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

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Thanks everyone and, Terry, thanks for the tip on those decals. I will take that under advisement but I'm happy to report that the decals went onto the model nicely I think.

After coating the home made decals with a sealer and allowing them to cure overnight, I applied them this morning. The following two pics show the finished sides of the fuselage including the applied WNr and 9K+MN codes, plus the stencils which I had also applied. My original plan with the Red M's was to leave a bit of the black backgound and blend it into the eventual black overspray however I decided to carefully cut the black away and go with the pure white outlines. My reasoning was that the field applied black would possibly have been sprayed around the codes, although there are pictures to suggest the possibility that the codes were repainted after the black was applied. The look I am going for, however, is a rather patchy, haphazard, application of the black on the fuselage sides and tail fin so the clean black/white demarcation of the M's would have looked out of place. At any rate, a new #11 blade made quick work of this and they came out nicely I think, the only issue being that the red is not quite uniform altough this effect may diminish with a final flat coat.

The colours of the WNr decals came out beatifully but the downside is that these decals are quite thick and you can see the cut line quite distinctly. This is a bit of a disappointment as, otherwise, I think they turned out great. I plan to build up the area around the decals with successive coats of brushed-on Future to feather the edge, however, the other point is that there will, again, be a black overspray applied around the number and this will help to hide the cut line. Note also that these numbers are intentionally installed on an angle, as most pics of 410's show that the WNr stencils were applied parallel to the ground when the aircraft was parked.




The next pic shows the extensive stenciling on the wings. These decals took a couple of hours to do as I trimmed the excess film off the walk line decals and applied these with a bit of Future to help them set without air pockets. Each line is individual, hence the amount of time needed.



The final two pics are overall shots of how the model looks at the moment. I may get to the black overpray later today.




Thanks again for looking in.
 
Wow! This build most certainly progressed a lot since I last checked in, but boy she sure looks the part. At present I kinda wanna leave mine in the stash for a bit until some other projects (which are plenty) are finished. But despite the amount of work that will likely go into building this puppy I'm certainly looking forward to have a crack at mine.

While I'm at it, and I might point out that I don't want to sound overly critical here, there seems to be a rather nasty gap left along one of the engine covers. Or is this a loose panel covering the resin engine you installed on one side earlier?
 
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Thanks guys. Jelmer, yes the gap is nasty but that cowl is just on to keep paint off the engine. I plan to display the model with the cowl off. I had hoped to make the cowl fit nicely and could easily fill the gap but the probelm is that the entire cowl narrows inward at the bottom where the exhausts go so alignment is very poor. Unless I can find a way to heat shape the cowl so it stays the correct shape, I'll likely just leave it alone.
 
Andy, I did something similar to what you did to make white lettering when I made the decals for the control panel of my cockpit project. I got the same white line around the cut edge you did. I ended up leaving it, but I first experimented by touch-up painting the cut edge (in your case the camo colors) and it didn't look too bad after sealing with Future and then Dullcote.
 
Thanks Gelnn, Harrison.

Glenn, I appreciate that tip. I've looked closer at this and agree with you - the cut edge is actaully the white paper showing so I'll carefully dry brush some 75 on it.
 
And so it did. A little touch up improved the looks a fair amount as can be seen by the following two pics.




I didn't get any painting done today as I realized there were a few things that I should get out of the way first. First, there was the replacement of the kit-supplied antenna on the underside of the rear fuselage. This was a simple matter of drilling holes, inserting plastic rod posts, and gluing on a bent piece of copper wire:




Next, I created the pair of FuG 101 radar altimeter antennae (the T-shaped jobbies in the below pic). First, I scribed in the mounting panels and glued on some plastic strip with stretched sprue across the top. Pretty simple. I also added the delicate mass balances on the ailerons. Hope this stuff survives the remaining handling!



Next, I wanted to tackle the tail wheel details. As you can see by the next pic, the kit-supplied part is kinda clunky with very thick doors.



I proceeded to cut this thing appart and to scratch build some framing and the shaft extension/hydraulic cylinder details which are visible through the opening.



Here's the finished strut and framing as well as new gear doors cut from plastic card....



....and the completed assembly glued into the opening and the door actuating rods added.



That's the extent of my work today and it's back to work tomorrow (grrrr!) so no paint til maybe tomorrow night. See you then.
 
Andy, your technical expertise is just mind-blowing and outstanding in the scratch-building department. You're making me want to put my 1/72 scale Italeri Me-410 on my to-build list for 2012! You rock as a modeler!! Masterful!
 

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