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

[Crimea_River]

Thanks all. There will be a couple of days spent fixing the finish a bit - not quite to my liking as there were a few runs I discovered in the Future application and some dust particles. So it'll be a light sanding and another one or two coats of the gloss before I'll get the Dullcoat on.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

This is going to look like the real thing here in a bit.

 

[Crimea_River]

Well, "a bit" may be pushing it. Been on this one for 8 months now. Punch list is:

Dullcoat
Main gear leg detailing
Install main gear doors, finish wheel well hydraulics and paint
Replace 20mm cannons in bomb bay
Peel canopy masks, install access hatches
Install gunsight - I actually forgot about this and it could be tricky to get at now.
Complete exhaust stubs on exposed engine
Paint and install flame arrestors
Install props
Install drop tanks
Add radio mast and antenna wires
Weather finish
Have a beer.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Brilliantly done!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks David.

 

[hub]

Well, "a bit" may be pushing it. Been on this one for 8 months now. Punch list is:

Dullcoat
Main gear leg detailing
Install main gear doors, finish wheel well hydraulics and paint
Replace 20mm cannons in bomb bay
Peel canopy masks, install access hatches
Install gunsight - I actually forgot about this and it could be tricky to get at now.
Complete exhaust stubs on exposed engine
Paint and install flame arrestors
Install props
Install drop tanks
Add radio mast and antenna wires
Weather finish
Have a beer.

8 months without a beer

 

[Crimea_River]

You definitely interpreted that wrong!

 

[Airframes]

Good job Jan hasn't seen this - 8 minutes without a beer is his limit!! (OK, maybe 15 if pushing it!)

 

[jjp_nl]

Man, that raggedy and roughly black painted fuselage sure makes this 410 into a real eye catcher. Dig it! Dumb question perhaps, but what's up with the wheel wells? Did you find evidence of sorts that after the black paint was added they went back in with RLM02 for the wheel wells?

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Jelmer. The main gear doors on the 410 were typically shut when the aircraft was parked so there would not have been the ability to paint them black. I'm chosing to open the doors to show all the guts in there. There are a few pics with open doors on parked 410's.

I've had someone outside this forum watching this build and providing guidance (thanks Mike!) and have traded a couple of e-mails with him in the last couple of weeks. The first e-mail exchange talked about eye witness reports from British bomber crews who reported the German intruder aircraft to be flying in and about the bomber landing formations with their nav lights and bright white tail lights on. The tail light was not evident on the model and when Mike pointed these reports out, I went and had a closer look at my references and there is definitely a small tail light just under the rudder so I went and added it to the model. The second exchange dealt with the slanted WNr which caused me to take a second look at my references. Although there are many pics of 410's with the slanted number, I looked more closely at pics of aircraft with WNr's close to my 420314 and found that all of them had numbers parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. Consequently, I decided to sand down the WNr decal and made a new one which I installed accordingly and repainted it.

Pics later on these when I have more done.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Talk about some research, wow!

 

[Airframes]

Great stuff Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

11 days since the last update so lots to cover. As I said earlier, I straightened out the WNrs, then sprayed on a bit more black touch up, a couple of coats of Future which I allowed to thoroughly dry for about 4 days, worked on the landing gear, sprayed on some Dullcoat, then masked off and painted the wheel wells.

Let's look at the undercarriage first. The below pic shows the kit supplied struts with sink holes filled and the molded in brake hose removed. Unfortunately, these leave a bit to be desired in that the retraction arms are too short and incorrectly attached to the oleos. The bit at the hinge on the arm is supposed to be a hydraulic actuator link, is molded square, and is again too short so that lot got chopped off to await a replacement.

Having chopped off the retraction arm, the next step was to add the cross brace. Again this is molded too short, stopping in mid air as soon as it hides behind the most casual glance into the wheel well. The solution was to extend these bits. The lower strut shows where I drilled a hole in the end of the brace and inserted a piece of fine copper wire to act as a pin. The upper strut shows the extended brace which I formed with a some excess plastic from the trees. Once these were dry, they were filed and sanded to a rounder contour and details were added at the hinge point. Oh, and if you look closely, you can see that I hollowed out the scissor link arms a bit with a Dremel tool to replicate the actual details.

The retraction arms, it turns out, had to be scratch built from card (left in the below pic) as the CMK resin replacements (at right) proved just as bad as the kit supplied parts. In fact, it seems that CMK created copies of these arms using the Hendon museum 410 as a basis. This machine, on close examination of available reference photos, clearly has had the original arms replaced with full-length, unhinged struts.

These bits now await painting, addition of the brake hose, and installation into the wheel wells. The next shot shows the straightened out WNr and the added black paint around it as well as near the M and cross. The WNr has been a bit too obscured and a bit of a slip occurred at the M both of which I left alone. The black men were in a hurry and did not take much care!

Next I'll show you the installed drop tanks. Touch up is still required on the support struts which have received a few strokes of black. Note the Tee shaped antennae to the left and right of the tank with the red lettering. These are for the FuG 101 radar altimeter which I assumed to be present on this aircraft. The landing light is just visible under the tank with the black lettering. The kit supplied mass balances can also be seen. These were quite delicate, being close to scale.

The underside, with the wheel wells traced from the gear doors, masked, and painted with RLM 02:

The final batch of shots show various details of the Dull-coated model with the canopy masks removed. The twin 20's under the nose were added back on, this time being made from brass rod. They are just primed in the below close-up. Remind me to dust the model before taking the next bacth of close-ups. Black shows up dust quite cruelly.

Thanks everybody. Hope to finish the undercarriage this weekend so should get some more pics up tomorrow.

 

[Catch22]

Great stuff Andy!

 

[vikingBerserker]

I have to admit, your name has been added to the model builders that have awed me.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks very much guys.

 

[Maximowitz]

That is much as I imagined it to look like. Take a bow Andy. *applause*

 

[T Bolt]

Fantastic Andy!

 

[Airframes]

That's looking terrific Andy, bl**dy nice work !

 

[Crimea_River]

Paul, Glenn, Terry, thanks guys.

As promised, some shots are included below on some of the undercarriage work accomplished today. The first pic shows the main gear legs which have received a coat of RLM02 and a leather colour on the oleo covers as well as brake lines which are black-finished copper wire that I pinched from my wife's craft supplies. The silver straps attaching the brake lines are made from metal furnace tape.

Here's the tail wheel which has been muddied up after painting the sidewalls on.

The undercarriage has been glued into the wheel wells and before I go to bed, I'll install the flattened tires and let it set overnight. Thanks for your continued interest