Meng Me 163B WIP - Weathering begins

[tbell]

Hi all,

I've posted this over on Hyperscale too, so please forgive the duplication if any of you have already seen it.

I've been plugging away at Meng's nifty little 1/32 Me 163B Komet for a while now and I'm just about ready to button up the fuselage. I'm planning to do it all closed up, so all of that lovely fuselage interior and engine detail will be forever hidden.

I had every intention of doing it OOB, or nearly so, but I turned up a crap ton of excellent cockpit reference photos on the web and I just couldn't help myself. So I added a bunch of plumbing, wiring and control linkages to the cockpit, along with HGW's awesome textile belts and a headrest from Milliput. The instruments are Airscale decals with epoxy glue for the glass.

The kit engine is a little jewel and just cried out to be painted and weathered despite the fact that I'll be locking it away inside the fuselage. I haven't done too much extra work to the engine aside from replacing the kit plumbing with solder and brass rod, mainly because it was easier to do so rather than trying to clean up the oh-so-delicate kit parts.

 

I've actually obtained another engine sprue from Meng which I plan to detail further (again, heaps of great reference pics available online) and display along side the finished model.

I've been having a tough time getting the innards to fit properly between the fuselage halves. I've deviated from the instructions and have joined the fore and aft fuselage pieces and attached the wings before joining the fuselage halves together.

There's a lot of stuff that has to line up very precisely and any tolerance stacking can throw it off. I've been dry fitting to identify where things interfere and then Dremeling to create clearances.

I've not read of any significant fit issues in any other online builds or reviews, so I suspect that my issues are somewhat self-imposed.

Questions and constructive criticism are more than welcome

Anyhoo, the pics:

 

Cheers,
Tony Bell

Edited April 27, 2015 by tbell

[tbell]

More pics:

 

[skiner]

Wowwww your work is sharp and I love your paint work!... no critics for me.... in french ...''C'est tout bon !"

Edited May 12, 2014 by skiner

[Derek B]

Fantastic work Tony

 

Derek

[Aluxe]

how beautiful model

I wanted to ask, gave special treatment to the belts? or are those that are pre-cut?

greetings and continue your pending workbench

[LSP_Kevin]

Great work on the cockpit Tony! Looks terrific, and so much better than the old Hasegawa one (which unfortunately I'll have to content myself with). Looking forward to seeing more!

 

Kev

[Anders_Isaksson]

Excellent work, Tony!

I too have the Meng kit (along with the Kagero Topshots book with some nice looking markings) and also plan to build it all closed up.

Kind of surprised that Aires or the likes still haven't released a cockpit, but I guess they will come around sooner or later.

[Kagemusha]

Terrific work Tony, nice to see it on here, so much easier to find than on Hyper...

[tbell]

Thanks, guys! I'll be posting more pics soon.

 

how beautiful modelI wanted to ask, gave special treatment to the belts? or are those that are pre-cut?greetings and continue your pending workbench

Aluxe, the HGW belts are pre-cut and pre coloured. The instructions call for superglue, but I used contact cement instead so they stayed flexible. Aside from that I followed the instructions word-for-word, including the recommendation to gloss coat them, apply a dark wash and then flat coat them. This picks out the stitching detail nicely and dulls down the otherwise too shiny hardware.

[Kahunaminor]

Great stuff Tony,

The HGW belts are a boon to modelling society. I just managed to pick up a copy of German Aircraft Interiors and was chuffed to see the Me163 from the AWM included. Definably good stuff  when I finally get around to my build.

 

I look forward to seeing more.

 

Regards,

 

Kent

[Tnarg]

This is just beautiful. The wonderful color makes the whole thing look very real, almost full scale instead of a smaller model.

 

Thanks for sharing,

 

Tnarg

[tbell]

Minor update:
 
I've finally managed to stuff all the innards into the fuselage. Dry fit, trim, lather, rinse, repeat:
 

 
I painted up the ammunition in conventional brass shell casings with dull metallic grey projectiles using Alclad:
 

 
I was rather proud of how they turned out. The brass looks really brassy and the lead really leaden. Unfortunately they're totally inaccurate. A few minutes on the Googles reveals that the shell casings should be steel, and the projectiles yellow with silver tips and a green band. I'll be stripping and repainting the ammo this weekend. At least it will be nice & colourful.
 
I've also added tabs of styrene to the fuselage halves to aid alignment. They really do help.
 

 

 
You can also see where I've been grinding away at the inside of the fuselage to get everything to fit:
 

 
The panel above the engine was refined by drilling out the holes through which the plumbing passes and thinning the edges. As with the engine, I replaced the plumbing with brass rod bent to shape rather than cleaning up the delicate kit parts.
 

 
I cut a slot for the control linkage...
 

 

...which I made from tubing and rod.

 
Instead of painting the insides of the fuselage aluminum as per the instructions, I simply decided to go with black to minimize visibility.
 

[tbell]

...and a few shots of the cockpit before paint to illustrate the bits & pieces I added. I also textured the rubber fuel bladders by stippling them with liquid cement. It's subtle, but discernible.





...and the instrument panel



Cheers,

Tony

[Nick32]

Wow, ace work. The stippling on the fuel bladder is a really nice touch, looking forward to seeing more.

Nick

[shepard]

tony, fantastic paint job.. the metallic colors just terrific!

 

cheers

 

shep