Revell Me262 B-1/U-1

[ScottsGT]

Dang it Carl!  This is looking so good I picked up a kit off LSP. Still waiting to get shipping costs, but with the He 111 and the Stuka kit I picked up, I’m on a Luftwaffe roll.  

[BlrwestSiR]

Scott, the kit is nice but definitely do lots of dry fitting. Mine had some warping which made it a bit of pain but if the one you get is good, then you should have a straightforward build. 

[DocRob]

Fantastic progress Carl, mottling looks super, as does the masked markings. I have HGW wet transfers for mine, but with my experiences with these, I´m not so sure, I will use them. Is the kit landing gear so bad, it needs to be exchanged for AM?

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Rob, the brass gear are a copy of the kit ones with the scissors links already installed so they're not any more detailed. Strength-wise, I'm undecided if there's a need for them. I mostly got them as I was already making an order with Aerocraft for other bits at the time. 

[BlrwestSiR]

A quick fix on the starboard wing cross. First up was coat of green. 

Then the mask and some white paint. 

All done!

I then drilled and fitted the wheels. 

A coat of paint for them is up soon. 

[CANicoll]

Definitely coming along nicely!  Nice work on the Camo and underside.  Super job on the masks, too.

Chris

[BlrwestSiR]

Yellow sidewalls anyone?

Tires are painted. 

Time to sort out the FuG 218 dipoles. I bought the wrong ones and have dipoles for an FuG 220 and they're much larger. I've been debating getting the correct ones from Master Models but it would take about 3 weeks to get here. 

Here's the kit rendition. 

Playing around, I drilled a hole through one and then threaded 0.4 mm tubing from Albion Alloy with a centre rod that's 0.2 mm thick through it. The challenge will be drilling the mounting hole 8 times and hoping it's centered each time. Got one done at least. 

[PanzerWomble]

Nice radar , makes a huge difference .👍

[Martinnfb]

You know , you want to   😈

[CANicoll]

You can do it!!  I have every confidence!  

[BlrwestSiR]

Well I took my time and got the rest of the holes drilled in the antenna arms. 

I then cut the tubing for the dipoles. 

Then I glued everything together. 

One thing I noticed once I had them together is the dipoles flex a bit if you bump them rather than snap or bend. 

[Martinnfb]

Fantastic upgrade! 

[Peterpools]

Carl

WOW! Amazing work on the antennas and no way in the world could I ever drill the holes in the centers and come anywhere near close to what you achieved.🏆

o

[BlrwestSiR]

57 minutes ago, Peterpools said:

Carl

WOW! Amazing work on the antennas and no way in the world could I ever drill the holes in the centers and come anywhere near close to what you achieved.🏆

o

Peter, I drilled a slightly oversized hole so that I could have a bit of wiggle room in getting the dipoles aligned. That made a big difference. I then used a slower setting CA to give me time to tweak the position before it dried 

[PanzerWomble]

Outstanding , love that micro precise work .

Making one , difficult.

Making 4 the same , thats a real skill job ! ( More than I would attempt TBH) 

They do look the mutts nutz, gonna fit real nice with the snappy paintwork 😀

[Martinnfb]

a little motivational video

 

[CANicoll]

That is one great upgrade!  Nice work and wish I had known you could do that when I did my plane.  I'd have hit you up for a set!!

[CANicoll]

17 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Peter, I drilled a slightly oversized hole so that I could have a bit of wiggle room in getting the dipoles aligned. That made a big difference. I then used a slower setting CA to give me time to tweak the position before it dried 

Brilliant.  Simply Brilliant.

[Peterpools]

Thanks Carl for the tip - I'll give it a try but where I really fall short is drilling out machine gun barrels and the like; I have been struggling trying to center my pin vice and drill for decades and almost never get it centered.  

[DocRob]

15 minutes ago, Peterpools said:

Thanks Carl for the tip - I'll give it a try but where I really fall short is drilling out machine gun barrels and the like; I have been struggling trying to center my pin vice and drill for decades and almost never get it centered.  

It´s hard to center a drill bit perfectly for drilling out a gun barrel or similar, because of the dead center. What helps, is to stick a fresh triangular blade to the tip of the gun nozzle and carefully rotate the blade, marking the center. Then it´s easy to finalize the hole with a drilling bit.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob

I'll give it a try. For decades, I've used a needle in a pin vice to locate the center starting hole for the drill bit and rarely ever had it centered.

[BlrwestSiR]

Peter, I picked up some PE guides a few years ago. They're to mark the centre of a tube precisely for drilling them out.  Let me see if I can find them. I haven't used them so can't say how easy they would be to use. 

[Peterpools]

Carl

Sounds very intriguing. If you can, just PM the address and I'll look them up online if they are still available.

Much appreciated.

[BlrwestSiR]

Last night Martin and I discussed the camo on the 262. Going through my references as well as Martin's we came to the conclusion that the nacelles needed some corrections. 

It turns out the plane I'm doing still exists and is in the Australian War Museum. So based on pics of the airframe as well as period photos (not all were helpful there) I broke out the masking tape. 

A quick spray of green over the tops of the nacelles...

...and done. 

This is probably a better match now. 

[Martinnfb]

Looking good Carl, I think the surviving B (305) is in South Africa, Australia has a single seater, the Black X. 

Based on our chat today, here is the 110306

‘Red 6’ of 10/NJG11.

Surrendered to RAF at Schleswig-Jagel, it was transferred to the USAAF, becoming Watson’s Whizzers ‘999’, 

Evaluated as FE-610, but later e-serialed T-2-610 it was named “Ole Fruit Cake” and “Schwalbe”. Scrapped at Freeman Field, IN.