1/32 Meng Me163B - Mojo Reclamation Project

[Uncarina]

Welcome back John! Hope you’ve had a great summer.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  It feels good to be flinging plastic again.  Summer has been eventful, both good and bad, and I've been turning to fishing for solace and relaxation.  One more fishing trip to my favorite lake in a few weeks and then I'll probably end up on the modeling bench a lot more.  That's the plan anyway.

 

I've painted the guns and gun bay black and glued the wings together.  The control surfaces are pin-mounted and therefore semi-posable.

 

 

The cannon openings in the wings are separate parts, which thankfully fit well.

 

 

The wings are then glued onto their respective fuselage sides.  To ensure the best fit possible, I've elected to fully glue in the top seam first and let it completely cure before applying glue to the bottom seam.

 

 

Fit is very good and it seems like this deviation in construction order was a good call.

 

 

A quick pose with the fuselage halves taped together and the tail unit slid into place.

 

 

Keeping in mind that my aircraft will be fully buttoned up, there are a bunch of interior components that need to be added besides the cockpit and I need to figure out... (a) which internal parts are structurally necessary or beneficial and (b) if and how these internal parts will be painted.

[LSP_Kevin]

Nice progress, John! This kit certainly looks a mite trickier than the old Hasegawa one.

 

Kev

[Troy Molitor]

Hey John,  have you decided on a specific scheme for this one yet?  Just curious.   

[Thunnus]

5 hours ago, Troy Molitor said:

Hey John,  have you decided on a specific scheme for this one yet?  Just curious.   

 

 

I'm shooting for this aircraft, which was shared on a Facebook Group...

 

[Antonio Argudo]

nice  work John . love this little rocket bug, great scheme to paint!!! cheers

[Troy Molitor]

X 2 Antonio.  The flea will look fantastic in this scheme.  Go John go!  

 

P.S,  good fishing on your lake trip coming up.  All the best.

Troy  

[Kagemusha]

Fully concur with Antonio and Troy, had a fascination for the 163 since I read Mano Ziegler's book in my teens 

[scvrobeson]

Good to see you back at it John. Always enjoy watching your builds come together.

 

 

Matt 

[Greg W]

Cockpit looks gorgeous, RLM 66 and NATO Black is a excellent foundation for your skillful weathering.

 

Are you using Mr. Hobby Aqueous for detail painting?

[Flight Line Media]

I look forward to seeing this build completed.

[Dpgsbody55]

Good to see you back behind the modelling desk.  That's a very interesting way of attaching the wings.  The bit that bothers me is uneven dihedral, so I hope you've got that sorted.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Citadelgrad]

Watching with interest.  I have read of fit troubles with the wings and rear fusealge, your solution seems very sound.  Glad to see you getting some bench time, i always follow your builds with interest, as they are so informative and helpful for someone still trying to figure out how to get the best out of a build.  Bravo!

[Thunnus]

On 7/28/2021 at 12:43 AM, Gazzas said:

Very nice work on the cockpit, John.  I'm sorry about your loss.

Thank you so much Gaz!  I appreciate it!

 

 

On 8/29/2021 at 6:49 AM, Uncarina said:

Welcome back John! Hope you’ve had a great summer.

 

Cheers,  Tom

Thanks Tom!  We'll have to connect again via Zoom soon!

 

 

On 8/29/2021 at 12:09 PM, reserve_22 said:

Great work John

Thank you very much!

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 11:51 AM, Antonio Argudo said:

nice  work John . love this little rocket bug, great scheme to paint!!! cheers

Thanks Antonio!   Yes, the scheme should be very fun to paint!

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 2:23 PM, Troy Molitor said:

X 2 Antonio.  The flea will look fantastic in this scheme.  Go John go!  

 

P.S,  good fishing on your lake trip coming up.  All the best.

Troy  

Thanks Troy!  It's always good fishing, regardless of what I catch or don't catch!  I'm sure you agree with the simple joy of being outdoors.

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 2:30 PM, Kagemusha said:

Fully concur with Antonio and Troy, had a fascination for the 163 since I read Mano Ziegler's book in my teens 

Yes, it is a very interesting aircraft and I am enjoying learning stuff as I assemble this little but lethal aircraft.

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 4:42 PM, scvrobeson said:

Good to see you back at it John. Always enjoy watching your builds come together.

 

 

Matt 

Thanks Matt!  It's good to be back sharing with this wonderful community!

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 4:55 PM, Greg W said:

Cockpit looks gorgeous, RLM 66 and NATO Black is a excellent foundation for your skillful weathering.

 

Are you using Mr. Hobby Aqueous for detail painting?

Thank you Greg!  Yes, I will use Mr Hobby Aqueous for detail painting for certain shades.  But since the detail painting is usually primary colors, I mostly use Tamiya acrylics.  Neither are particularly good for brush painting and I use the bottle lid as my palette and put a drop of iso alcohol as a thinner/retardant when brush painting.

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 8:35 PM, Flight Line Media said:

I look forward to seeing this build completed.

Thanks!  I too am looking forward to what this thing looks like at the end.  It's always a little different than what I envision when I start a project.

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 10:44 PM, Dpgsbody55 said:

Good to see you back behind the modelling desk.  That's a very interesting way of attaching the wings.  The bit that bothers me is uneven dihedral, so I hope you've got that sorted.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Thanks Michael!  I, uhhh, haven't really thought that far ahead.  I'm assuming with the fairly positive fit of the wings to the fuselage that the correct wing dihedral will result but I guess we'll have to see.  It looks ok now but until those fuselage halves are secured with glue with all of those internal components sandwiched in between, its just blind faith for now.

 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 11:43 PM, Citadelgrad said:

Watching with interest.  I have read of fit troubles with the wings and rear fusealge, your solution seems very sound.  Glad to see you getting some bench time, i always follow your builds with interest, as they are so informative and helpful for someone still trying to figure out how to get the best out of a build.  Bravo!

Thanks Bill!  Always appreciate your positive input!

 

I've assembled some of the internal components including the big fuel tank behind the cockpit and the rocket motor assembly.

 

 

The little rocket motor is impressively detailed right out of the box.  This includes some very fine hydraulic lines, separately molded, which I rarely see on an injection kit.  The rocket motor is attached to the fuel tank, which in turn butts up against the rear wall of the cockpit tub.  I'm assuming that I'll need all of these in place to ensure that the motor nozzle is in the correct place, which will be only visible part of these recently assembled parts. And as such, the only thing I'll be finishing and painting.

 

 

Speaking of the nozzle... I thought that the business end of the motor had such a thick trailing edge that it needed to be replaced.

 

 

So I fashioned a new one out of a strip of brass sheet.

 

I think this looks better but I realize that the real nozzle had small vents that I was not able to replicate.  I think Eduard's exterior set of the Meng 163 kit features a replacement with those vents.

 

[Thunnus]

Here is the completed rocket motor in all of its unpainted glory.  The last added pieces are two of those long, delicate hydraulic lines, which were impressively molded in plastic and dropped into place without any drama.

 

 

With the rocket motor complete, I conducted a dry fit of the major internal components: resin cockpit, fuel tank and motor to see how they fit within the fuselage halves and tail assembly. So far, so good!

 

 

Wing dihedral seems to check out ok.

 

 

Preliminary view of the painted cockpit from the outside.