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

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Thanks Karl. Since posting the above pics, I modified the bearers a little by taking off more material on the underside and creating a more rounded casting around the lower bearing to make it look more like the one in the photo in post 346. Shoiuld get a coat of paint on today. Pics later.
 
Later is now. The engine and bearers have been completed and are ready to set into the aircraft.

First the bearers. Close comparison with the previous set of pics shows the trimmed area in front of the bottom bearings. This better simulates the actual shape of the castings. Having done that, I then smoothed the edges again and gave the unis a squirt of RLM 02.




The engine received a very light sanding at the gearbox where some primer had built up and then was sprayed completely black to ensure that all of the areas in shadow were covered. Once the black had cured, I mixed up a lighter coat of black with a few drops of white and gave the engine another overspray with that colour. Once that had dried, the hoses and iginition wires were carefully picked out with aluminum paint, leaving the rubber hose connectors black. The hose clamps were made with very thin strips of furnace duct tape. I found a decal of white numbers resembling the font used on the engine block serial numbers and applied a fictitious s/n to the block and then gave the whole thing a thin hand-brushed coat of Future which gave it a nice realistic sheen. I'm quite stoked at how it turned out as you can see by the below pics.






The next step will be the tricky job of gluing on the mounts and insterting the assemble into the engine bay after throughing a nuch of hoses and wires at the firewall. Pics tomorrow hopefully.
 
Paul, Karl, thanks for the kind words.

Well, it was a long day but the engine is fitted and done. I began with the cowling, which had to be cut again owing to the fact that the panel around the exhaust stacks was hinged and split with the upper part staying on the upper cowl. The sequence of pics below show the cowl before and after the cut with the piece that was removed then glued to the upper cowl. Also done here was the supercharger intake, which I shortened to make it look more like the real deal.





Next it was time to complete the oil tank. Pipes and hose clamps were added on the underside and discs were added where openings for more hoses would eventually go. Holes were then drilled in the discs and the whole thing was painted aluminum. After a dry fit, I determined that the pipe at the tee could not be installed with the engine mounted so it had to be removed.




With the oil tank done, it was time to get the engine placed. This was accomplished by placing some spacers on the bottom until the correct height was achieved. The height was determined by lining up the exhaust openings on the block with the cutout in the cowl.



Next, with the engine glued in, the bearers were inserted which proved to be an extremely tricky job given the tight spaces. I found that there was no way these were going to fit and look correct unless they were bent as suggested in another forum. Whereas I thought these were straight, I resigned myself to the fact that the only way I'd get these to work would be to put a bit of a crank in them but how to do this without breaking the fragile resin? I carefuly saw cut a notch on the back of of each strut and bent the resin just enough at this point to form the crank and then ran a bead of superglue in the cut notch. The pics below show the bearers installed, the head-on view showing why it was necessary to crank them.




Finally, with the engine and bearers installed, the oil tank was installed and hoses connected to the thermostats. The one other hose, according to pictures, wrapped around to the starboard side of the engine and then went toward the bottom of the block. After a fruitless search of where this was connected, I decided to wing it and drilled a hole in the block at the first cylinder. Hose clamps were again added with furnace tape. Also, if you look closely, you'll see the I managed to get the tee pipe from the oil tank installed. This was a lucky one as there as no way to get it in with tweezers. I ended up dipping the thing in superglue and throwing it in and after one poke with a needle, it settled in to roughly were it was supposed to go.





The engine area now still requires the exhaust stacks to be installed and thinning of the upper cowl will be necessary so that it hopefully will fit nicely. Thanks again for your comments everyone.
 

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