**** DONE: 1/48 Tamiya Heinkel He-219 WNr 290123 of 1/NJG 1 Nightfighter GB

[Airframes]

What, this thing powered by a Chevvy V8 ?!!

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I will have to look.

[Crimea_River]

Nope, but but maybe a 1967 Ford J Car.

OK, so below is a sequence of pics on how I represented the R/O's starboard side wall using the picture of the resin part shown in post 134 as a reference.

First off, we start with the bare wall as provided with the kit. The hose and wiring details in the pilot's position were added and described some time ago in earlier posts and are essentially complete. There's a cockpit light yet to go in though. With the cockpit tub dry-fitted, I traced a pencil line along the floor and bulkheads of the rear tub. Note all the ejector pin marks two of which I had to sand down. These, along with the lack of detail in this area are less than the usual quality I'd expect from Tamiya.

110111 RO Sidewall 1.jpg

Next, using plastic card, I began building up the rear tub components, seen here partly painted:

110111 RO Sidewall 3.jpg

To make the switch box, I was tossing ideas about in my mind when I hit upon starting with this piece of radiator that I had in my spares box from what I think was the above car I had build and destroyed many moons ago.

110111 RO Sidewall 2.jpg

The radiator vanes, if cut correctly with a razor saw could easily simulate a row of switches. Seen here is the radiator cut to size and dry fitted into the allocated space. After this shot was taken, saw cuts were made longitudinally to cut the vanes down to the required size of the switches. Then, rows of switches were removed as required using a round X-Acto blade and a little more detail was added with thinly sliced plastic card.

110111 RO Sidewall 4.jpg

Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo of the interim step showing the above-described saw cuts but you can see the result below which is close to finished. Some wires and a few other details have also been added and a light dry-brush with silver has been applied to pick out the details

110111 RO Sidewall 5.jpg

The paint is stil wet in this shot and there's some final touching up and a bit more highlighting to do but you get the idea.

Just goes to show that seemingly useless spares can be gold with a bit of imagination. I'm glad this piece survived my several purgings over the years.

Hope you like it. I'll continue with some more details and post pics as siginificant progress is made. Thanks for your interest

[Vic Balshaw]

Man you are the star, nicely done Andy.

[tigerdriver]

great lateral thinking

[Wayne Little]

Good 'Fix' Andy, well done mate!

[Airframes]

Brilliant! Well done mate!

[Crimea_River]

Thanks gentlemen!

[Night Fighter Nut]

Most excellent Andy! That's using your noggin.

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I couldn't post a photo in the PM so here is a shot of the radiator. Ok, two shots, front and back.

IMG_1219 cropped rad..jpg

IMG_1221 cropped rad2.jpg

[Crimea_River]

Woulda been harder with that one Aaron. The one I used juts had the fins/tubes in one direction so I dind't have to deal wiht a perpendicular grid.

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

That's cool I knew I had some but they all have that design or heavier so. I tried.

[Crimea_River]

Got the cockpit as done as it's gonna get and buttoned the fuselage together.

First two pics show the completed right and left halves, respectively. Final 4 pics show the pit with the sides glued together. Please pardon the clamps. One the left side of the pit in the R/O's position, the stuff below the oxygen hose is all scratch built from card. The light brown patch is a holster for a flare pistol.

The close-ups once again reveals a repair needed. The top edge of the R/O's switch box has some wave pattern in it that I'll need to fix.

[Airframes]

Love it ! Very nice work Andy.

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Exceptional Andy!!!