I finished the two-seat Me 262 today. I made the nose radars from brass tube and wire. The slats were removed and glued open. The wheel wells and gear legs are wired and plumbed. I also added a couple wires to the instrument panel that's fitted to the forward canopy. I used the kit's vinyl tires, since Squadron doesn't list their resin replacements in their online catalog anymore.
This is my favorite from the "Fly by Night" project. I hope you like it too !


http://put.url.here/image.file[/img]









And here's a shot of all three aircraft in the project:


Thanks for letting me share the project with you !

Yes my favourite as well Bill. Superb job and a wonderful trio of night fighters. What is your next project?
Mal

Good job Bill.

Now, where's the He 219, the Fw 190A-8/R-11, the Do-217N, the Me-110G, etc...

Wow...

Let me rephrase that... WOW

Great job Bill!

-scott

Thank you Mal, Olivier, and Scott !

Mal - I'm thinking of building some Yaks. I have two 9s (LTD & ICM), and a 7 (ICM). I found some good detail drawings on the web which will help a lot. These kits are pretty bare and plain (plane?).

Olivier - I've built the DML 190A-8/R11 and the Bf 110. Here's an article I did on the 110:
http://s96920072.onlinehome.us/Gal4/3101-3200/Gal3190_Bf-110_Lachance/gal3190.htm
I built Tamiya's 219 years ago, but it was one of over 100 models damaged during my last move. Since I no longer care for Tamiya kits, it's unlikely I'll get one. I am interested in the Do 217.

Scott - did you rephrase that, or just spell it backwards? (the dyslexic in me made me type that!)

Thanks again for the kind words !

Nice 110G buddy!

How come you're not into Tamiya anymore? I know they are not cheap and they don't exactly provide a challenge, but still, I have a few in the stash.

Thanks Olivier !

With Tamiya kits, it just seems that whenever they have a question about how they will engineer a kit, they answer it by saying, "whichever way that will make it easier to build." They seem to reduce the number of parts, and mold things in a way to stop a beginning modeler from making mistakes. I also find their panel lines WAY overdone, but this makes it easier to apply a wash. I don't care about fit or ease of assembly. I can deal with that. I want detail in a kit that makes me figure things out for myself. When this work is engineered out of a kit, I have no desire to build it. The best way I can explain it is my musical analogy. When a person learns how to play "Three Blind Mice" on a piano, he can do a rendition of it that will bring down the house. But how rewarding is it for the player, and where's the sense of accomplishment? I realize that we all want different things from our kits. They just don't offer what I want.
Just so that you know I have built them, here's an article that was posted at ARC today of the last Tamiya kit in my stash.
http://s96920072.onlinehome.us/Gal4/3301-3400/gal3365_Swordfish_Lachance/gal3365.htm
My collection is now purged !

Thanks again !

wow, i realy have to start working on my planes... ive got a logn way to go before i do something nice like your me262, teh paintjob is awsome and the details superb!

Frank

You sure got that right Bill!

But the Swordfish is a must, eh!

Frank : Helloooo!

That looks excellent! The radar assembly looks wonderful, and the cockpit detail is great!

Roger

Sweet build Bill. Very nice. Like the look of the landing gear. Nice pictures in a nice presentation, Wingman out.

Tamigawa may have taken the challenge out of their kits for you... but for me, well lets just say I never cease to amaze myself with my ability to screw things up!!! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

I hear what you're saying Bill, and for builders like yourself and Mal and Rowan (when he actually finishes a kit...haha) and a bunch of the other guys that lurk around here that makes perfect sense. But for me, I need all the help I can get. That's not to say that I don't like a challenge, but like i said i need a challenge I can win!!! :-) :-) :-) :-)

All joking aside... Thanks for showing us how its done!!!
-scott

Thanks Francois, Olivier, Roger, Wingman, and Scott !

Olivier - I was just really angry when I found out what I got for my $90 US for the Tamiya Swordfish & their PE. For that price, I could have gotten THREE Trimaster Me 262 kits. It's easy enough for the novice to build, but I wonder how many novices would pay that much?

Roger - the nose radars were made from brass tube and wire from a Trimaster kit. They look SO much more realistic than the kit's PE pieces. I found some great color pics of the cockpit, which helped a lot. I had to guess at the wiring for the instrument panel mounted in the forward canopy, as well as the rear canopy's restraint cable. Even if it's not documented, at least it looks believable to me.

