1/32 Revell Me 262B-1/U1 Nachtjager

[Thunnus]

Thanks Johnie!  Radio unit, not radar unit... gotcha!  I should've known since the same radio unit is housed in many other Luftwaffe aircraft.  Thanks for the additional details for the canopy eject lever.  And thanks Vincent for the wiring color information.  So much detailed information available here at LSP!

 

I am starting to map out the visual limits of the wheel well area so that I can think about how to add the wiring details.  Luckily, there are some overhanging structure at both the front and rear ends of the wheel well opening that I can use to hide my wiring behind.

 

 

Before I work on the wheel well details, I need to rivet the fuselage so that's what I spent the majority of the day doing.  The first step is to draw the rivet lines onto the fuselage surface.  I use a soft-leaded pencil to draw and flexible rulers and flexible white Tamiya tape as line guides.  For reference, I am using Kagero Top Drawings.  I have not established the accuracy of the drawings but it should be good enough to establish the visual interest (and not complete accuracy) that I am trying to achieve with the riveting.                          

 

 

I use a rivet wheel to make my rivets.  There are a number of different manufacturers (RB Productions, Rosie the Riveter, Trumpeter for example) but they are essentially modeling versions of the ponce wheel.  I have a set from Galaxy tools that covers all of my riveting needs: the big wheel for the majority of my runs, the small wheel for tighter spaces and the corner tool when I need to run the riveter right up to a raised feature. I am using a 1.00mm pitch for this model.

 

 

Riveting is just a matter of running the rivet wheel over the lines that have been drawn.  Sounds simple enough but there are some nuances involved.  It is a good idea to map out each individual run of the rivet wheel in terms of how you are holding the part and the wheel and also how you are supporting the plastic part as you run the rivet wheel over it.  It does take some pressure to push the spikes of the wheel into the plastic and sometimes, if you are not prepared, your wheel can take an unexpected dive, especially at the end of a long run or around a curved surface.  I like to place flat pieces like wings and stabilizers on my table top but for curved parts, like the fuselage, I hold in my left hand while running the riveter with my right.

 

After riveting, each hole has a mound of raised plastic around it.  I find the effect much more pleasing when those raised mounds are removed.

 

 

The left over lead eventually works itself into the rivets and panel lines during the sanding process, which makes the work easier to see.

 

 

Since I am running the the rivet wheel freely over each drawn line, the rivet lines are not completely straight.  They really don't have to be perfectly straight to be effective but I want to address the obviously distracting errors.

 

 

These errant lines are filled with black CA glue and re-riveted. Since holes filled with black CA are impossible to distinguish from open holes, covering the repair with primer helps you see the work more clearly.

 

 

 

After the clean-up work, I've given the fuselage parts a light pastel wash to check my work.  In addition to minor rivet repair, this is also a good time to check the panel lines and re-scribe as appropriate.

 

[johnie hopper]

Yes, you're right. There's a lot of space in front of main wheel bay to hide wires ending. Here is shown how should it look in reality.

Situation is worse on the rear bulkhead. There was a hole for cable pack like on these pictures:

 

As you can see, there are few more holes and openings in the wing and wheel bay walls. It would look nice to have them opened.

 

 

 

[Thunnus]

Thanks Johnie!  

 

Using the momentum from riveting the more difficult fuselage, the flat wings were also riveted.  Much easier drawing the guide lines on the wings.

 

 

A close-up of the wings AFTER the rivets have been applied but BEFORE the wings are sanded.

 

 

And then a brown wash is applied to check our work.

 

[dennismcc]

That's a great tutorial on riveting, very tempting

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Troy Molitor]

Lovely efforts going on here John.  As usual, I'm really enjoying this build too.   

 

P.S.  Went down the Savanna River ( GA / South Carolina) last weekend on my Dad's former LUND bass-boat my brother in law now owns.  Had a blast fishing all afternoon.  

Can't beat fishing in late November anywhere!  

[Thunnus]

On 12/2/2020 at 10:40 AM, dennismcc said:

That's a great tutorial on riveting, very tempting

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

The riveting is pretty fun and goes fast. It's the drawing of the lines that takes me forever.

 

 

On 12/2/2020 at 10:44 AM, reserve_22 said:

Hi I'm sure.Only steel parts was in RLM02 .All Duraluminium part was without color.Dont foget Me262 have only some rivet lines without putty. I realy like your work ;-)

 

Miroslav

 

Thanks for the comments, Miroslav! 

 

 

On 12/2/2020 at 12:35 PM, Troy Molitor said:

Lovely efforts going on here John.  As usual, I'm really enjoying this build too.   

 

P.S.  Went down the Savanna River ( GA / South Carolina) last weekend on my Dad's former LUND bass-boat my brother in law now owns.  Had a blast fishing all afternoon.  

Can't beat fishing in late November anywhere!  

 

Dude... I want to go fishing!  In Georgia!  On a bass boat!

 

I was playing around with the wiring today.  I wanted to replicate Aires approach which was to depict the wiring from the four electrical terminals on the outer tube but terminate it at a wiring harness right next to the terminals.  To create the wiring that spans across from the terminals to the outer wall, I could glue my pre-painted wiring bundles at the wiring harness.  I was going for this (Aires wheel bay for Trumpeter 262 kit)...

 

 

This is what I got.  It looked pretty decent until I sprayed that primer on.  The electrical terminals are very small and trying to butt up wiring right up to the terminals was too difficult to pull off.

