So, waaaaaayyyyyy back in 2001, when you could travel by air and not have to get to the airport 2 hours early, take off your shoes, risk having your rectal cavity searched, and not be able to take your shaving kit along in your suitcase (Yes! Those days actually existed! I remember - I was there!), I went to the IPMS National Convention in Chicago. There in the dealer's room, I found this resin kit of the prototype 109 and bought it for (IIRC) $5.
Brought it home, fiddled with it, cleaned off the flash, assembled the cockpit and the two fuselage halves. This kit was so old, it was from the days when resin kits really were "rugged." Then it sat. Over the next 5 years it got handled in fits and starts, and the thing was assembled. It got painted and then I went to decal it and the "Nazi flag" on the rudder disintegrated! So then it sat, and sat some more, and managed to end up in a box with stuff that got moved the last major move, and then promptly forgotten until a month ago when I was looking for something else and ran across it. Felt bad I still didn't have the necessary marking, put it back in its box but put the box where I would remember it.
And then this week I saw an old friend was selling some decal sheets as he "thins the stash." Ended up buying some, including an Aeromaster "Birth of the Luftwaffe" sheet that had two airplanes on it that had the "Nazi flag" on the rudder. And there was the decal!
So I pulled out the sad old kit, cleaned it up, applied a new coat of gloss, took note that the extra canopy hadn't yellowed so there was hope if the one I had attached had done so. Took a look at the decals, which hadn't gotten any younger, but fortunately hadn't yellowed, and gave them a coat of Micro Liquid Decal Film.
The decals worked! Although it took 10 regiment-sized assaults on the Hill of Finishing supported by the heavy artillery barrage of Solvaset, plus slicing them over the panel lines, but they finally settled in.
The Nazi flag decal went on without problem. Another coat of gloss. Took off the masking on the canopy that had been there since 2006 and the canopy hadn't yellowed.
So, now I have almost each different type of 109 from the V1 to the Buchon in the collection. I bet Replicast forgot they ever made this thing. From a couple feet away, it can even sit next to an Eduard 109. And it only took almost 20 years. So, the oldest SoD project is off the shelf.
4 attached images. Click to enlarge.
