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

[JKim]

Back at the lab, I inspected the masks more closely. The cuts looked very good and I didn't see any obvious defects.

I decided to test the smallest mask first: the Werk Number. During the cutting process some of the mask interior pieces lifted off of the backing. Which is not an issue since these pieces will not be necessary in the masking process.

The mask behaves just like the Montex masks. Excess bits of the mask were carefully removed with a needle and tweezers.

Success!

I don't know how small you can go with the Portrait but I'm impressed that I was able to get a decent mask for 1/32 Werk Numbers. The block-style of the lettering helped, I think.

Next was a test of the wave marking. Since I was able to create custom masks for this, I thought I'd explore a different paint order than what you'd commonly find in a set of Montex Masks. First I applied the outer mask and painted the whole area white.

I removed the outer mask and applied the smaller mask outline over the white area. Normally, with a Montex mask, you'd use black on first mask and then, leaving the outer mask in place, you place the wave marking itself in the center of the painted area leaving the white outline to be painted last. Well, I had a hard time centering that second mask and in my haste to document this process, I didn't give the white paint enough time to dry. So the wave marking test turned out a little messy. But that's operator error and I'm very confident that I'll get a great result using these masks.

As a final test, I tried the Brown 4 masks... perfect!

I'm very satisfied with my first experience with the Silhouette Portrait cutter.

 

[javlin]

That's looking pretty good John on the mask there.As to the rivets on Trumps kits I have heard a couple of times the market they sell to in the East use more primer thus filling them up abit I like Aires for AM esp the 1/32 109 sets.

 

[turbo]

Dammit, now you're tempting me John!! Although I don't know anything about CAD, etc. What digital skills and tools do you need to pull this off?

 

[JKim]

I'm just starting to learn the capabilities of this thing. So I'm obviously not an expert but there are some different ways that you can go about making custom masks. The Portrait comes with a graphics program that lets you manipulate basic shapes and text. The way I went about it is to use a CAD program to create a vector-based drawing file (DXF) that the Portrait can read. You can also use illustration programs such as Adobe Illustrator but you'd need a $50 upgrade to the Designer Edition of the software to read the SVG file. I don't know if Adobe can export to DXF but if it can, then you wouldn't need the software upgrade. You can also use a special (Pixscan) mat to scan an illustration (or decal sheet) and use the built-in software to convert it into a cutting mask. I'm totally clueless on that process but I've seen references to it over at LSP. Sorry I can't be of more help but I'm such a newbie at this myself!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Great demo John. If the canned Portrait software can take a scan and create a cutting mask then that's a HUGE advantage over my machine. I would think that there's some manipulation needed though.

I might need to get me some of that masking material. The stuff I used in my trials has the brand name Con-Tact and it's been laying around the house for a while. It may not be the best material.

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far John!

 

[JKim]

Great demo John. If the canned Portrait software can take a scan and create a cutting mask then that's a HUGE advantage over my machine. I would think that there's some manipulation needed though.

I might need to get me some of that masking material. The stuff I used in my trials has the brand name Con-Tact and it's been laying around the house for a while. It may not be the best material.

I have a feeling that you'll get much better results with the Oramask 810 than contact paper. Oramask 813 is similar but instead of transluscent grey, it is transluscent blue. I ordered a 12"x 10 foot roll for less than $10 USD.

The Silhouette PixScan utility uses a special mat with registration marks on it. You stick your graphic on the mat, and either scan the whole thing or take a digital photo of it. The entire mat must be in the photo. When you import the photo into the Silhouette software, it uses the registration marks to square up the image and physically tie it to the mat. You can then make your cut lines on the image using the software tools. This is where the trick lies... I'm not sure how powerful, flexible or easy to use the Silhouette software is. I know it has some elementary tracing utilities. If I was interested in going this route, I would do a search on Youtube to find more information. There are also posters at LSP that use PixScan.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks John. Moot to me anyway now that I have the CriCut. I'm likely going to use it again on my Fairey Battle build.

 

[SANCER]

Wow !!, ... it seems that you already have part of the way traveled; Definitely, the option of doing previous practices and tests is crucial !!
The explanation you gave us about it is clear, ... in the same way as Kirby, I'm already tempted to do a test.
Good progress so far, ... I will be on the lookout for what follows.

Saludos compadre

 

[JKim]

Very busy at work and home so I haven't had much time to work on the 262. Associated with the distinctive hard mottle pattern, Yellow 3 had a wooden tail. I don't have much detail regarding this tail but I'm taking a guess and filling in the rivets and panel lines on the upper half of the tail. It was a two-part process with the initial filling done with Mr Dissolved Putty, which I find shrinks much less than Mr Surfacer. I used Mr Surfacer 1200 for the 2nd round.

