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

Good stuff John, haven't found anything regarding the wooden tail at all.....
those various hatches all look good until you fit them and find additional work is necessary to get them up to look right...

It has been a great job to make the pieces fit together. Like Kirby, I hope to see how it will look finished. It's a breakthrough so far John.

Great work so far John!

Thanks guys!

I've added a few details to the landing gear legs before moving on.



Jumping over to the instrument panel... Aires has provided a resin panel with a blank forward face and instrument housings and wiring on the back. All of the wiring is pressed against the panel so I thought I'd add a few free-hanging wires to give the back of the panel some 3D detail.



I'll leave the new wires sticking straight out so that I can paint the other wires more easily. I'll bend them into position when the IP is complete and ready to be installed.



The front of the Aires instrument panel is dressed up with clear acetate with the instrument gauge detail printed in black sandwiched between the resin panel and a couple layers of brass. I prefer this "older" approach to the decals and the pre-painted Eduard stuff. Before spraying the back of the acetate with white paint to bring out the gauge detail, I selectively dabbed some red and blue onto the dials for some color.



The instrument panel parts are given a coat of RLM 66. I've picked out the instrument bezels in black.



The painting is not quite finished but here's what the instrument panel face looks like.

Very nice.

Thanks Andy!

A little more work on the cockpit just to get the IP a little bit nicer! I've added some color highlights around some of the bezels. Are you impressed with the perfect circular rings of red, white and yellow? Look to the upper left of the photo to see how I did it!





I've attached the acetate to the PE instrument panel face using Alclad Aqua Gloss as a glue. This gives me plenty of time to center the instruments in their dials.



The back of the instrument panel has been painted as well. The overall color is RLM 66 with the wiring either light grey or yellow.



Some more of the small details in the cockpit before painting: the PE foot pedals and some wiring added to the resin control stick.

Great paint job un those IP

The IP looks great. Pretty fiddly stuff.

Nice looking IP John!

Sweet..!

Looks great so far John!

Thanks guys!

Still putzing around with the Me 262 without committing to any major tasks. I will be leaving the country for a couple of weeks starting Sunday and I don't want to leave halfway into a significant assembly such as gluing in the cockpit/wheel well tub. So I'll just be working on a few odds and ends before taking a short hiatus from model building.


The painted instrument panel face has been attached to the resin instrument panel body using Elmer's White Glue. A quick check to see how the panel fits within the as of yet, unpainted, cockpit tub. In the background, you can see the seat, which I've given a coat of Alclad Dark Aluminum.









The seat was given a coat of hairspray and then painted with Gunze RLM66.





Using a stiff paint brush dipped in water, I create the chipping effect. The seat back was painted in various shades of brown and tan.





Although the Aires resin set includes buckles and PE harnesses, I've chosen to use HGW fabric belts. I'm not a big fan of the pre-painted PE belts from Eduard at this scale. It's difficult to get them to look natural and excessive bending will cause the paint to flake off. The fabric belts look a bit more natural.





I followed the HGW instructions of crumpling up the belt pieces before assembly but I noticed some of the paint wearing off the belts when you do this. Make sure you set aside a few hours for this. The threading of the harnesses through the buckles, especially when you have TWO fabric pieces sharing the same slot, can be a time-consuming process. Instead of CA glue, as recommended by HGW, I used Elmer's White Glue to cinch the fabric ends together.





Once the HGW belts are assembled, they are attached to the seat using CA glue. I may take another crack at posing the belts... get a few more folds in them.







I received this in the mail from David Brown! It is a very informative technical analysis of Yellow 3, including analysis of archive photos. It includes a four view, color painting guide for Yellow 3 with some very detailed nuances about the aircraft that I did not know including an offset between the starboard and port fuselage crosses. On the back are two beautiful color profiles (starboard and port) of Yellow 3 by Thomas Tullis. Also included are high quality decals (printed by Microscale) but unfortunately they come only in 1/48 and 1/72 sizes. A big thumbs up to David Brown for creating such an excellent modeling guide on this particular aircraft.

Good stuff John. Have a good trip.

Nice progress John. Good choice to use the fabric seat belts I think. I would recommend same when you get around to your 1/32 Corsair - I was not at all happy with PE belts supplied with that kit.

Great work so far John!

Great job on the fiddly resin bits. Innards look fantastic. Back to your landing gear. How do you make sure the hole will be centered. This is one problem (of many) area I have

Agree with all; looks "padrísimo"

Thanks guys!

fubar57 said:

Great job on the fiddly resin bits. Innards look fantastic. Back to your landing gear. How do you make sure the hole will be centered. This is one problem (of many) area I have

Click to expand...

Do you mean for the pins that I inserted?



I just use my eyeballs. Centering isn't as hard as drilling the hole to be perfectly parallel to the leg. It usually goes astray so I like to have some play in the hole so I can align the two pieces better.