Revell 1/32 Me 262 A-1a W.Nr. 110958 'White 17' III./EJG 2 - THE COCKPIT

[D.B. Andrus]

41 minutes ago, VintageEagle said:

 

"..........but I just can't help not to add this detail. I tend to lose myself in details at the cost of modelling speed and sometimes it would be better to be faster with less details."

 

I have the same condition, unfortunately, there is no medical answer to the problem!

Excellent work, Roger.

 

Cheers,

Damian

[KiwiZac]

Just amazing work on display here!

[Thunnus]

Great cockpit work, Roger!  Take your time to work on those little things that may not be visible because it is appreciated and recorded here for others to see. I'm sorry that your decal set was not in register.  I would contact Revell and ask for a replacement.

[VintageEagle]

On 6/21/2022 at 12:12 AM, D.B. Andrus said:

 

I have the same condition, unfortunately, there is no medical answer to the problem!

Excellent work, Roger.

 

Cheers,

Damian

 

Thank you Damian! Indeed, there is no cure  

 

On 6/21/2022 at 1:45 AM, KiwiZac said:

Just amazing work on display here!

 

Thank you Zac!

 

On 6/21/2022 at 7:51 PM, Thunnus said:

Great cockpit work, Roger!  Take your time to work on those little things that may not be visible because it is appreciated and recorded here for others to see. I'm sorry that your decal set was not in register.  I would contact Revell and ask for a replacement.

 

Thank you John! Thanks for the advice to contact Revell. I am afraid that it would take too long to get the replacement and I will use other decals for the main markings later. Therefore, I moved ahead with using small stripes of white and black decals and a small brush to apply the "text". But I will contact them as I have a second Me 262 in my stash that I want to build as a jet with R4M rockets.

 

OK, another smaller update: the decals on the left console are complete now. I have also added the pull wire for the RATO rockets for which I had previously added a small vertical bar that in the original kept the wire in its intended position and ensured that there was enough tension. You will notice that the forward section of the wire is slightly thicker. That is intended as in the original the forward section that the pilot would have gripped was also thicker than the rest of the wire. First the original (cockpit of the captured W.NR. 111711 with some American equipment installed for flight testing):

 

 

And now 32 times smaller:

 

 

 

 

The last detail to add besides the throttle levers  and fuel tank selector levers is a decal for the rudder trim control. I have already started with the throttle levers and tank selector levers, but need a smaller punch and die set to fabricate two throttle switches of the right thickness. I have ordered one and it is currently on its way to me. I will also need it to create a paint mask for some of the instruments in the main panel that had colored rings on the front. The decals I have did not fit (slightly too large) and hand-painting these rings is hardly possible in a proper way. Therefore, next will be the right console.

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Nice work, Roger!

 

Kev

[KiwiZac]

Exquisite. A 1/32 262 never crossed my mind as a potential project but you have me rethinking things.

[VintageEagle]

On 6/25/2022 at 12:25 AM, LSP_Kevin said:

Nice work, Roger!

 

Kev

Thank you Kev!

 

On 6/25/2022 at 1:51 AM, KiwiZac said:

Exquisite. A 1/32 262 never crossed my mind as a potential project but you have me rethinking things.

Thank you Zac! It's a beautiful aircraft with an interesting history. The Revell kit is so far really great and the cockpit details are so good that you don't need any aftermarket parts (except maybe decals).

 

OK, I finished the right console. It doesn't look like much, but it was time consuming to apply all these tiny decals and details, but I like the outcome. All quite straight forward. Only three details I added / modified:

 

1) BEFA 4B: I added a metallic stripe made out of thin plastic sheet to the BEFA 4B switch box for the two flare rocket launchers AZA 10 in the rear fuselage. Here's a photo of the original:

 

 

The metalic cover had to be swiveled by by 90 degrees if the pilot wanted to press the buttons to fire the flares:

 

2) Circuit Breaker Panel: In the later Me 262s the top row of the circuit breaker panel was unused, which was the result of the 'Entfeinerung' (simplification) that I mentioned earlier. Only the center and lower rows were used and had paper labels. Since my aircraft is not an early production example, I removed the switches from the top row. The voltage indicator that would have normally been installed in the center of the top row was also missing on most mid- to late production Me 262s. Therefore, I did not apply a decal for it, but painted the circular area black. 

