1/32 Trumpeter Me 262A-1a "Yellow 3"

[Crimea_River]

Ah! That's what I was going to offer. That book has the best pics of the wheel well areas but it takes a bit of study to orient yourself and understand what you are looking at. In addition, I'll throw in these excerpts form the manual showing some tubing and the many linkages for the controls, all of which are visible in the exposed wheel well. These may help to decipher the squadron pics.

One of the kicks I get out out of the hobby is that, as an engineer, I like to discover how the aircraft actually works so I often model things that others probably wouldn't.

 

[JKim]

Thanks Andy! Wheel well shots are always so confusing orientation-wise so those diagrams should be helpful.

One of the kicks I get out out of the hobby is that, as an engineer, I like to discover how the aircraft actually works so I often model things that others probably wouldn't.

Haha! I'm an engineer also but I think I'm the opposite of you. I enjoy the creative and artistic aspects of modeling more... it's sort of a relief from the logic that's required at work.

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far John!

 

[Totalize]

John, you picked the best 262A kit out there and one of Trumpeters best. I have been looking at purchasing this kit so I will be following along as best I can. The other excellent 262 kit of course is the new tool Revell 1/32 ME-262B twin seater night fighter. That's the other kit I am looking at as well.

 

[JKim]

I jumped back into the 262 as my work on the 1/48 Hien is complete and I'm just twiddling my thumbs when I get home from work. Still feeling out the Aires resin set and I'm not feeling good about it. Mostly due to the lack of instructions, horrible really. There is absolutely no mention or illustration of how the Aires cockpit and wheel bay components fit with the existing Trumpeter parts. And it's obviously not a drop-in, one-for-one replacement. I thought that maybe my instructions were short a page but looking at the downloaded instructions over at Scalemates... same dreadful deal.

Hopefully, I'll gain confidence as I play around with both the kit and resin parts. I still need to figure out which kits are replaced by the resin parts. Aires supplies a standalone nose wheel bay while the Trumpeter counterpart is integrated into the the gun bay compartment above it. I cobbled the Trumpeter nose well/gun bay together... nice tight fit which is perfect for the dry-fitting exercises that I'm running through.

Leaving the guns and other details off, I've tried fitting this plus the cockpit tub into the fuselage. Some Trumpeter strangeness... ALL the fuselage fuel tanks are represented although they will be completely blocked off by bulkheads. I guess the rear one could be glimpsed if you were to shine a torch into the open side panel on the starboard side (molded open). But that front tank... it's gone. Maybe the tanks are a nod to the clear edition, which I know Trumpeter makes available. If I can find a way to fill the front tank with lead, I'll put it in.

The nose sub-assembly and the cockpit assembly can be installed independently of one another. Fit of the Trumpeter parts so far seems very good.

While I have the fuselage together, I want to see how the nose hatches and cowlings look buttoned down. The lower panels which house the ammo ejection ports have an ok fit... will probably need some shimming to close the gaps. I wish that Trumpeter molded these into the fuselage as I see no reason to have them as separate parts.

Up on top, the rear gun covers would not sit down and I determined that it was due to the little tab on the forward gun compartment bulkhead. I snipped those off.

Once those tabs were off, the rear gun covers fit pretty well. The forward gun cowling (with the cannon openings) are an imperfect fit. There is a small tab on the front contact edge which prevents that whole edge from sitting flush. But it almost looks like it's designed to create a gap... before I go chopping it off, I'll do a little research into that edge to see what the real plane looked like.

Overall, the fit looks pretty good. The gun compartment bulkheads aids in the placement and fit of the cowlings so I definitely want to keep them.

I like the fit so much that I've decided to ditch the resin nose gear bay and stick to the kit parts. This will eliminate the detective work of trying to figure out how to marry the resin bay to the kit gun compartment and save me from the surgery that would surely be required. I can use the resin nose bay as a guide to add a bit of detail to the kit bay, if I can work within the confines of those narrow walls.

 

[fubar57]

As far as I know, Trumpeter has release 4 versions of the -262 so this might explain the inserts. Not a big fan of inserts myself

 

[JKim]

Some more fiddling with the 262. Here is a better view of that tab on the nose cowl. It looks like the tab gives the proper fit at the front but leaves a gap along the bottom edge of the cowling.

I tried to make sure (without glue of course) that the cowling was fully seated on the bulkheads and flush with the nose cone.

The little tab and resultant gap are present on the other side too. This gap isn't evident in any of the photos that I've seen so I'm assuming its just a badly designed/molded part of the model. It shouldn't be a problem to glue a thin shim along that edge.

Having decided not to use the resin nose gear well, the questions regarding the model forward of the cockpit tub have been answered. Another area that the Aires set proposes to replace are the main landing gear boxes in the wings. Based on their instructions, Aires would have you attach the boxes (RP 21 and 22) along the thin edge of the outer wheel well walls. Without any pins, tabs, slots, ridges to help guide placement. Just slap some glue, hang em on there and if by miracle the glue holds, they should automatically orient themselves laterally, longitudinally and at the right angle. <Sigh>

I have enough experience with Aires stuff to know that there usually is a method to their madness. A lack of instructions doesn't necessarily mean that things won't fit... you just have to hope that you can find the keys to success on your own. That happened on a Academy 1/4 P-38 build. Once I figured out (without help from the instructions) that the Aires resin tub was designed to fit into the TOP fuselage half and not the BOTTOM, things went relatively smoothly.

