ZM He219

[BlrwestSiR]

I started my He219 early last year but set it aside at some point. I'm trying to clear up some older builds so it's back on the bench. I've been going through the box the last couple days to see where I'd left off. I can add the earlier 

So far,.I have the main wing and nacelles partly assembled.

The same goes for the rear section of the fuselage and the engines. 

The last major subassembly I have is the ventral gun tray. This part probably caused the most grief mostly due to the addition of the ZM brass gun barrels and PE frame.

If you leave the AM stuff out, it goes together fairly painlessly.

[BlrwestSiR]

Onto the new work. The outer wing sections have a duct and heater assembly. ZM provides this part but only include the upper part of the ductwork. 

There's nothing to fill in the lower section. When you fit the wing together, looking into the duct the appearance is odd. 

I mixed up a small amount of Apoxie Sculpt and pressed it into the lower wing. I then shapes it with a wet toothpick to match the upper duct half by holding the wings together.

Next up, I have the ZM PE set for the cockpit. This is done by Eduard and still retains their weird idea of RLM 66. I went back and forth between whether to use it as is, try to paint it so it would match the rest of the cockpit or not use it at all.  I went with option 2 figuring if I screwed up the painting, I would use the cockpit as is. 

I used Gunze RLM66 and thinned it down with some Tamiya lacquer paint retarder. 

It's not 100% precise, but I'm happy with the results. More importantly, it will match the rest of the cockpit. 

With that step done, I've started prepping the kit parts for the PE application.

[harv]

Alrighty then, I'll be here for the ride ! Looks good.....harv 

[Bomber_County]

Spiffing good show Carl, I really like ZM (only done one) so looking forward to this.....

[DocRob]

Looking intriguingly good so far Carl. I had some encounters with Eduard's interpretation of RLM 66 myself. It's off and in some sets like the ZM TA-152 looks rasterized, awful. Sometimes, if it's not too bad you can use it and paint the rest of the pit a tad darker and let it go as a highlighting effect for the upper panels, catching more light from above.

12 hours ago, Bomber_County said:

Spiffing good show Carl, I really like ZM (only done one) so looking forward to this.....

To me it's the opposite approach. I have built one unexpectedly partly very bad kit by ZM, the TA-152 and without that experience I would have started the He-219 by long.

Cheers Rob

[Artful69]

My Favourite ZM kit so far 

Have fun Carl 

Rog

[BlrwestSiR]

5 hours ago, DocRob said:

Looking intriguingly good so far Carl. I had some encounters with Eduard's interpretation of RLM 66 myself. It's off and in some sets like the ZM TA-152 looks rasterized, awful. Sometimes, if it's not too bad you can use it and paint the rest of the pit a tad darker and let it go as a highlighting effect for the upper panels, catching more light from above.

To me it's the opposite approach. I have built one unexpectedly partly very bad kit by ZM, the TA-152 and without that experience I would have started the He-219 by long.

Cheers Rob

The Ta-152 was one of their first kits and I've read about the iffy fit on it in places. I have their revised version of it in the stash so we'll see if it's any better.  I've only built one other ZM kit which was the A-1H Skyraider. 

2 hours ago, Artful69 said:

My Favourite ZM kit so far 

Have fun Carl 

Rog

Thanks Rog! I do like their kits. 

[DocRob]

43 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

The Ta-152 was one of their first kits and I've read about the iffy fit on it in places. I have their revised version of it in the stash so we'll see if it's any better.  I've only built one other ZM kit which was the A-1H Skyraider. 

I don't know, if they really revised something. Mine had the later grey only plastic, but I'm not sure if there were changes to the moulds. The kit is not all out bad, it has some terrible designed areas, specially around the engine struts-lower front fuselage,-front wingroot areas. Some details in the cockpit and inner fuselage (not the engine) are toyisch and have soft detail.
Some of my dismay may had been caused by higher expectations of the kit on my side, but at least it's done and doesn't look too shabby.

Cheers Rob

 

[Jeff]

22 hours ago, harv said:

Alrighty then, I'll be here for the ride ! Looks good.....harv 

I'll bring the beer , Harv 

[harv]

Alrighty then.....

 

[JohnB]

Coming along nicely.

[BlrwestSiR]

I got the radio panel mostly done. Here's the stock panel. 

I then scraped off most of the moulded on detail and added my repainted PE bits.

The PE definitely had that textured look Rob mentioned. I checked a more recent set for the ZM Do335 and it doesn't have that effect and the colour is a better match too. 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Got some more of the cockpit done. If you don't want to see scary brush painting, avert your eyes 

The IP is a combination of the PE bits and some brush painting. I also did the same on the left side of the radio operator's position. 

I then gave everything a wash using Vallejo black shade wash. Here's the basic cockpit tub all done. 

