I had intended to do this 'group build' of several Me 262s some time back but when Kev put on his build of the fantastic 262s in 1/144 I decided to put it on hold. Fast forward to last PlayDay when I started the Academy Me 262 I got off Howard who told me there were no tailplanes but that wasn't a problem as I had some in my spares. The box contained not only the kit parts but also sprues from other kits, an etch set, which I used for the seats, and a Yahu instrument panel which I'll use in another build as the kit part is good enough. There are painting and decal choices for 12 aircraft but you know me I have other ideas and am finishing it based on 262C-1b featured in a book I have. The cockpit was built and painted using Vallejo and Tamiya, I forgot to photograph it before closing the fuselage up. Engine nacelle and details were painted seperately and fitted once the wings were in place. The tailplanes from the spares have been fitted and I've left the raised panel lines and rivets in place to add a bit of interest.
First of many then Chris?
Nice work Chris,
You might have inspired me to restart the 1/144 line of Me262's again. I got a new airbrush and I have have some schemes I'd like to try out.
The 'Schwalbe's' are arising.
Quote from: Bigkev on August 03, 2025, 07:39:25 PMNice work Chris,
You might have inspired me to restart the 1/144 line of Me262's again. I got a new airbrush and I have have some schemes I'd like to try out.
The 'Schwalbe's' are arising.
Another airbrush!
Remember those we bought at Telford many years ago.
You will soon have as many as John Hunsley!
Quote from: zak on August 04, 2025, 08:10:04 AMQuote from: Bigkev on August 03, 2025, 07:39:25 PMNice work Chris,
You might have inspired me to restart the 1/144 line of Me262's again. I got a new airbrush and I have have some schemes I'd like to try out.
The 'Schwalbe's' are arising.
Another airbrush!
Remember those we bought at Telford many years ago.
You will soon have as many as John Hunsley!
Ah, I remember oh too well. As to having as many as John H, I think he's well in front.
Will not make any jokes about how many hair brushes you lot have :-X :-X :-X :-X
The bare metal part was sprayed with Tamiya Aluminium then masked before the undersides were painted Xtracrylic RLM 76 Lichtblau. Once cured Xtracrylic RLM 82 Dunklegrun was applied followed by Vallejo RLM 81 Braunviolett. The freehand RLM 76 squiggles on the tail were applied with an AK Interactive pen. Since the photos were taken the seams on the bare aluminium have had acrylic yellow applied to represent the putty used to fill the seams.
I like the idea of using a paint pen for the 'squiggles' on the tail.
Nice Chris.
Decals fitted, the stencils took a while and half ofthen you can't see but I know they're there. The Hakenkreuz came in two halves so had to be fixed carefully but surprisingly the walkways went on easily even if they were a bit long. Finished as a Me 262C-1a 'Heimatsschutzer 1','Home Defence Type 1', from I/JG54. A C-1a actually flew combat missions and is credited with downing an American fighter.
Whilst waiting for various bits to dry etc. on the C-1a I started the VERY OLD Airfix release of the 262. Full of raised rivets, mismatched/vague/ raised or not panel lines and a multitude of 'knock out' points. This is definitely not a 'shake and make' kit. The moulds haven't stood the test of time, no wonder Airfix re-tooled it. The cockpit interior is non-exitent so I adapted a spare Heller one to fit but still couldn't get an instrument panel in. I had intended to use some better detailed spare Heller engines to replace the kit ones but these were no good as Airfix moulded part of the wing to theirs, doh!!!!! On fitting the Airfix ones I had a large gap to fill on the underside of one wing. The less said about the gaps and ill fitting elsewhere the better. I've replaced the 'Wikingschiff' bomb racks with ones from the Academy kit as the Airfix ones had no shape at all, see photo, and could have been mistaken for u/c doors. I'll also use the Academy bombs.
The joys of old Airfix kits!
That'll keep you busy Chris.
Quote from: cph64 on August 24, 2025, 09:54:03 AMDecals fitted, the stencils took a while and half ofthen you can't see but I know they're there. The Hakenkreuz came in two halves so had to be fixed carefully but surprisingly the walkways went on easily even if they were a bit long. Finished as a Me 262C-1a 'Heimatsschutzer 1','Home Defence Type 1', from I/JG54. A C-1a actually flew combat missions and is credited with downing an American fighter.
That looks nice Chris.
Another one to be proud of.
Well done Chris, I have two me262s, a tamiya and a hobby boss, at some point I will build both at the same time,well maybe.
Thanks for the positive comments. I spent a lot of time filling/priming/sanding, repeat and repeat again to get rid of, as best as, the 'ghost seams' on the upper fuselage. The cockpit upper areas were then painted RLM 66 with an AK Interactive pen before the canopy was glued in place and masked. Some framework was missing so it's just paint, again using an AK pen but this time RLM 02. I decided to use the LF Models masking set, which I'd bought for my Hs 123 build a while back, as they were in the stash doing nothing. It was an interesting task fitting biplane masks to a jet, but I think it was worth the effort. Vallejo RLM 63 Lichtgrau was sprayed on first, as mentioned in the 123 build this is a lot darker than shown in references but I went with it. The first set of masks were applied then Vallejo RLM 62 Grun was sprayed followed by the last masking and Xtracrylic RLM 61 Dunklebrun. The RLM 62 reacted with the levelling thinner I used so some time was spent cleaning the airbrush. Once all the masking was removed a few touch ups were done. The finished paintwork is a crossover from late camoflague to pre-war as there is some mottling in places.
Like the slinter camouflage.
Is this a bit of a 'what-iffery' camouflage Chris?
It is Kev, for autumn '45 during the big push east.
Looks convincing though.......
Nice work.
