One of the many releases of the Monogram Me109 E kit.

The Ultimate Bf109 Part 2
by Will Riepl

With the fifties long gone and the sixties on their way in we were to see some new names in plastic. Monogram for a long time had the old balsa kit’s and then came the new Super kits. These were a mix of balsa and plastic, so now we would have less work to do on the kits. We would have a prop and the landing gear, and an all clear canopy. Now that was considered to be something to get worked up over. With all of that high tech, I did manage to win my first trophy. It was a F4U Corsair. I went and cut out the flaps and had the wing folded. All in dark blue with Marines markings.

That was a lot of fun, but now we were now getting into some nice kits, and they were PLASTIC. All plastic, not just some add on parts, or feature pieces, but the whole, entire model!

In the mid sixties Monogram came out with their Bf 109-E, kit No. P-74. This was released along with the Zero, the Spitfire, and the P-51. With these kits were to see some of the best kits of the time. No more of the odd primary color plastic like the Aurora kits, Monogram’s 109 was a simple green plastic, with some black parts.

Now when I found out that they were coming out with this 109, I decided to go and buy a case of them. I knew that I would be doing a lot of them, and I did.

Also by this time we stated to see some new paints and decals to help us make the most from these new wonder-kits. Not quite to the level we have today, but for the first time, there was the faintest glimmer of a suggestion of a possibility of actual accuracy.

The first set of decals that were to come out was from Mr Kaye. We have Aero Master now, and Mr Kaye decals were somewhat similar. For the first time you had some Swastikas in all the scales. Also we had the cross in black and white. No more painting on the markings, we had decals that were accurate enough even for us early perfectionists!

Then Pactra came out with some very good paints. They had just about all the right colors then. Also there were the Official Colors, they had good colors as well, so now we had some very neat stuff to work with, and when you got the kit done, you had a very nice looking model.

As to the kit, well you had raised lines and rivets and a lot of them. This was during the time when a model was judged by the amount of "detail" included on any flat, or non-flat, for that matter, surface, and detail meant rivets and panel lines, the more, the better.

I just got my first airbrush at the time, and I still have it. It was a Paasche F-1. You could do some very nice German camouflage with it. And still can. Camel hair brushes, perfectly adequate up till now, suddenly became unthinkable. I think that from that case I made about 5 or 6 Bf 109’s.

Then about that time Mattel came out with their Vac-Form machine. I look at one and said that you could do the canopy for a right 109, and off we went. Not just the canopies but other parts. At first I made just the canopies, until one day I took a good look at the Bf 109F. It looks like that you could do another nose and air intakes for the wing and come up with a nice 109 F. I made the parts and made about 6 more 109Fs. I still have the wood parts and the Vac-form. The germ of scratch-building was planted!

Yes the kit is crude now, but back then that is all that we had, and it was a long time until the Hasegawa Bf 109E came out. With a little work you could do a nice E. Even with the old Monogram kit.