The fuselage hatch was glued into place. Fit was not the greatest. I haven't documented the process but I have been going over the surface of the fuselage with sandpaper and a scriber. The surface of fuselage was inconsistent. Shiny and smooth in most areas but noticeably rough and pebbly along the edges. There was also a fairly prominent mold seam along the lower fuselage that needed to be cleaned up. Some of the recessed panel lines are shallow so I am trying to make them all uniform.

To close the gaps around the hatch, I used Milliput White. Using the tip of a cocktail stick, I forcibly pushed and rolled the Milliput into the crevices.

Milliput is water soluble before it sets. I like to use this characteristic to clean the putty joint as much as possible before it hardens. I wet the the putty with water-soaked paint brush. And then using a dampened piece of paper towel, I wipe excess Milliput putty away, leaving a clean line of putty in the gap. Similar to removing a panel wash. This is a great way of filling a gap along a panel line or recessed corner without having to sand.

The lower forward covers were also glued into place at this time. They were treated in the same way as the hatch but additional puttying and sanding might be necessary along the top joint.

At some point soon, I'm going to have to commit to the Aires cockpit/wheel set and start some of the tedious removal along the inside surfaces and wings. I think I'm almost ready to do that.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Good work John.

 

[SANCER]

Bien hecho! y muy interesantes consejos.
Well done! and very interesting tips.

 

[JKim]

Thanks guys!

Having played with the Aires resin set for some time now, I feel fairly confident that I can make it work. So now it's time to commit and start hacking at the kit plastic. The resin cockpit/wheel well tub cannot fit until the molded details on the insides of the fuselage are removed so I'll start there.

I use my Tamiya cutters to remove the bigger protrusions and then a stone grinding head on a Dremel to remove the ribs. Coarse sandpaper is then used to even out the surface.

Ok, that's done. Once I get closer to attaching the resin tub to the fuselage, I may have to thin these areas but we can stop for now.

I also have to remove the main landing gear boxes molded into the upper wings.

Due to the depth of the resin box, I have to perform some thinning of the inner wing surfaces as well grinding down the height of the resin box. So much so that I've broken through the roof of the resin box. Not a big deal here since the main landing gear mounting hole is reinforced by big rib running north/south through the mount.

Repeated iterations of sanding and dry-fitting get me closer to an acceptable fit. The main thing here is to make sure that top and bottom wing halves close naturally without having the resin box increase the depth of the wing, which would result in a step at the wing root when the wings are attached to the fuselage.

I also have to check to see if the wheel wells are oriented correctly within the wheel well opening and that the landing gear mounting holes are clear of the opening edges.

Removals at the wing root of the fuselage are also necessary to allow the new boxes to fit unimpeded.

You can see that my removals have poked through the surface of the wing root, I need to make sure this area is reinforced before any glue hits this area. Note the sink mark caused by the big mounting tab on other side, There are a few of these that need to be addressed.

Slipping the wings onto the fuselage shows me that the new wheel boxes have been accommodated. That's one piece of the puzzle. The big cockpit/wheel well tub assembly is the bigger piece and I'll have to tackle that carefully.

I can't make an accurate assessment of the fit with the resin pieces sliding around. So I need to connect some parts together. The tub and rear bulkhead is a smooth butt joint and can't be held together with Blu-Tack or tape. So I am going to temporarily glue them together with white glue. We'll let that dry before we continue.

 

[Crimea_River]

Cool.

 

[Wurger]

 

[SANCER]

 

[JKim]

After the resin tub and rear bulkhead were glued together, I tried another round of dry-fitting. The main resin tub components seemed to fit without too much trouble. I had to cut the ends off of the forward resin spar so that it would fit within the fuselage extension at the wing but other than that, it seemed to be a preliminary thumbs-up. The view into the wheel wells represents the main attraction of this Aires set with lots of fine detail along all of the walls. There are a bunch of other small parts... spars, braces and even resin wiring runs and I'll have to figure out the construction order (What do I paint first? What do I glue in place first?).

The cockpit tub doesn't contact the fuselage sides except at the sill so no thinning of the fuselage sides is necessary.

That was a major effort so I breathed a sigh of relief and occupied myself with a smaller detail. I'm going to cut the main landing gear legs down a few millimeters. I haven't gone through the effort of gauging the actual stance of my 262 but I've read enough builds to trust this step will be ok. If not, I always have the metal legs to fall back on.

To give the legs some strength, I'm using brass tubing to reinforce the joint.

Here are the cut-down plastic legs compared to the full length metal legs.

 

[turbo]

Nice work John. That wheel well area will look great once it's all painted up and weathered.