1/48 Me 410A-1/U-2 Dietrich Puttfarken - Me/FW Group Build

Motivation being at an all-time low with the great weather we are having, I decided to move a pile of stuff outside and did some work while I sat in the back yard on the lounger. Over the last couple of weeks, I managed to drop one of the wings, breaking the bonds for the resin well after having carefully filled the gaps and sanded everything down. I had to redo it again and, in the process, I kept looking at the lovely resin well details and then the slab walls next to the strut which seemed completely out of place. See following pics:




Had I bought thew Aires resin set, I would have received a complete wheel well set which includes the treatment behind the slab sides shown above. Not wanting to pay more for the resin than I paid for the model, I opted for the partial CMK set but now stared at these walls thinking that they just did not pass muster. There were in fact no walls there on the actual aircarft and the recessed area with the sump and hose just did not look up to snuff. So after a sip of my Marguerita, I pulled out the old Dremel and set about cutting everything out, quickly before I chickened out. The following pics show the resulting openings with the bulkhead wall gaps having been filled with pastic card. No turning back now! Lots of scratch building ahead!




Next, I started on a gusset plate made from card after carefully trial fitting and cutting a piece into the space it would eventually fill. After trimming the piece, I added some rivets (hard to see in these pics) by pushing on the back of the card with a pin. Then I added the reinforcing flange around the edge of the gusset and glued the whole thing in, supporting it on the lip of plastic that remained. The following pics show how it looks at this point in time, having only tackled the gusset on the port side for now. I also cut a small opening in the semi-circular bulkhead which will see some hoses added later. I'm also aware of the damaged edge on the nacelle where it would join the gear door but this will be fixed after all the butchery is finished.




The details in this area are quite complicated. The open area under the gusset will next see a curved piece of card installed and butted to the edge of the resin well. This, I believe is actually the coninuation of the lower wing surface and there will be a number of protrusions and equipment added here, including replacement of the aforementioned sump and hose. Tomorrow is a day off work and I'll see if I can get to the starboard well done. Pics when more done.

Doing a nice and brave bit of modification there Andy. I have a golden rule though, if hitting the sauce the toys are locked away!!!

good to see you working on this one again Andy

Some nice surgery Andy.

Looks like some good surgery under way Andy, looking forward to the final effect.

Vic Balshaw said:

Doing a nice and brave bit of modification there Andy. I have a golden rule though, if hitting the sauce the toys are locked away!!!

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That's me to Vic,OH!! I can screw up stuff that way

Thanks everyone. Vic, no worries, I know my limits...HIC!

Did the other wheel well today. No pics, just mirror image of the other one. However, I did start on one of the panels that will go underneath the gussets but I may not get back at this for a while as I'll be busy with some other things.

Thanks for your interest.

Doin' good mate !

Brave man, but looking really good! Should be A1 when it's painted.

Really nice Andy.

Thanks Gerry and Jerry!

Just to update everyone, although I don't have pics, I've been progressing this kit a fair amount. The wheel wells have been detailed sufficiently for me to weld the wing halves together and the wings are now cemented to the fuselage. Tailplanes are also now on. I have not ruled out getting this done by the 30th. Pics Wednesday when the missus brings the camera back!

Sounds good Andy, looking forward to the pics.

'Bout time my good man....

Crimea_River said:

Pics Wednesday when the missus brings the camera back!

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It's Thursday here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.................chop, chop.

Yeah it's gettin' late down here, nearly friday!

Well I didn't say which Wednesday did I?

OK, enough horsing around. Here are the promised shots with apologies for the undocumented jump in progress as I had no access to a camera for the last two weeks:

Picking up where we left off at the wheel wells, the below pic shows the basic detail that had to be scratch built and added to enable the wing halves to be glued together. With reference to the pics in the previous update, you can see that I added the extension of the wing curvature beyond the edge of the resin wheel well, what appears to be an oil pump and hose to the engine compartment (the pump has yet to receive an end cap), and two air bottles shaped from a cut up cannon barrel form the spares box. There's much more to go in here yet but I wanted to get this stuff in as a minimum as it would have been a bear to add it in afterwards. The rest can go in later. The assembly has received a base coat of RLM 02 and the mating face of the scratch built plate to the resin well needs to be smoothed out as yet.



Next, as I always prefer the control surfaces to be deflected a bit, I've cut the elevators and made them droop down. The molded hinge points were an obstacle and, as expected, cracked when I bent the elevators down so I removed the offending bits and replaced them with tiny bits of plastic card that were blended flat into the upper surface of the tailplanes. I did not have a "before" pic of the tailplanes but I felt it necessary to sand down the very pronounced raised circular panels to make them less conspicuous. The trim tab actuator will be removed and replaced with a piece of sprue and, oviously, the previoulsy removed rudder is yet to be added.



Nect we have the noze glazing and cannon barrels protruing from the weapons bay. As you can see the glazing cracked on me during accidental over-clamping of the fuselage halves to bring the seams together. However, luckily the crack runs acrosss what will eventually be a painted panel so I can file and sand this down to make it disappear. Note that the wing root seams and leading edges have not yet been sanded and smoothed. Also, the supercharger air intakes will need to be removed and replaced with round tube as these are incorrectly molded as an oval.



The kit features some nicely detailed radiator housings and flaps. However, the gap between the wing halves will be apparent when looking inside from behind so I removed the upper flap completely to enable the openings to be covered by thin plastic card. These have not yet been trimmed to shape.



Finally, an overall shot of how she looks today. The leading edge slat have been cut out and the opening filled with pieces of card, yet to be trimmed and smoothed to the wing surfaces.



Thanks for looking in. Unfortunatley, I'll need to declare that this build will not be complete before the deadline. However, I fully intend to continue it while I work on my ace's GB. More news on this one to come as I'm rethinking the scheme again....

A nice work so far Andy. Keep working....

Do like what you've done Andy!