Hi ALL!! Wanted to give you an update on my Me 262 status.....hey wait, that's not my project......got a couple more rooms and a deck to work on.....

Unfortunately I have to bail on this one, my Mrs is holding my stash hostage!!!

LOL!

Chaz, at least when you are done with that room it will be marked off SWMBO's list.

Bob

Hi Chaz!

Thanks for checking in! I understand completely! Good luck on your DIY!

Gaz

Chaz, The Minister for War and Finance is the power broker, you do what you must to survive!

Nice work on the cockpit, Carlos The seat belts are a nice addition, something I may skip on this build...

Good position of the weight up forward, but be sure to get some small weights right up in the nose too

So, these pics may help you in your efforts to assemble the fuselage..
As you would know, step 7 of the instructions calls for the 2 barrels of the cockpit to be glued together

here are the offending pieces

The instrument panel decal is nice and thin and settled very nicely with a bit of MicroSol

Then Step 9 of the instructions have you assemble the assembled cockpit to fuselage thus

Then you assemble the two halves of the fuselage together

into which the cockpit assembly goes

Now, before I go any further, I can't stress this enough:

The tolerances on this kit are so fine that it is essential NOT to paint the adjoining surfaces!

So, as is my habit, here is the dry fit of the assembly. As you can see, the arrows point to how tight this is, and how it's not going into a clearance fit

But, if I offered up just the top half of the cockpit cylinder, it fit very easily,

look how snug that fit is

so I thought to myself, what can be causing this difficulty when it comes to fitting the whole cylinder...Maybe the problem is here...?

and yes, it is! These three mounting points have got paint in them.

After drilling out with a pin vise, the cockpit cylinder was able to be fitted as per the instructions, clicking into place perfectly!

The seams are almost invisible


Steps 18 and 19 suggest adding the jet intakes to the front of the jet engine assemblies

But as I'm going with this scheme, I thought it might be better to leave them off for now, as they're going to be silver

Now, onto fixing the jet engines to the wings...
The instructions suggest adding the top of the wings to the fuselage assembly next...

As I mentioned before, Do NOT paint the adjoining surfaces! You can see here how good the fit of the cockpit is to the fuselage. I also wanted to check how the engines fit the lower wing...

Then I noticed this little item

I trimmed it off to the red line

The it was time to have at it, with scalpel and file at the red and orange areas... Be careful to only trim a little from the orange areas.

Then the Mk1 eyeball noticed this

And it got me to checking the fit of the upper wing to the lower wing and I spotted this mismatch where the engines mount onto the wing

So I trimmed the offending area back, but there is still mismatch where the engine mounts

And, so it could only leave one area causing the misalignment! And this is the offending face!

Unfortunately having already glued the lower wing to the fuselage, I am unable to remove the required material.. Thus I had to settle for clearing the mismatch I mentioned earlier where the engines mount. But! For all future builds, we now know where to look!
So, here is the prepared engine

Glued and clamped

and done!

Perfectly aligned and flush



Now, onto the next one!

Some nice work there, Russell! It's nice to see a kit fit tightly. Usually its the opposite.

Gaz

Russell,

Thanks, that is really helpful.

I have been messing about all week and I am really not happy with the result. I forced the cockpit in and misaligned the two halves of the fuselage just behind the cockpit, what a mess! Let's see if I can improve a bit.

Carlos.

Thanks Gaz! yep, it sure is nice not to have to use much, if any filler




Hi Carlos Hopefully my version 2.0 of fitting the port side wing and engine is even more helpful

So, as they say: Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Now, I don't know why I didn't think of this when I fitted the the first upper wing/engine on the starboard side, but fitting the upper wing/engine on the port side was so much easier and resulted in an even better fit!

This is why




the prepared fuselage assembly

and after fitting the upper wing

This will need clamping

and there you have it! One very clean, neat assembly!



I'm really happy with the way this has gone together... Don't let the required fettling and tuning put you off or colour your impressions of this kit. With a little effort it has been very rewarding! Even at this early stage

Neat work Russ, and a very useful tutorial on tidying up the fit issues.

