first saw combat during the Spanish civil war and stayed in service through the full duration of WWII. Some variants even served long after that if you count the Hispano built planes. The G-14 was a late war variant that was introduced by the RLM in an effort to standardize many of the changes the plane had undergone during its long production and service. The U-4 was a subvariant that had a further change in armament with the motor cannon being swapped to a 30mm Mk108 instead of the previous 20mm one. Zoukei-Mura has entered what some would say is the crowded late Bf109 market with this all new kit. The biggest differentiator to the existing kits is their now standard approach of including full interior details from fuselage bulkheads to wing spars and ribs and all the equipment contained within. Some feel that much of this is a wasted effort as very little is seen once the wings and fuselage are closed up but it is part of the company's ethos. Personally I like it even if I rarely build planes with open panels and exposed compartments. This review is going to be in two parts. This initial entry is an in-box review highlighting the contents. I will then do a build review of the kit and hopefully find and point out any potential issues with the build. A few have already come to light so I will focus on those as soon as I can. Carl

What's not to like about the box art? A USAAF crew in an RAF night bomber during a daylight raid and some seriously point blank dogfighting.

Martin and I have been discussing the kit offline and it got to the point where I've been sent one to review by the admin here. It arrived yesterday and the first thing I did was take a look at the tail. My feeling is that ZM overemphasized the fairing that's at the front of the vertical rudder. This, plus just enough of a loose tolerance in the fit and you get the huge step you encountered. At the moment, I think the best approach to fixing the vertical tail is to lightly sand down that fillet until it's more reflective of the pics Martin has posted. I'm planning to get the review done this weekend if all goes to plan. Carl

I use Tamiya branded Olfa knives like @Peterpools does. They're inexpensive a dni find the shorter blade means I'm less likely to break the tip off. Which still happens but not as frequently it seems. Then again, it's been probably more than 20 years since I used a #11 blade. Carl

It's a gorgeous kit Peter. I have it in the stash too. Eclipses the Trumpeter one in so many ways and really ups the bar. I'm hoping GWH does more 1/32 stuff. Oh and they've just announced a Pearl Harbour version coming out around Christmas.

So Plan B is a fail. After getting rid of the tape residue, I decided to switch to Mr Color for the dark steel panels. The paint is fairly sturdy and sticks well. So I sanded the tail section smooth, but left the black primer in place to give it that mottling look Martin suggested. Well it seems very thinned Mr Color does not like an enamel base. I've now got a rolled steel sort of look to the panels I sprayed. Seeing what was happening, I didn't even bother to make the cost solid. Here's a close up of the texture I'm encountering. So onto Plan C which is: - strip the tail back to bare plastic -paint the grey panel - mask, and paint the steel ones - finally put the primer and silver over top. Hopefully that works.

You can never have too many Corsairs.

It's really coming together. It hopefully isn't too much work to touch up the camo after you get the canopy on. Carl

Moderoid is releasing a Cain to go with their ED-209!!! Yes!!!

The scary part is I had just masked the fuselage so can't imagine what it might have been like after a few years.

Tamiya had just announced a 1/48 F-35A There's one more surprise release coming.

Hopefully none of them are a 5 lb sledge hammer... It seems there's been an influx of 'cuss worthy' builds on here of late. This, Peter's Whirlwind, John's F9, Ernie's Helldiver. Somebody please take a Tamiya kit out, throw some cement in the box and give it a good shake for a no fuss build!

Martin, that's not a bad idea. Let me see how that turns out.

I had some seriously stuck on tape residue on my CF-104 so had to use Tamiya X20A thinner to get it off. It's pulled off a bunch of the paint too so some touch ups are going to be needed. Thanks for trying that on your canopy and giving me the info I needed to fix my build. Carl

Thanks Gary. It's more than paint lift, the tape left residue all over the tail. I had to use Tamiya X20A thinner to get that off.

I can't imagine the gun being another 1.5m longer. It would have gotten caught on well, everything!

Yikes, quite a bit of finessing there. Looks like it's one of those kits where if you're slightly off in one spot, it just magnifies things down the road. The question is figuring out where the first issue propped up.

Hit a small setback. The tape I was using on the tail has decided it really liked being there. It's basically shredded in trying to get it off. So needless to say, some of the paint has come with it. Thankfully it's all just on the tail so I'm going to let the paint dry a bit longer, it back and start over.

Thankfully, the real plane was that shiny so I'm all good. Just wasn't expecting polished aluminium to be so bright.

I love big gunned Shermans! It's a nice kit. The rubber band tracks aren't that obvious and are decently detailed. The only part I found to be a bit lacking were the headlight guards. I swapped mine out. Here's the kit one with some I found in my spares box.

Ok, who said Batmobile? How hard can it be? Everything is one colour.