Scott - that's all I was trying to say, that different modelers have different preferences. You wouldn't believe some of the comments I've gotten when I say this. For some builders, they're the perfect kit. For others, they leave something to be desired. I know of one modeler that started this hobby by building Tamiya kits. He now can't build anything else. He can't dryfit, and complains when he has to fill seams. I really feel sorry for the guy, since he's limited himself. Even Hasegawa and Accurate Miniatures require too much work. Poor guy. Hope he takes a chance soon.

Thanks again !

Poor guy indeed!

Personally, I love making something good out of a "marginal" kit. And since I build 1/72 scale WWII kits... there's usually a gem waiting for me for around $5. :-) :-)

Though I must admit after seeing your 262's I sprang for a Hasegawa a few weeks back... But I can rationalize it because it was on close-out at my local shop for 30% off :-)

Keep up the great work bud! Just try not to build something so exotic that it makes me have to spend more than $20 on ebay to find a kit for myself :-)

-cheers !

There's something to be said for the "diamond in the rough" kits. I enjoy the polishing as much as the finished product.
Esoteric? I've been thinking of starting this one:

Jaguar (ex-ARBA) 1/48 Nakajima J1N1 Gekko (Irving). This one IS worth the hundred bucks (but I paid less).

Bill,

Now THAT is what I call class - superb job. Any chance of a close up of the main undercart and the cockpit detailing?

Steve

Hi Bill

A beautiful job as usual! The extra detail you've poured into the cockpit and u/c is superb - and the radar array looks much better than the over-scale items often supplied in kits.

I agree with a lot of your sentiments about Tamiya. I think their scribing is usually OTT too and, in the UK at least, their recent kits are frankly rather overpriced compared with other imports.

I wonder how many Swordfish kits they'd have sold if they'd released it at a sensible price? Nearly £50 was way too much for most modellers. As much as I wanted one, I held off buying one and was rewarded by being able to pick up a couple for less than £20 each when it was clear that they weren't selling...




Hi Scott - I know... I'm awful for getting distracted! I'm caught up in a heavy patch of video editing work at the moment (hence my infrequent look-ins here lately) and that doesn't leave much time for modelling.

I DID make a start on a new kit the other day though... Hasegawa's Macchi c.205 Veltro. After so many short-run kits that IS light relief for me (despite the predicament of Bill's friend - Wow! That's a state to get into... can't tackle Hasegawa or AM?!). It's a luxury to have well-fitting parts. I've cleaned things up (surprisingly for Hasegawa, quite a lot of ejector-pin marks) and have added some detail to the cockpit, so I'll post some pics soon(ish).

All the best

Rowan

Yeap, I'm waiting to buy the Swordfish too, one day I'll grab one for cheap or I'll be able to do an advantageous trade.

Nice Irving you get there, reminds me of the Fw 187 I built, cost me 90$C!!

Now I have a Fiat G.46 to build, she's a beauty!!

Thanks Steve, Rowan, and Olivier !

Steve - here are a couple pics. Please mind the dust ! Dust from around the planet is attracted to my apartment for some reason.


After taking the pic, I noticed that the smaller gauge hydraulic line on the right gear leg moved. Gotta fix that ! The Dragon kit doesn't allow the main gear to correctly tilt inwards. They replaced Trimaster's white metal & photoetched parts with plastic, and they didn't do a good job. This doesn't happen to my Trimaster kits !


And here's the nosegear:


Rowan - if the kit cost 1/3 of what it did, it wouldn't have been bad. I felt ripped off. I don't have any more of their kits in my stash, and I won't buy any more. It's the only thing I can do to counter their high prices.
I've built three of Hasegawa's Mc 202s. GREAT kit !

Olivier - I've built a couple smaller resin kits from Planet Models in 1/48. I'll have to buy some large nails, cut off the ends, and use them to pin the wings ! There's a lot of weight there, and the butt-joint wings look like a disaster waiting to happen. There's lots of pinholes just below the surface on the left side of the fuselage. Sanding in some places could create more problems than it solves.

Thanks again !

Bill? Where ya been? Hope you're still with us?