Once my P-47 clears the bench in the next couple of days I will have my builds front and centre again!

Cheers, D

Russell,

You make it look so easy! Thanks again, I am learning a lot and hopefully next time I will think more after a bad dry-fit.

I have followed the brute force school with mine and the result is not neat at all:



On the positive side, I will get to practice my sanding and re-scribing techniques tomorrow.

All the best,

Carlos.

PS: I am terrified as I bought an Airfix Phantom for the Phantom campaign. Are this fitting issues common in modern Airfix?

I haven't build their Phantom, but I have built a few other "modern" Airfix kits including the 1/48 Javelin, 1/48 and 1/72 Hurricanes, and 1/72 Typhoon. I didn't run into any problems like there seem to be with the 262. Fear not!

Michael

Russell, great progress!

Carlos, looks like you have some sanding to do.

Gaz

Thanks D

Looking forward to seeing what you've got planned




Thank you Carlos hehe, I'm not sure about easy...

But still, yours will turn out just as good, I'm sure... I too will be now doing the "hide the seam" dance required of sanding and filling etc...

As for the Phantom, I wouldn't stress, I've heard nothing but good things about the kit




Thanks Gaz onto the "fun" part now

The P-47 copped a bit of oil paint filter tonight, so while it dries off I dragged out the Hobby Boss kit and got stuck in to some cutting, trimming, sub assemblies and test fitting. So far so good, no major issues to report with all parts cleaning up nicely and the test fit shows generally neat fit.

Wings and engine assemblies







Cockpit assembly



Bomb aimer/nose-wheel bay assembly



The surface details are quite crisp and the plastic is behaving nicely using Tamiya Extra Thin cement.

As always, time is against me with my overly ambitious projects, so I'm going to focus on finishing the Hobby Boss kit for the Campaign, and then later work through the Dragon kit with comparative photos in the dedicated dual-build thread .

Cheers, D

D, I like the photos of the cockpit tub and I really could have used the nose weight. I used 'B'B's and white glue.

Now that the WW II biplane and the P-47's are posted to the gallery. I will get back to the Me 262's.

Bob

did some quick preshading and mixing of colors for the (2) Me-262's

Damian,
Glad to see the progress! The surface detail of that kit look pretty nice.


Bob,
Excited to see you;re ready for paint!

Gaz

Primer, paint and assembly on a couple of steps tonight, moving along nicely now.




More detail in the dedicated dual-build thread .

Cheers, D

Bob, I am loving your double build, really neat both models.

Damian, great start.

I have been filling, sanding and scribing for a bit. Result is far from perfect but I am very pleased with it. Some of the panel lines are way too deep but I am a bit tired of correcting the same model. I have learnt a lot and I will be better next time.



Tomorrow is painting day!

Damian,
Some great progress!

Carlos,
Looks great! I'm with you... sometimes you get tired of fixing stuff!

Gaz

Carlos, I hear your pain. I also do not like to sand with a passion.

D. what paint are you using on the engine nozzle?

Bob

I used Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 black primer, then AK Xtreme Metal Steel for the NMF.

Cheers, D

It's been a while since I posted an update on my build. Thanks to work, or lack of it to be precise, and being separated from my family for the past 4 months I really didn't feel like building anything. But ever since my significant other gave me a virtual kick on me bottom via zoom, I suddenly felt motivated to work on my build. And no, her threats to burn my stash if I didn't stop whining and start building had nothing to do with it

I finished the assembly part and splashed on some paint today. It is my first time attempting a camo like this and it took a good part of two hours (out of which nearly 75 minutes were spent cussing) to finish. I have sealed it with future and hope to put some decals on tomorrow.


Test fitting the whole shabang


RLM 83 basecoat


RLM 81 mottling in progress


and that's how far I've reached.

I hope to finish it fast....I have a video call to answer in 2 days

Thanks for looking

Cheers

Raj, nice paint job so far. And kudos to your significant others motivational speech and threat.

Bob

Paint job looks great, Raj! Sorry to hear that you are beset by other difficulties.

GAz