1/72 Me 262 Twin Stormbird Build

dirkpitt289 · Oct 22, 2009

Hi guys welcome to my next project. As the title states this will be a twin build of two Me 262's both in 1/72 scale. One will be Revell's Me 262 B-1a/U1 Night Fighter. The second will be MPM's Me 262 A-1a/U4 with the 50MM Cannon sticking out of the front. SWEET!!!

To help maintain the Twin theme of this project and to cut down on the confusion deciphering between the 262 B-1a/U1 and the 262 A-1a/U4 I will dedicate each aircraft to one of my own 19 month old twins. From here on out I will refer to the 262 B-1a/U1 Night Fighter after my lovely daughter Delaney and the 262 A-1a/U4 with the "Big Cannon" will be named after my son Beckett

On to the kits:

First up we have the Revell Me 262 B-1a/U1 Night Fighter or Delaney. Its a fairly nice kit with an acceptable amount of detail. No extras included with this kit.

The add-ons:

Next we have the MPM Me 262 A-1a/U4 "Big Cannon" or Beckett. This kit was originally made in the early 90's. Surprisingly it has some decent details but it appears to be covered by a lot of flash.

The cool thing about this kit is it comes with some great extras like 2 1/2 sheets of Photo Etch and a vacuform canopy.

Well the stage is set, and the band is tuning their instruments. Soon the curtain will rise on the opening act which will be the construction of Delaney's [B-1a/U1] cockpits

Thanks for looking...

Vic Balshaw · Oct 22, 2009

Nice kits and good variants, go for it Dirk
:hotsun:

Wurger · Oct 22, 2009

Keep us updated.

B-17engineer · Oct 22, 2009

Can't wait. Nice kits.

dirkpitt289 · Oct 22, 2009

I started working on Delaney's [B-1a/U1] cockpits last night (No pictures yet). It took me almost 2 1/2 hours :banghead:

to cut, bend and assemble the PE for just one set of rudder pedals and the brace. And the messed up part is no one is going ever see it. I'm going to have to rethink my use and application of PE. Especially on 1/72 birds. Narrow down its application to stuff like the instrument panel, Pilot seat(s) and exterior parts.

I'll post the pics once I have something worth showing.

Airframes · Oct 22, 2009

This should be a good double bill Dirk! Love the way you've named them after your little ones too!
You've just reinforced my thoughts on PE too!

ccheese · Oct 22, 2009

Looks interesting.... keep us informed of your progress...

Charles

vikingBerserker · Oct 22, 2009

Nice!

Crimea_River · Oct 22, 2009

A nice project. Looking forward to your shots.

I'm sure it was just coincidence that you named "Big Cannon" after your son...... :shock:

Lucky13 · Oct 23, 2009

Great stuff pal!

Wayne Little · Oct 23, 2009

Dirk drop me your e-mail for some images and detail of my Me262 builds...

dirkpitt289 · Nov 1, 2009

I guys and welcome to the first part of the twin Stormbird build. I'm starting with Delaney's #1 cockpit. This took me a lot longer then I care to admit but its all part of the process I guess.

Here is the first part from the kit

Here we have the the first of the Photo Etch parts before and after

Now before we place this first piece of PE we need to make room by cutting out the kit part.

Here the console is in place but its still not right. Its sitting to high and needs to be lowered.

Here you can see where I added some PE panels and levers.

Next I moved onto the rudder pedals. These were a royal pain in the arse and will most likely the last set I put into any of my aircraft. They are just to much work and will never be seen.

Next I'm moving onto the instrument panel. On the left is the kit part and the right is the PE part that gets placed over top the original

I painted the interior with Poly Scale RLM 66. It has a slightly bluer tone to it like some of the actual color photos of the 262 cockpit. I chose the Poly Scale over the Model Masters RLM 66 not only because of its accuracy but because it allows us to see the detail much better then the darker Model Master.

Next I moved onto the pilot seat. It was here that Murphy (He wrote a bunch of laws) reared his ugly head and I broke the seat.

My resolution to this problem was to make a Frankenstein seat. I took the kit seat, cut the bottom off and attached the PE seat back. SWEET!

Next i installed the PE framework for the seat, some levers and the seat belts. Next went the control stick and the seat. Hold on a minute. Here comes Murphy again. The seat doesn't fit in the cockpit. The funny thing is the PE seat back is no bigger then the standard kit part. The resolution was to shave down the cockpit walls with a file till the seat fit.

Finaly we have the completed cockpit

Thanks for looking...

Till next time

Wayne Little · Nov 1, 2009

Very nice Dirk!

B-17engineer · Nov 1, 2009

Beautiful!

lesofprimus · Nov 1, 2009

Great stuff and nice tutorial Dirk....

Airframes · Nov 1, 2009

Nice work Dirk, there's no way I could handle that PE stuff in that scale - far to teeny weeny for my fumbling fingers!

Crimea_River · Nov 1, 2009

Nice progress Dirk.

Man I just can't imagine making those PE rudder pedals in 1/72nd. 1/48s are bad enough.

dirkpitt289 · Feb 2, 2010

These four parts make up the Junkers Jumo 004 Engines.

Here you can see the second cockpit. As you can see the seat pad is a different color. That's because I didn't like the color of the first one and went out and bought some brown paint. I think the back seat looks better. As for the color mismatch that's ok because apart from these photos it will never be seen an cushions wear differently and by the time this aircraft was serviceable uniform parts were hard to come by. They would use whatever they had.