Me-262TN of the Kriegsmarine

[sotoolslinger]

Night 1 Day 1b
And once again it is impossible to build models that small

[Cliffy B]

Guys, I would like some advice on how to build a "flying dio."  I'd like to portray my two Kriegsmarine birds flying over their element, gear up, fully loaded, and ready to whoop some tail.  I know I've seen some use clear acrylic rods.  Where can I get those?  I've only ever seen clear sheets at my LHS and online.  Also, what else could be used?  For the water I'll use the tried and true acrylic gel medium and paint it a few shades of blue and dry brush some white caps.  I want something that will hold my little birds well but also won't distract from main subject (the planes).  Something removable would be nice too so I could take them to shows and not worry about them snapping off in the car.

Any and all help is appreciated as always.

-Mike

[Weaver]

Well since they're small and light and will presumably be flying towards the viewer, you could just run wire horizontally out of the back of them and have it loop round into the back edge of the base.

[Cliffy B]

Alright, after some turbulent days I have some progress shots of my little 262s. 

Just have to attach the gear doors and they're ready for paint.  The kit wasn't engineered to be built in flight so I had to add some sheet stock and a mess of putty to fill the voids.  It's currently all drying so I'll add the doors later tonight.  Should be able to hit em with some primer tomorrow or Monday 

Notice the little Minicraft P-51D in the background with the radar pod 

Notice the engine inlets?  I scratched some new extended inlets from the nose cones left over from the DML cruise missiles I used to make the RX-8s.  Mainly due to the fact that I lost the kit inlets to the great carpet monster it actually worked out.  I figured they could be experimental inlets derived from experience at sea with the 262s.  See everything works out 





Close up of the scratch built hard points I installed for the RX-8 wire guided glide bombs.  Made em out of some 0.75mm sheet styrene and some Evergreen "I-beams" I glued onto the bottoms to act as launch rails. 

I chose to make them glide bombs instead of missiles for ground clearance reasons.  If I added the other two body find the missiles would have to hung in an "x" config which would put them dangerously close to the deck even with minimal hard points.  I opted for wire guidance as well instead of radio guidance because even midway through the war radio jamming had improved enough to foil the old Fritz-X radio guided bomb so by the late 1940's even the merchies would have some basic radio jammers.  Wire guidance leaves the launch aircraft a bit more vulnerable but they'll attacking mostly at night against the supply convoys bound for Greenland so they'll have some protection.


I'm also debating on whether or not to paint the canopies a solid color or leave them clear.  There's a basic cockpit setup inside that does look nice but I'm building them in flight so it'll look rather odd to not have any pilots in them.  Plus at this small of a scale it might look better to just paint the canopies overall black or light blue then add the framing color.  I've seen a lot of 1/144 planes painted that way and they actually look better than most that are left clear.  The canopies for the most part are too thick in this scale to look very good anyway.  Hmmmmm....what do you guys think?

For fun, take a look at how similar in size the 262 was to the F-86F




BTW, THANK YOU for the extension!!!!!!!  I just might make it now

So what do you all think?  Any comments, thoughts, ideas, etc... are appreciated as always.

-Mike

[Cliffy B]

Well I finished all the assemblies and started the paint work.  Just not able to finish all of the painting and decaling in time and since I don't want to rush it and ruin yet another kit I choose to finish them tomorrow.  I have the bottom colors on as well as the main topside color but the splinter colors will have to wait until tomorrow so the others can dry.  Guess I'll miss the deadline by then unless its midnight on the 16th?  Anyone care to clarify?    Photos tomorrow, need sleep.

[Taiidantomcat]

Ends at midnight local time is how I am going about it  Just keep working, slow and steady wins the race

[Cliffy B]

Alrighty I'm calling it a night here with these 262s.  Didn't get as much time today as I would of liked to work on them and I'm not feeling too hot now.  Met up with an old high school buddy for dinner and the food's not sitting too well    I'll finish these two little birds this week, no need to rush them.

Onto the 262s.  Had a little paint issue with the daytime bird and the dark blue on the night bird decided to creep under the masking tape in a few spots.  Here's some shots.

Night bird before paint


Both before paint


Both after paint so far.  Day bird still needs its 4th splinter color and another coat of gray green.


Topsides after paint with ordnance consisting of:
Night bird: 2 RX-8 wire guided glide bombs for convoy raiding.
Day bird: 2 experimental acoustic torpedoes complete with circular plywood nose cones.


Undersides


Close up on night bird's new radar



Both have a new form of radar aboard housed in the nose with additional receivers mounted in pairs; day bird under the wings and night bird behind the nose cannons.  Ordnance is completely scratch built save for some 1/72 500lbs bomb fins I used as tail fins for the torpedoes and some 1/144 cruise missiles serving as the bodies for the RX-8s.  The rest is all strip and rod styrene that I sanded to shape.

Question, what color is RLM 65 Hellblau supposed to be?  Literally its "light blue" but its more of a light green with a little gray and no blue.  Did I grab the wrong bottle of the stuff?  I did notice that on the MM rack there were 2 different HellBlaus; RLM 65 and 78.  Both looked almost identical in the store so I'm slightly confused here.  I painted the undersides of the day bird with RLM 65 and then proceeded to paint part of the sides with Flint Gray (Lt Gray Green, ala my profiles) and I can barely tell the two apart.  Can anyone shed some light on this?  I'm about to go back to the store and get the bottle of RLM 78 and re-paint  

I'm also still not sure whether or not I should paint just the canopies frames or paint out the glass with black or a dark blue.  Any opinions?  I built them in flight so they'd look kind of weird with out pilots right?

That's all for now, I'll take better pictures under natural light after I finish them later this week.

Any comments, thoughts, ideas, etc... are appreciated as always.

-Mike

[Taiidantomcat]

They look great!  As for the canopies its usually a toss up in 1/144 so its up to you. Try painting the frames and if it goes really wrong just do black