 

 

So I had to try a different way.  This time, I started with a strip of sheet styrene whose thickness approximated the width of the terminals.  I only needed a short length of this but kept it long so it would be easier to handle.

 

 

I rounded off the edges of the strip.  From the top, you can see that the shape is similar to the terminal.

 

 

I marked the strip to ensure some uniformity.  I need four pieces with a row of drilled holes across each one so eight lines across.

 

 

I could fit five holes using my smallest drill bit.

 

 

A razor saw was used to cut each piece.  Pretty messy but the excess plastic from the sawing and drilling can be cleaned up.

 

 

Individual strands copper wire from a spare speaker cable were glued into each of the holes.  

 

 

The existing terminals were removed from the outer tube.

 

 

The new terminals are glued into place.  To accommodate the wiring, the terminals are larger than the originals but not noticeably so.

 

 

Now I have to gently push the wire strands to the proper orientation and then attach wire harnesses around the bundles.

 

[adameliclem]

Wow, man. Great work.

 

Adam

 

[scvrobeson]

That's a much more elegant solution than trying to butt-join wires to the resin.  Great lateral thinking on it.

 

 

 

Matt 

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!

 

It's hard to wrap tiny strips of aluminum tape to represent the wire ties so I'm using brass tubing.  The wiring to the four terminals has been organized and now I'll probably paint this assembly as I can probably spray around the wires.

 

 

Some details have been added to one of the wheel bay walls.  The boxes were pulled from the Trumpeter Me262 kit as I had a lot of interior parts left over due to being replaced by Aires resin.  Studying the Aires part as a reference has revealed one of the limitations of resin.  All of the detail has to be pressed against a surface. I'm not restricted to doing that so some of the wiring is standing proud of the surface.  The wiring bundle has not been attached yet.  I'll probably paint the wall and the wiring separately and then attach the wiring afterwards.

 

[dodgem37]

Good show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[nmayhew]

wow super stuff

 

always ultra high standard but also always educational and instructive too

 

thank you for taking the time to set out everything in such detail

 

and also thank you to Vincent and Johnnie for the additional information

 

one question: these birds were puttied in real life so panel lines were not really visible ie they weren't really there at all - will you be trying to simulate that, or just leaving them be?

I'm in two minds about what i will do when i finally get to make one of these aircraft

 

thanks again

 

Nick

[Thunnus]

20 hours ago, nmayhew said:

wow super stuff

 

always ultra high standard but also always educational and instructive too

 

thank you for taking the time to set out everything in such detail

 

and also thank you to Vincent and Johnnie for the additional information

 

one question: these birds were puttied in real life so panel lines were not really visible ie they weren't really there at all - will you be trying to simulate that, or just leaving them be?

I'm in two minds about what i will do when i finally get to make one of these aircraft

 

thanks again

 

Nick

 

Thanks Nick!  I've read some discussions/arguments about this and I don't want to make any controversy.  I am choosing to show all panel lines and rivets and won't be simulating the puttying that may or may not have obscured this detail in real life.  It's a personal choice that I'm exercising because I don't like the look of a smooth surface on an aircraft model.

 

I added detail to the other wheel bay wall.  The clear box is from the Trumpeter kit, which is a clear version of the same box I used on the other side.  The Trumpeter 262 kit included extra parts in clear in case you wanted to show the engine off without removing panels.

 

 

Just to make sure the extra bits don't get in the way of the insertion of the cockpit tub into the fuselage.

 

 

Added some plumbing to the tube.

 

 

The wheel bay parts were painted in gloss black as a base for the metal color to come.

 

 

The fuselage sides were sprayed with Alclad Duraluminum, which didn't go on that well.  This particular shade produced webs as I sprayed as if the paint was drying in mid-air.  I've experienced it a few times.  It's usually removable with careful brushing afterwards but the finish can be a little rough.  Not too worried about it since these interior parts will be weathered.  I switched to AK Extreme Metal Polished Aluminum for the tube part.

 

 

While I let that metal paint dry, I took a look at the landing gear well walls.  This is a modular assembly comprised of seven main parts, which allows for some nice detail on the well walls.  Interestingly, the landing gear mounts are separate pieces.

 

 

Fit is pretty good although I had to trim down the center spar to get it to fit right.

 

 

I'm just checking fit and scoping out opportunities for wiring in the landing gear bays.  You can see some of the additional lightening holes that I've added courtesy of Johnie's reference photos.

 

[Greif8]

As always, exceptional work John!.  The scratched cabling is especially outstanding.

 

Ernest

[johnie hopper]

Regarding wheel bay walls I'm afraid that as Trumpeter as Aires had too much of imagination or less of sources. In any case there were no boxes like you add (talking about red 8, which was probably very similar). Especially on the left side wall there was no aditional device in comparison with A-1 version.

You can notice the expansion hose from hydraulic oil tank to the hole in the wing.

 

On the right side wall there were added two boxes on the common backplate on the wall and one box on the main wing beam. All three boxes are part of Patin autopilot system.

 

There is also a huge bundle of wires going through the cockpit wall behind known four clamps.

You can notice a missing cable between the right of two boxes on the wall and empty clamp on the wall.

Don't care for various hydraulic pipes. They are just not conected to their regular usual place in front of main wing beam.

[Troy Molitor]

Hey John, a real pleasure following along.  Keep up the fantastic work as always.