The main landing boxes on the kit are molded into the top of the wings. So let's take a look at how those look, keeping close attention to the relative position of the landing gear attachment points.

The Aires boxes aren't that much more detailed than the kit's. The wiring is much better defined though.

The Aires boxes seem to fit within the existing structure of the wing bottoms. There's even some positive location aids in the form of the internal ribs. This should allow a positive fit IF the boxes are indeed in the right location.

Flipping the wing over, we can see the relative location of the landing gear attachment points and it looks like a go.

And suddenly... I feel a whole lot better about the Aires resin set. I no longer have to worry about how those landing gear boxes are going to fit. And with that type of positive fit, I can use THEIR position to help guide the OTHER resin parts into place. No glue or paint has been expended but I feel like I've made some major progress here!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far John!

 

[Crimea_River]

Glad you solved the puzzle.

 

[JKim]

Taking a look at the nose gear... Trumpeter supplies both metal and plastic versions of the landing gear legs. Ideally, I'd like to use the metal ones because of the weight that will be added to the nose. However, the metal gear has a nasty mold line which will be hard to remove because the hardness of the metal. Also... most production 262's did not have the oleo scissors on the nose gear. I should cut them off but again... difficult to do because it is metal not plastic.

To aid me in the metal mold line removal, I employ a recently purchased set of grinding tools for a Dremel. It was here on LSP that this set was discussed.

Much easier with the right tools. I couldn't trim the mold line as cleanly as I wanted but it looks much better than before. I'll tackle removal of the oleo scissors later.

Taking a look at how the nose gear fits in the well to see if I can add any detail. There are some ejector pin marks that need to be filled.

I used a diamond wheel on my Dremel to saw off the oleo scissors.

Some more Dremel action to clean up the cut marks. The nice thing about the metal legs is that I won't have to paint the shiny part. I can simply mask it off when I put a primer coat on the piece.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Nice. I have the exact same set of Dremel bits.

 

[turbo]

Preparations going well John Always pays to get a good idea of how everything will hang together and make a plan before committing glue.

 

[SANCER]

There is nothing better than having the right tools! I also have that Dremel set and it has given me many hours of fun satisfaction.
I am not an engineer, but I enjoy creating and improving stuffs. It will be very illustrative to continue your work and get to know this Trumpeter's kit.
Saludos compadre

 

[JKim]

Thanks guys! I really like this preliminary "figuring it out" stage as I get to know the kit and how the aftermarket add-ons will fit. I have been contacted by David E. Brown, who expressed interest in this build. He was one of the first to document Yellow 3 and offered a decal sheet and comprehensive booklet describing his research on this aircraft via his Experten Decals, which is unfortunately out of production. Mr. Brown was gracious enough to send me some new photos of Yellow 3 that I've not seen and will be sending me a copy of his booklet! Awesome sauce!

 

[Crimea_River]

That is very nice of him.

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far John!

 

[Wayne Little]

Have David's Experten sets and decals, well done Series.....pity more have not been done.

VERY curious as to those 'new' Yellow 3 Pictures...

and if you didn't already check it out John , GB 17 was where i did my 1/48 Yellow 3

 

[JKim]

Not necessarily associated with this build per se but I wanted to report on my most recent acquisition.The Silhouette Portrait cutting machine is here.

I've been reading up on the Portrait prior to its arrival so that I could jump right into making custom painting masks.

A small roll of Oramask 810 vinyl masking material was procured ahead of time. It seemed to be the most frequently recommended masking material by modelers. If I didn't know any better, I would say that it is the same material that Montex uses for its masks.

Using a scan of a decal sheet which I imported into AutoCAD, I created a vector drawing file of the wave markings, both outer and inner. I also created a couple of other masks just as a test. Sometime in the future, I am going to do a Fw190D-9 with a Ta 152 tail. I have the kit and the Eagle Editions decal sheet for Brown 4, which is one of the documented "big tail Doras". Jerry Crandall's decal sheet asserts that the "4" is curved based on a photo but I've always thought that it was the curvature of the fuselage that was causing the curve in the number. So I scanned the decal sheet, created a straight version of the "4" as well as the small "4" found on the landing gear dooor and the Werknumber. The bundled software on the Portrait, which I preloaded onto a laptop, can directly read DXF files.

The Portrait can handle a wide variety of materials and I think you can feed the Oramask media, since it has a backing, straight into the machine but I was more confident with using the supplied adhesive mat.

With the mat loaded, the Portrait is ready to cut. I used the following blade settings: Blade: 1, Speed: 5, Thickness: 10 and saved the values as a custom setting.

I pressed SEND on the software interface and the Portrait began to do its thing. Very similar to an inkjet printer but instead of spraying ink, the blade is cutting. After a few minutes, the activity stopped and the mat is ready to be unloaded. Wow... the cut is so fine that I can't even see it! I ejected the media and took a closer look... hey, it didn't cut anything even though I was watching the cutter move.

I soon recognized that I had not seated the blade cartridge fully! Rectified the problem and pressed SEND again. This time I DO see the cuts!

I pulled the Oramask off of the sticky mat and took the masks to my modeling table to have a closer look. The cutter is so precise that the backing material was not cut.