After a coat of Klear the decals were applied, these being a mix of some left over from the Academy build and some from my spares. I decided not to fit all the stencils as a lot wouldn't be seen on the dark areas. Finished as an A-2a from 1/KG 51 with, as previously mentioned, the Wikingerschiff bomb racks and bombs coming from the Academy kit plus the pitot and DF loop from spares.
Next up is the Heller kit of a B-1a/U1 two seat nightfighter. This kit also shows it's age, as do I as I've also built this kit a long time ago. There are three sprues of grey plastic and one clear for the canopy. Decals are minimal and so once again the spares will come in handy. The most annoying thing, so far, about this kit is the fact that Heller have moulded their name right where the cockpit tub goes. Why when you've lots of space eldewhere in the fuselage?
You're going for a whole squadron of 262's then Chris?
Nice finish on the model.
Thanks Chris. The cockpit tub was built up with the Yahu 3D console fitted but some work was needed in the rear one. Apparently a few models of the two-seater 262 have used the trainer version as a template and as such the rear seat is too far back, this was brought forward by fitting a shim, and there's also some instruments missing under the kit radar console. To replicate these I cut down a spare front console. This is just visible in the first photo. The placing of Heller's logo turned out to be the least of my worries. When I tried to join the two fuselage halves together I could match the panel lines at the front but everything from the rear of the cockpit back was out. After several attempts at fixing the problem, including cutting the two halves apart at one point, I realised that the model must be suffering from mould shrinkage as one side was definitely shorter than the other. I've heard of this in the past but it's the first time I've come across it in a main stream kit. So lots of filling and sanding ensued with help from superglue and Plastic Weld. When I'd got the fuselage together as best as something still looked wrong, this turned out to be the tail section which was warped, nothing a little brute force couldn't cure. So at the minute there's lots of bumps and joints to fettle. Apologies for the poor photos I think my camera is ready for a holiday as well?
Lots of time was spent getting the best I could out of the kit before I fitted and masked the canopy with Tamiya tape, placing the main undercarriage legs in and adding the housings for the under belly fuel tanks. After priming it was painted, using a photo of an actual a/c painted as follows, with RLM 76 for the fuselage, tail and parts of the engine pods, which were chipped and masked in places. Followed by RLM 75 and 83 mottle. The main wings, tailplane and nose were painted overall RLM 82 with forward of the wing joint to the upper engine nacelles RLM 80 Olivgrun. Nato Black for the RLM 22 undersides was applied last. Paints used were by Tamiya, Vallejo and Xtracrylics. The decals are all from spares and depict Brown 6 from Nachtjagdgeschwader 3.Then it was time to add the various aerials, with the main ones being way over size, the DF loop and what I assume is the fuel dump pipe before satin varnish was sprayed on.
Very nice camouflage Chris. A great finish.
Another nice build that should of graced the club table at Lincoln Show yesterday.
Good work Chris.
Next up is the MPM kit of the Me 262 Mistel, sometimes refered to as the Mistel 4 only two of which were actually built. The kit uses the parts from the 1986 Smer release of the Me 262B-2 which used the original 1974 Heller release of the aircraft, see previous build, so you can already see where this is going. The parts have knockout points in some awkward or prominent places and there's LOTS of flash. The sprues contain the parts for the Me 262 A-2a/U2 manned a/c, the 262 'missile' and the launch trolley. I started work on the missile at the last PlayDay and have got it to the point where it has been primed after lots of filler and sanding. Online discussions talk about how this would have been a waste of an expensive airframe and engines but one talks about the theoretical use of retired airframes, with the cockpit area having a wooden cover, to save on metal, so I'm going with this. It is a 'What-if' afterall. All the aircraft parts have faint panel lines so I think some rescribing is in order.
Nice to see the 'bigger' version get built. Mine was to 1/144.
Good to see you building this.
You will soon have as many German as Neil has Spitfires :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\
Nice start Chris.
Yes, plenty of Luftwaffe still to build and more on order. You can never have enough, got better the Spitfires, lol!!
Building has 'flip-flopped' between the launch trolley, the piloted a/c and the missile. The latter has been painted Xtracrylc RLM 74 Graugrun and Vallejo RLM 75 Grauviolett above with the same company's RLM 78 Hellblau underneath. The covered over pilot's area is Tamiya Buff with a wash of Citadel Seraphim Sepia to represent the wood.
The launch trolley was, as mentioned online, a task to put together, one person gave up and used the one from the Revell He 162 Mistel!! The instructions are vague and there's no locating points for some of the parts. The main wheels come in two halves so there's been a lot of work on them and they and the support arms have very small locating points in the bogies. Trying to get two wheels and an arm into place was a bind so I went for glueing the two wheels in place then sanding down the locating pips on the arms and feeding them up through the bogey. I looked at the instructions many times to see which way they should fit and after commiting to glue found that the pads at the top faced the wrong way for the missile to sit on, so they'll have to be sanded!! With some of the smaller parts to still fit the complete assembly was painted using Xtracrylic and Vallejo Panzergrau. The wheels are Tamiya Rubber Black with a wash of Flory grey.
The etch cockpit for the piloted a/c has been built and painted but when fixed to one side of the fuselage it wasn't central and wouldn't reach the other side. Luckily I've managed to part it from said side and I've put some pads of scrap plastic to each fuselage side and I'll see how we go from there. The Walther rocket has been built and painting started.
Nice work Chris. I did my 'missile' in unpainted scheme. Your build must be at a hidden factory where more time was possible to camouflage them. Be interesting to see it fully finished.
It's a retired airframe Kev being repurposed.
Quote from: cph64 on October 26, 2025, 07:58:53 PMIt's a retired airframe Kev being repurposed.
A ha, I hadn't thought of that, fits the bill brilliantly.
Good work Chris.
Looking good