 

By the way, there were two different types of breaker panels. One had a saw-tooth edge on the front (made out of metal) and the other one was straight (made out mostly of wood). Here are the two versions:

 

Saw-tooth edge in the NASM Me 262 (W.Nr. 500491):

 

 

Straight edge in the German Museum Me 262 (W.Nr. 500071):

 

 

3) Compass Deviation Table: I was not sure about the compass deviation table that you can see in some photos in the original manuals. It was attached to the pilot facing side of the circuit breaker panel. I struggled to find a photo of a later production Me 262 (museum, immediate postwar or wartime photos) that would show the deviation table. In the NASM Me 262 there is a wooden panel that probably once had the table glued onto it (see photo above), but in pre-restoration photos there was no table attached. In the German Museum example (Me 262 that landed in Switzerland in April 1945 and was handed over to the Germans in the 1950s) there is not even a panel visible (see photo above). I had almost decided not to add the deviation table, but then I found an immediate post-war cockpit photo of Me 262 White 5 W.Nr. 111690, which shows that that aircraft had the deviation table attached to the circuit breaker panel side. W.Nr. 111690 was not an early production model and was produced after 'White 17' W.Nr. 110958, which I am building. Long story short: I added the compass deviation table to the side of the circuit breaker panel.

 

For some of the labels I used the excellent 1/32 Luftwaffe Placard set of Airscale ( @airscale thank you Peter!) and for the circuit breaker labels and deviation table the Eduard cockpit set. Here are some photos of the completed consoles (only the throttles and the fuel tank switches need to be added to the left console):

 

 

 

 

 

Note the red stripe across the FuG25: this most likely indicated that it was a "rote Erstling" set. The code-name for the FuG 25 was "Erstling" and there were rote (red) and grüne (green) Erstling sets with slightly different frequencies.

 

That's all for now. I am waiting for the arrival of the die and punch set to complete the throttles and also to create masks for the colored instrument rings. In my aircraft, most likely only the fuel instruments (fuel indicator and fuel pressure) had yellow rings and the oil pressure gauged red-brown rings. The colorful rings you see in the Eduard set were introduced and only used by JG 7. I have a wartime report of a Messerschmitt visit to JG 7 that explains this and even has a drawing of the panel with the different colors used. All known photos that show these colorful panels were of JG 7 aircraft. It looks nice of course but is not always accurate depending on what Me 262 you want to build. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by VintageEagle

[Thunnus]

Wonderfully detailed work on the consoles, Roger!  The added details really make a difference and I'm sure they will be used as references for other modelers wishing to make their 262 cockpit more accurate. Can't wait to see more of the cockpit including the throttles!

[VintageEagle]

On 6/30/2022 at 6:43 PM, Thunnus said:

Wonderfully detailed work on the consoles, Roger!  The added details really make a difference and I'm sure they will be used as references for other modelers wishing to make their 262 cockpit more accurate. Can't wait to see more of the cockpit including the throttles!

Thank you John! I appreciate your feedback, especially since your Me 262 B build is THE benchmark that I try to replicate as good as I can. I spent some time trying to scratch build the throttles. They had small spring-loaded levers in front of the push buttons that had to be actuated in order to change the position of the throttles. I made these small levers out of think plastic sheet and glued them onto the main levers. The buttons at the top of the throttles were used during start up to inject starter fuel from the small annular tanks in the forward section of the Jumo 004s.

 

It's been a while since my last update. I was on holidays and the hot weather in Europe kept me more outside in the evenings than at the bench. But I made some very good progress. The cockpit is basically complete except the seat harness, the wiring on the backside of the main panel and the side walls, which need some modification on the landing gear wheel bay sides before I can paint and attach them. I made the following modifications:

 

INSTRUMENT PANEL

I already covered the scratch built ZSK 244 auxiliary panel and other modifications in my first post. I used mainly decals from the Airscale 1/32 Luftwaffe instruments and placards sets. For the AFN2 I used the 1/48 Airscale decal set as both inlcude an AFN1, which had a diameter of 80mm while the AFN2 had 57mm. The decals for the ZSK 244 come from the Eduard Fw 190 cockpit resin and PE set for the Revell 1/32 Fw 190. I also added some decals from scratch, i.e. cut out of black and white decal paper. I used a die and punch set to cut out the decals and after a flat coat added gloss varnish to imitate the instrument glass faces. 

 

The red and yellow rings around the fuel content gauges, fuel pressure indicators, oil pressure and differential pressure indicators is the correct coloring of a standard mid-production example as I wrote in one of my earlier posts.

 

THROTTLES

I first used the kit's throttles, but removed the buttons and added my own ones built from scratch using the die and punch set. They looked to massive / broad compared to the rest of the console so that I decided to build them completely from scratch. I added the small levers, a small piece of wire to imitate the spring that was attached to them and a yellow painted wire as a cable that was attached to the push buttons. The tank selection levers as well as the trim lever were also completely scratch built. The Eduard PE levers looked too small in my opinion. I used a tiny strip of yellow decal paper that I added to the red tips of t he tank selector levers. It was a lot of work, but paid out in the end. It's a bit difficult to see the details in the photos as I am using a smart camera, but in real life it looks very good. The cockpit of the Me 262 is relatively well visible once the model is complete and it is worth to spend some more time with the cockpit.

 

The tank selector lever tips in the German Museum's Me 262 are yellow. However, wartime photos show that they too had been red/orange-yellow back then. I assume they were either overpainted yellow at some point later or replaced with yellow plastic tips. 

