**** DONE 1/48 Tamiya Me 262 A-2 Heavy Hitters Group Build

[rochie]

very nice Andy

[Airframes]

Very smart!

[vikingBerserker]

Oustanding.

[javlin]

Look'in real nice their Andy!love the leg work.Cheers Kevin

[Crimea_River]

Progress the last couple of weeks has been spotty and frustrating.

The brake lines on the main gear are quite complex, with the main hydraulic line teeing off to the back and front of the wheels. There must have been an inner and outer brake. The outer line ran through the hollowed out axle from the tee in the back. To replicate this, I had to modify the kit strut (Photo 1) to add the hollow axle and lines. First, I added a thin slice of plastic hose to represent the end of the hub. Then I drilled a hole a bit into the axle but not all the way. I also drilled part way in from the front hub. Brake lines were then added to front and back with 26ga copper wire (Photo 2) . Note that the tires were also flattened.

Photo 3 shows the finished gear. I had also drilled out the lightening holes in the torque links. Funny how Tamiya has great details in many places but leaves out some highly visible things like this. It was at this point that I realized all of my detail work at the back of the wheel hub was going to be hidden by the wheel well door. Worse, all the stuff I added was going to interfere with this piece, so I had to hollow out the doors (Photo 4) and squash the brake lines so the gear doors would fit on.

The work that was going on in parallel was the seemingly endless work needed around the rear canopy to fuselage joint (Photo 5) which needed several passes of white glue and putty to get a smooth transition. I also had to grind down the fuselage here with my Dremel tool to blend in the canopy piece.

Good thing I had my little Kettenkrad to work on when I needed a break from the 262. Photo 6 shows some progress on this little gem.

On to painting this weekend. Pics tomorrow.

[Heinz]

Looking great man!

[B-17engineer]

Agreed. Awesome.

[dirkpitt289]

I have to agree it's looking stellar

[vikingBerserker]

Outstanding.

[109ROAMING]

Sweet stuff mate

[Lucky13]

Top notch mate!

[rochie]

very nice

[Airframes]

Great work there mate. The brake lines look superb. Just noticed, it looks like Tamiya have moulded the oleos at full extension, which they've done on other kts too. Irritating.

[Crimea_River]

Thanks everyone. Terry, yes they are at full extension but I figured it would be too much of a pain the a$$ to shorten them with the torgue links to fiddle with.

On to the paint scheme. After much deliberation about the options for the paint scheme for White Y (74/75/76 with 81 overspray vs 82/83 as the kit and other references suggest), I decided to go with the views of fellow Calgarian David E Brown who made a compelling case for this machine sporting the 74/75 scheme with 81 squiggles. He further suggests that the squiggles extended onto the wing surfaces and having looked at the head-on photo below (Photo 1), it's quite apparent on close inspection that the squiggles have been applied to the upturned elevators. This differs from the kit profiles where the squiggles are said to appear on the vertical surfaces only. It's also evident from other photos of this machine that the upper camo appears to extend around the wing leading edge and a short distance into the 76 on the undersides. So on with the painting.

The base coat of RLM 76 was the Polly Scale acrylic but since I didn't have 74 and 75 handy in Polly Scale, I decided to go with my Model Master enamels, which I had handy, for the factory 74/75 splinter/mottle scheme. Photos 2 and 3 show the lighter RLM 75 applied. I'm still trying to get a handle on airbrushing mottles and am not overjoyed with the results. However, the squiggles will hide a lot of these anyway. On pulling away the Tamiya tape on the undersides, my Polly Scale acrylic, which had cured for the last 2 weeks, decided to part company with the plastic (Photo 4). Needless to say, I'm not impressed. This was done yesterday afternoon.

This morninng I masked off the areas to apply the RLM 74 Photo 5 . Rolls of tape kept the paper masks proud of the surfaces a bit to give a bit of a soft edge to the splinter scheme. A few more mottles were applied in 74 and the masks removed to reveal how she appears today Photos 6 and 7 basically in a factory fresh 74/75/76 scheme.

Close inspection will reveal some overspray areas but these don't concern me as the squiggles will cover them. The squiggles will be a challenge and I'm debating how to do this. Option 1 is to free hand them on, at the risk of ruining everything. The second option is to make a 2 inch square mask that I'll move around the model and overlap previously painted sections at varying angles. This will be slower but, I think, safer although I've managed to get some very fine lines going free hand but the consistency is lacking still. I'll likely spend some days practicing on paper before biting the bullet. YIKES!

Thanks for your interest.

[ozhawk40]

Well Done CR - looks the biz!