Thanks, John. For a simple kit, this one has taken quite a bit of work. So many layers to manage with Luftwaffe schemes.

Good luck with the decals, Colin (@coling). I always approach decals with a little bit of fear because it drives me crazy to get this far into a build and then have something potentially catastrophic happen. I have tried all sorts of stuff to make this go smoother, but none of them are 100%. I read an article the other day where the builder uses a hair drier after applying the decals to make them softer so they will conform to details. Seems like you would need to be really careful to keep from distorting the plastic. In any case, best of luck with the decals.

Here is an update on the Bf-109. This should be the last one before I have the finished model to display in the Headlines section.

After clear coating and doing the oil wash, I applied most of the decals. The Eagle Cals are strong with good opacity but they don not respond very well to Micro Sol. The larger crosses are in fact rather thick and leathery. Fortunately, most go over featureless flat areas or over panels that can be carefully scribed through the decal before applying softener. For the wing crosses, which had a large transparent center section, I was not happy with the way they went down. It looked to me like they had silvered. I therefore lifted them off with masking tape and redid them completely using Montex masks. This was the first time I had used the Montex system and I was very happy with the results. The very thin mask fit snugly and did not allow any paint leakage underneath. Afterwards, there was no glue residue at all to clean up. I will definitely be using these more in the future to paint on national insignia. Here is how the process and result looked, with the major decals already applied while doing the Montex masks.

The best of the Eagle Cals decals are the smaller stencil details. They went on fine and are appropriately thin and flexible. Here are two pics with almost all decaling done. Since I am doing Alfred Hammer's aircraft, rather than Yellow 6 of JG-53, I had to source the yellow #1 from an Eagle Strike sheet, as well as the score board on the rudder. I will do another thin clear coat to seal the decals before applying the final matt coat.

I had a bit of a mishap with the exhaust streaking at the wing root. It went on a bit too dark and wide on the port side and I had to repaint the RLM 76 and 75 mottle to reduce it. The work to fix this took a couple of extra days. It is fine now with no excess but I will wait to the last stages of the build to expand the streaking and scorching across the wing root with rubbed on charcoal and pastels. I will also do a bit of careful airbrushing to complete the effect.

I had to replace one of the connecting arms for the port leading edge slat. The original piece broke off.

There are a number of these small things to fix before the model is done. Another bit was detail painting for the exhaust deflectors. I will attach the loop and mast antennas before doing the final clear and matt coats. Second to last will be removing the canopy and masks and building up the seat armor details to mount the open canopy. Landing gear, flaps, ailerons and prop blades will come last as these break off too easily and interfere with handling. Hoping all this will go fine with fingers crossed. Comments welcome.

I agree with our friend @johnb, my friend @coling : this is indeed great progress!

The painted on crosses look fantastic, better than any decal could do. Great job on the exhaust staining, I am amazed by your meticulous work .

This is a superb model already and i cannot wait to see it crossing the finish line!

Thanks, Spiros @fiveten. More work done today. Matt coat tomorrow and on with details and mask removal. I am restless to move on to the He-111, which I've also made progress on recently, as well as the Tempest and P-51D. Hopefully I will have two or three finished projects this month.

Thanks, George. This one is coming along quite quickly now, in spite of small setbacks. I haven't had a model in Headlines for months now, so it will be good to finally get this done. That's interesting about using your wife's die cut machine. I don't know the first thing about the technology but it sounds promising. In the past, I wouldn't have wanted to use anything but Tamiya kabuki tape for masks but the thin adhesive-backed plastic that Montex uses is great too.