 

COCKPIT FLOOR

No modification, but I used a sponge and light brown paint to imitate the wear. The original was made out of wood painted in RLM 66 and even in the restored NASM Me 262 you can see the wood due to some wear.

 

CONTROL STICK

The only modification is that I sanded the top lever down to a more realistic thickness. I added also the metal bracket that attached the side button used for manually charging the MK 108 canons to the stick. I painted the stick brown as some of the KG 13Bs had this color (anodized finish), e.g. in the German Museum's Me 262. The external wires still need to be added once the column is installed. I have already drilled the corresponding holes in the side button and wire terminal. 

 

SEAT

The only modification is that I added the attachmet points for the shoulder belts at the top. There was also a separation line in the center and two small holes next to it that I added. Chipping was done using a sponge. The leather effect was achieved by painting it dark brown first and then using a sponge again applying the light brown color in a random way. 

 

Seatbelts and the side walls are next and then I can finish the cockpit and move to the landing gear bay.

 

Roger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by VintageEagle

[Jaro]

Spectacular.

 

And thanks for comprehensive comments! Keep going - eagerly awaiting the next update...

[Thunnus]

Awesome work Roger!  The cockpit looks amazing!

[VintageEagle]

On 8/24/2022 at 11:27 AM, Jaro said:

Spectacular.

 

And thanks for comprehensive comments! Keep going - eagerly awaiting the next update...

 

Thank you Jaro! I am glad that my comments are useful.

 

On 8/27/2022 at 3:10 AM, Thunnus said:

Awesome work Roger!  The cockpit looks amazing!

 

Thank you John! Your words mean a lot to me as I use your Me 262 B nightfighter as the gold standard for building a Revell 1/32 Me 262. 

 

After a longer break (been very busy at work) finally some progress. I have more or less completed the cockpit with the following things done since my last update:

 

On the starboard side:

• Added a scratch built bomb emergency drop lever on the starboard wall after I carefully removed the one moulded one.
• Added a small bracket and a plug which in the original connected to the flight helmet's headphones. I just need to add a black cable from the plug into the right console. I'll do that once the side wall and console are glued together.

On the port side:

• Added a home-made decal for the landing gear push button instructions (red rectangular placard with white border and text). The Eduard interior PE set includes the placard, but it is too large unfortunately.

On both cockpit sides:

• Added the wiring terminals at the position that corresponds to the wire terminals on the other cockpit wall side, which is inside the landing gear bay. 

Seat:

• Added seatbelts. I went with RB Productions Luftwaffe seatbelts. I believe they are no longer available from Radu (Radu correct me if I am wrong), but I found the almost identical at Airscale (the laser cut paper looks virtually identical, while the etched parts are slightly different). 

 

Next, contrary to the instructions I will probably glue the cockpit walls to the port and starboard consoles first before attaching them to the forward bulkhead. Apparently, the fit of the cockpit floor with the two side walls is not that good in the Revell kit and I'll have to be careful when assembling all parts to form the cockpit tub. 

 

First, photos of the real thing.

 

Photo 1 shows the port side of the cockpit of W.Nr. 111711 taken shortly after the war. You can see the wiring terminal in front of the port console. 

 

 

Photo 2 shows the starboard side of late Paul Allen's original Me 262 W.Nr. 500453 during restoration. One of the four terminals is not yet installed.

 

 

And now the photo of my model parts (apologies for the quality, I took the photo with my smart phone): 

 

 

 

 

That's all for now. 

 

Roger

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by VintageEagle

[WIIM]

Very interesting post, fantastic detailing!

[VintageEagle]

After a longer break, work continues. As those of you who have built Revell's Me 262 know the fit of the two cockpit side walls with the center floor piece is not great at all. I knew this and spend a lot of time dry fitting and ensuring a more or less acceptable fit. While I managed this, I was still not happy and also noticed that the cockpit in the orignial was one piece with the steel floor riveted onto it on one side. Hence, I filled the seams and sanded it to become one part, then added rivets using rivet decals from Quinta Studios (I used the double row 1/48 scale rivets, which were a perfect fit for this puropse) and painted the steel part in RLM 02. It know looks like in the original. 

 

First, an example of how Revell tells you to assemble the parts (with the complete center piece in RLM 02 and panel line across the cockpit tube; photo is from Chris Wauchops excellent Me 262):

 

 

 

Then how it should look like:

 

Weathering and painting of the wooden blocks on the left still needs to be done, but the cockpit is then finally complete.

 

I have also started to work on the nose wheel landing gear & bay and have made some modification. I'll cover this next time. 

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[mc65]

hi Roger,

beautiful work in every detail. if I may, the penultimate photo showing the partially twisted wiring leaves me perplexed: as far as I know these are left as straight as possible for several good reasons.

keep it going, it's a beauty!

cheers, Paolo