Grunticus

I was working on the main gear doors. As is well reported the lower edge should be straight, not curved. One straightened and compared to unmodified kit part. I'm not too content with the results as now the door is too narrow at the front end. No one would notice right? Since I had a lot of fun making a gun bay door cover for the Me 262 I decided to try and make new gear doors from scratch. More work, but who cares. I cut out two new doors from an empty beer can, production of which has been exceptionally good lately. The things I do for modelling... This basic shape will be laminated with very thin stock card, and then I will cut the inner details with the Silhouette from the same stock and dress them inner surface up a bit. We'll see... This is where the little Spatz is at now. All primed and lower surfaces have been painted MRP RLM 76. The wings are still loosely attached as I want to spray the cammo pattern under the wing roots first and this area is much more accassible this way. The wingroot-to-fuselage fit is again excellent! More than that. Design of the parts is such that glueing them in place enforces them to assume the correct anhedral.

Little time, but I made some progress. I removed the gunsight which I will re-add after the windscreen is in place. The transarencies have been painted on the inside. All the panel lines that suffered from sanding have been restored, mostly using a micro saw. I'd say with about 90% success rate While building this my admiration for the advanced yet simple design and good looks of the little Spatz has grown considerably. The same goes for Revell, due to the design, exceptional detail (matching the simplicity of the design), and fit of the kit itself. The wheel and gun bay are complete and painted. The wheel bay is weathered, still have to start on the gun bay. The protruding guns will be made from brass rod. Cheers!

Did a bit of work today. I will be using the Aires IP. Compared to the Eduard one. I don't like the grainy look of the Eduard IP. Installed in the Aires dash. I started masking the canopy and windscreen inside and out. While I was at it, I left the Eduard masking set alone and did it all with Tamiya tape. The Eduard set will be used with the remaining AM stuff on another 162. On this photo it looks like the tape is not snug against the frame, but that is optical illusion. The (Aires) wheels are done. Some weathering to do. Today I also removed the moulded-on hydraulic lines on the main gear legs, I will replace them with wire ones.I wondered about the Revell wheel and wether or not the thin lines across the tyres would wear off in use. They do as the wear shows in period photos, so I am not going to restore them, and use the Aires wheels. Part fit on this kit is exceptional. I wonder if Revell kept the team that designed this and cut the molds... they should have gotten a raise and Revell should have let them do all their kits. This is by far the best quality Revell molding I ever worked with. Period. This is after glue, before any sanding: My "opt-in" bottom seam is closed up and it gets the works to make it dissappear. I enhance-scribed the seams of the ailerons and elevators. A safe and easy way to practice scribing. Only screwed up twice I tested if there is enough lead to prevent tail-sitting. Revell recommend 45gs in the nose cone in the instructions. In order to get 45gs in that small cone you would need Plutonium so good luck with that. Luckily there is ample space behind the cockpit. Some drawings, might be of use for someone when aligning tail and gear and such. She will be finished as this one. Note the remark about the Werksnummer. I will put 122230 on her. Below still with the original tail section. I didn't want to keep this one from you guys and gals. I have never seen this one colorised before. Mesmerising image to me, it makes me wonder about those hectic times, and what remains to be discovered. Thanks for watching!

Thanks you! I'm not sure I dare say the nose is way off, but I'll look at that later when the fuselage has thourouglhy dried up closed. Thanks for the heads-up on the weights! Revell's instructions do mention it but to make sure I added them right away, though not just in the nose. The resin pit is also quite a bit heavrier than the styrene one, which helps. Thanks! I would even go so far it is slightly too big with my example. It took quite a tour-de-force to get the fuselage closed. I glued it one section at a time, using Tamiya extra thin cement. I would really love to see some close-up images of your 1:1 panel. Is it a replica or an original one? Something like that would look awesome hanging in my modelling room! Did some details. I forgot the right-hand actuator. Not a problem I will just add it like the other one. Fit was excellent btw.. I used brass rod instead of the resin part because it was warped. I did have a little trouble determining where exactly I should attach it. I started on the IP (Aires). The painted dials look horrible in this photo (Iphone 11 2x macro), but great with normal eyesight (Yes, thank you, I didi put my glasses / spectacles on ). The partially painted one is per photos. Closed up and drying.. Fingers crossed. The fuselage is under more tension than I would ideally want, but nothing extreme. Tamiya extra thin almost 'welds' the plastic together really wuickly. Paint does really bring out the stuff in the Aires parts. A joy to work with and look at. I did not add any wiring, this is all casted. Amazing.

Hello Robert Jan, Thanks, that would be helpful but I can't seem to find it. Dry-fit looks good. Look at the detail on the wheel-bay. Simply amazing how they manage to do that in resin, and how it comes out under paint... I found this viergin-pack of glue in my DIY stash. I even forgot I had it. It says "Epoxy", so it should do the trick? A little 8-hour test revealed that indeed it works as advertised and provides a strong flexible bond between resin and styrene. Approved by me! Gun-bay - cockpit fit looks good. Topside fit is perfect The cockpit tub doesn't quite fit in a closed fuselage without sanding off some resin or thinning the walls further. But. I read that in frontal view the cross-section of the fuselage is too round / not triangular enough. I figured glueing it in as seen in the photos (all landscape today mind you ) and then closing the resulting gap with some card or stretched sprue will be no hard task and improve the kit shape-wise. A gentle squeeze reduces it's width by 1/3. I also dry-fitted the gear-bay in the closed fuselage, and it poses no problems. My "opt-in" gap will not cause any alignment issues (wings, engine) at all I think

I would buy a Sea Otter. Or an S-55, Neptune, D-XXIII, T-IX. 0% chance, I know.

