Horten hears a Deere - Ho229 back from the dead!

[seiran01]

I simply could not wait to jump into building Zoukei Mura's brand new Horten ho229 kit (in box review here) - the Luftwaffe boomerang has been one of my favourite aircraft since i discovered the jet in my teenage years.  Given that the fusealge and wing panels are molded clear (frosted), My plan is to build the aircraft roughly half painted and half as a skeleton. One of the Jumo engines will likely have to be displayed cut open, also.

 

I decided to start off the build by throwing together one of the wings. All pieces are glued here except the wingtip spoilers; no paint just some black wash to see how well the details show through the frosted plastic. ZM has incorrectly numbered the bottom inserts for some of the wing fuel tanks and hopefully these will be corrected before the full release in a few months. The raised strip on the underside pieces should match the rest of the molded metal strap on the top half which they do not if you follow the numbers int he instructions.

 

Interior fit is great but be careful to not break off the thin leading edge stringers when cutting from the sprue and cleaning up their attachment points, I managed to break three off.

 

My only small complaint is that there are no locator pins to join the wing panels to each other or to the inner structure, this made alignment for gluing difficult, and more difficult to check close-in alignment than opaque plastic would be.  In ZM's defense, the instructions have you attach the wing structure to the fuselage before joining the wing skin halves, so this could very well eliminate this problem completely.

 

Here's the wing assembly; i'll only paint RLM02 on the inner visible surface if any of this can be seen on the assembled kit.

 

 

[seiran01]

If anyone's tracking the size, that's a half-inch grid. The span of this one wing is about 8 1/4"

[mywifehatesmodels]

Can't wait to see this, Mike!

 

 

John

[Smokey]

Mike,  Looking good.  Will be following along.  Dan

[Uncarina]

Great start, and Thank You for sharing this!

 

Cheers, Tom

[BloorwestSiR]

Great to see this and thanks for sharing.

 

I just need to wait until October to get my copy.

 

Carl

[Out2gtcha]

NEAT!

 

Cant wait to see this one come together................Following!

 

This one along with the KH OV-10 is on my TOP to get list for sure

[JeffC]

Looking good so far and I will be following you build. So did you get this at the Nationals? I have one on the road as I type this. I may have it in my hands by tonight. 

[seiran01]

Thanks guys,

yes Jeff, got this at the Nats thanks to a friend who stood in line for me as I couldn't attend at last minute.  I'm hoping ZM will still send me a review sample of the kit once they're officially out so that I can compare any last minute changes made (like to the instructions)

[Shawn M]

Thanks for sharing the build, Im excited about this one as well.

 

In regards to the structure color, are you sure its RLM02?

Looking at the Smithsonian pic's it appears to be a light blue/green instead.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Shawn M

[seiran01]

I'm not certain, I'd have to go back and look... 

[Rick K]

  On 8/12/2014 at 2:06 PM, seiran01 said:

I'm not certain, I'd have to go back and look... 

Looks like RLM02 to me.

[Rick K]

  On 8/12/2014 at 3:00 AM, seiran01 said:

I simply could not wait to jump into building Zoukei Mura's brand new Horten ho229 kit (in box review here) - the Luftwaffe boomerang has been one of my favourite aircraft since i discovered the jet in my teenage years.  Given that the fusealge and wing panels are molded clear (frosted), My plan is to build the aircraft roughly half painted and half as a skeleton. One of the Jumo engines will likely have to be displayed cut open, also.

 

I decided to start off the build by throwing together one of the wings. All pieces are glued here except the wingtip spoilers; no paint just some black wash to see how well the details show through the frosted plastic. ZM has incorrectly numbered the bottom inserts for some of the wing fuel tanks and hopefully these will be corrected before the full release in a few months. The raised strip on the underside pieces should match the rest of the molded metal strap on the top half which they do not if you follow the numbers int he instructions.

 

Interior fit is great but be careful to not break off the thin leading edge stringers when cutting from the sprue and cleaning up their attachment points, I managed to break three off.

 

My only small complaint is that there are no locator pins to join the wing panels to each other or to the inner structure, this made alignment for gluing difficult, and more difficult to check close-in alignment than opaque plastic would be.  In ZM's defense, the instructions have you attach the wing structure to the fuselage before joining the wing skin halves, so this could very well eliminate this problem completely.

 

Here's the wing assembly; i'll only paint RLM02 on the inner visible surface if any of this can be seen on the assembled kit.

 

 

 

this kit is on my must build list and as soon as possible will be on my bench.  will enjoy your pioneering efforts on this build.

[Shawn M]

There are 2 structures at play, the steel fuselage section and wooden wing sections.

The wings seem to vary from light blue/green to RLM02.

Since we only have 1 example to work from I dont feel either would be wrong.

[alaninaustria]

That is some beautiful engineering from ZM! Just amazing, and a testament to the Old Man's love of period aviation!

Cheers

Alan