Next up were the seatbelts. I use the ones made by Kamizukuri. 

So far, I've got the shoulder belts done for both seats. 

Onto the lap belts shortly. 

[GazzaS]

Those PE parts rock the build!  I hate trying to paint tiny details like that.

 

Killer build, mate!

 

 

[DocRob]

Nice detailing and painting the pit. I don't now if I had it in me to repaint the PE around the bezels. From what I have seen from your earlier pics, it was not as worse as with the TA-152, where I spent a while, thinking what to do about the gruesome IP. In the end I noticed how deep it is set into the fuselage and used it. No option here under the Uhu's glass dome.

Cheers Rob 

[Spitfire]

Nice one, I built the Revell version as a fun build OOB and it certainly built into a large and impressive model so I am interested in how this one will turn out, so far you are doing a great job.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[BlrwestSiR]

8 hours ago, GazzaS said:

  I hate trying to paint tiny details like that.

Same here. My eyes aren't up to it any more. I'm still amazed that I did try to paint tiny details years ago. My mom found a miniature I painted at least 25 years ago and dropped it off recently. 

I still can't believe I painted the eyes on this guy. 

[BlrwestSiR]

7 hours ago, DocRob said:

Nice detailing and painting the pit. I don't now if I had it in me to repaint the PE around the bezels. From what I have seen from your earlier pics, it was not as worse as with the TA-152, where I spent a while, thinking what to do about the gruesome IP. In the end I noticed how deep it is set into the fuselage and used it. No option here under the Uhu's glass dome.

Cheers Rob 

Thanks Rob. I thought I'd be clever and skip the Eduard PE for the Ta 152 and picked up the RB one instead. Well, that's a complete cockpit with individual bezels so I may have leapt from the frying pan into the fire. 

1 hour ago, Spitfire said:

Nice one, I built the Revell version as a fun build OOB and it certainly built into a large and impressive model so I am interested in how this one will turn out, so far you are doing a great job.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Thanks Dennis! 

[DocRob]

Looks like a lot of work, but at least you can use your own brew of RLM 66 .

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

 I finished up the belts last night. Nearly used the wrong buckles but was able to fix my mistake. 

With the belts done, I installed the seats. 

I have some more small details left but the cockpit is almost done. 

[Bill_S]

Awesome work there, Carl!

[KevinM]

Nice work there Carl.Whats your thoughts on the belts compared to HGW and RB's?

[BlrwestSiR]

55 minutes ago, KevinM said:

Nice work there Carl.Whats your thoughts on the belts compared to HGW and RB's?

Thanks Kevin! The Kamizukuri belts are my go to belts when I need something fairly common. One reason is the cost as they're much cheaper than HGW belts.  One of my favourite aspects of them is they have carefully arranged the buckles on the frets so that you can lace them up without removing them first. This makes it much easier to handle them. The ones in the pic are a Sutton harness but gives you an idea of what I mean. 

You have to paint them yourself so that could be a bonus.  

The biggest downside is the buckles are made from plastic so you have to be a bit more careful. They don't have the detailed printing that the HGW ones have on them either. 

They also make a basic line where the belts are paper like the RB ones. 

Lastly, they have some of the best instructions for how to put them together, including a lacing diagram showing what belt goes where and how it threads through which buckle. 

Hope that helps. 

Carl

[BlrwestSiR]

Ok, the cockpit is pretty much done now and ready to be closed up. 

I painted and added the details to the cockpit sidewalls. The light grey sections were panels I added after the fact. They won't be seen thankfully.

I then turned my attention back to the rear fuselage. I assembled the dorsal cannon. 

This was then installed into the fuselage. Not much will be seen once completed.

I may leave the cover panel loose. We'll see.

[BlrwestSiR]

I ran into my first problem on the build. ZM give you a counterweight that goes inside the forward fuselage tank. 

For some reason, the cover plate won't fit. It fits perfectly without the weight in place. I thought it might be the placement guides on the bottom but nope, the weight itself is too tall.

Looks like they didn't machine enough off the top of the weight. There's enough room under the cover plate that I won't bother joining the two together. Since no else had mentioned this issue, I'm figuring it's a one off.  

Meantime, I started work on the lower fuselage. The rear section had an internal walkway that will be visible from the topside so I painted that with a wood pattern. Unfortunately the wood graining came out a bit on the light side. 

I then fitted the lower ribs. This goes above the ventral gun pack. 

After installation, it confirmed something I was concerned about. I had added the ZM PE details and brass blast tubes to the gun pack. They create just enough interference that the gun pack doesn't sit flush. Leaving the guts out, everything fits perfectly. 

With the framework and blast tubes in, there's a slight gap around the front and about 1/2 way down each side.

I might be able to clamp it or I can leave it removable and live with the gap. Another option is leave the internals out and display them separately.