After almost finishing the seat and getting on with the Eduard cockpit parts I abandoned them. I found that de seat would not slide on the rails even when I had assembled it conforming to the instructions. The reason is that the fit is so tight one has to first slide the rails on the seat, and only then assemble the seat to the rear bulkhead. I tried to take in apart bit things broke. This is what the seat was at, it certainly looks nice: I had added some tidbits to the back, Eduard leaves it blank. All right then, who cries when there are so may parts to choose from. On to the Aires resin cockpit then. Many years ago I built a Planet Models 1/48 CAC Wackett all resin kit. It was my first and turned out okay. But boy, did I forget how fragile resin parts are. They reminded me of the Fly Hurricane kit. BTW I now know why they chose "Fly" as the brand name: it's what the small parts do when you separate them from the sprue (quite brittle plastic which breaks easily). But resin is in a while other league. If I so much as lightly fart in the general direction of a part it immediately breaks in two. But, things were not too bad today. Only a few casualties. One Seat handle broke, easily replaced with stretched sprue. While sanding the block off the cockpit baking plate I damaged one of the rails. Easily replaced with Evergreen strip. Once the seat is in place no one notices anymore. I finished the Aires seat today. I modified it a little bit because the footrests looked a tad too short compared to photos, and the horizontal bar was missing. I chose the Aires seatbelts over the Eduard ones because I think they look slightly more authentic. I particularly like the texture on the leather cushions. Finished, bar some touching up and weathering: I also cleaned up the pit parts and gave them a coat of Surfacer. Simply amazing how this coat brings out the life in the parts. Amazing detail just pops-up! They are now in RLM66 awaiting my return. More to come. Edit: (Important) The buckles of the side-seatbelts interfere wit the rail action when you insert the seat into the cockpit rail, so take care that the outer buckle lip does not protrude into the area of the rails.

My main goal is to produce an acceptable looking model of an He 162. But, as I said, I want to use this build to work on some skills I feel I am lacking in: working with PE and resin. Today I spent some time on that. I have two complete cockpits at my disposal: one PE and one Resin. I will construct both, and save the one not used in this build for another Spatz, of which I am certainly going to build another one. For bot cockpits the same area in the fuselage has to be stripped of any raised detail. This went well with the Dremel and then hand-sanding to make it smooth. The right-hand gun port got a nick from the Dremel, but the cut is just on the inside. I will fill it. There is not much logic in my building sequence, apologies for that. I need to get the hang of a few things. Next I separated the resin wheels. They are identical copies of the Revell wheels, just weighted, and with already slanted main wheels. The Revell wheels look a tad cleaner than Aires' do. The weighted look is appealing, so I wondered if I could do the same to Revell's wheels. In the past, I have done a lot with stretched sprue so have some experience as to how styrene reacts to the flame of a lighter. The kit wheels are redundant, so why not. I heated one third-cord of them in a controlled manner and then quickly set them on a hard flat surface next to an Aires wheel and held them still for a while, to try and replicate the look. Here are the results: Not bad and even usable. I will make up my mind when both sets are painted up. The thread on the Revell wheel is now gone (I restored it on the small nose wheel with a micro-saw). Does anyone know if these radial raised threads withstood landings, or would it wear off? I think it might be some kind of rubber-reinforcement. I will try to repair them using the technique that I saw in @allthumbs fantastic EA-6A build. Not because I in any way think that I am in the same league or will be anytime soon, but for practice. I have started on the Eduard cockpit. I cleaned up the Revell seat according to instructions and removed the moulded on seatbelts, and added the PE parts. Finally a coat of Surfacer: Tomorrow I will study photos to see what I can add (besides the cushion). For now, this site seems a very good reference site, Wonderfull collection of details photos.

Wonderful! Simply wonderful...

Very nice. I will be watching this one as I have one in the stash. Just finished the single-seater. Quite nice kits from Revell. I agree with you on the high level of detail.

I am taking this slow and easy to improve my skills with PE (and resin). Today I started with the Aires seatbelts. They came out pretty well, I took my time. One buckle broke in two but I managed to get it fixed. The instructions are pretty much as clear as they can be. I will also do the Eduard ones and compare end results to reference photos and then choose. Aires: On a side note: so far I have been resizing images to 1032 pixels, on the longest side. What is considered the optimal size on this forum? Personally, I don't like having to scroll to see whole images. I'm on a 27" monitor but I realise not everyone is.

Good save! Great looking Hellcat.

For my next one I chose this one. Lovely looking bird. Simplicity combined with elegance, in a technically innovating package. I have been reading a lot about it's development and it amazes me how fast and how many they managed to build, under the given circumstances. Today, there are cave factory remnants where parts of this airplane remain to be found today. I am not blind to the dark side of this story. Still, in itself it is astonishing what was achieved. What we get: And I purchased so AM stuff. Will see how much I am going to use. For me, this is an ambitious project. I am not adept at resin and etched metal parts and I have never been friends. But: I've learned from the past few kits.

Hello all, It's finished. Nice kit, fought me sometimes, but fought myself too with utter stupidity sometimes Only stencils are decals, the rest were made with home-made masks. Special thanks to @Jennings Heilig for his kind assistance with the Werksnummer! For my next build, an He-162, I will pay more attention to preservation and/or restoration of the few panel lines that kit has. Kind of blew that on this build. Still, I'm happy with the outcome. Hope you like!

I'm calling this one done. Unfortunately I wasn't able to preserve the panel lines very well during construction, and I suck at restoring them. Something I will give extra attention to in my next build, an He-162. New tools arrived with which I will do some practicing on some sheet. RFI here. Thanks for watching!