**** DONE: 1/48 Me 262A-1a - Me/ Fw Group Build.

[A4K]

Gooooooooood choice Vic!

Will dig around for any other pics of her for ya, but I think most of those I have have been covered already.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks mate.

 

[Lucky13]

Awesome pics!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

And in colour too, great stuff.

 

[Airframes]

Great pics !

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very cool!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Thanks David.

 

[Gerry]

Another really interesting choice. Should be good.

 

[N4521U]

Those bits of string, looks like a bad hair transplant. Lookin forward to see your first bit of work on this one mate.

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Am hoping to get the scalpel and drill into this one sometime next week.

 

[A4K]

Sounds good Vic!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Well here we go folks first bit of work on the Me 262.

First things first, as this is a Nichtjäger kite we need to modify the nose. This called for the scalpel or more to the point a tiny saw.

Next big job is working out how to get all those little wind flow detector tapes onto the tail unit. First up I had to make some form of template for all the holes that would need drilling and work out some form of spacing. Using clear plastic sheet I made up a number of template and then tested various types of tape and hole sizes.

In the end I settled for a set pattern of holes and a #78 size drill which just fits a fine thread of cotton. Then using the template I had settled on I marked out where all the holes should be drilled.

After about 3 hours and a number of busted drills, I finally managed to finish drilling one half of the tail unit. Next job is to see how far I get before my remanning size 78 drills run out.

I also have a question about the camo on this particular machine. Looking at the first picture from Chris (post 18 page 2) do I detect that the starboard tail stabiliser is all black in colour while the port side seems to have the normal camo on it. What do you think folks?

 

[A4K]

Vic...WOW!!!!

Re the tail, I don't reckon it's black, rather standard camo as the rest.

 

[dirkpitt289]

Fantastic work Vic. I'm liking it a lot

 

[woody]

Awesome work Vic.

 

[Erich]

as posted earlier the jet cracked up and was a complete wreck besides a failure. attributed to K. Welter in fact never flown by him at all. Hermann never thought about using the jet as a Nf it was Kurts idea alone as he requested and was denied repeated useage by the Fat man himself who finally gave in which started a very small band-kommando

 

[B-17engineer]

Nice work vic!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

My thanks gentlemen and also to Erich for that nugget of information.

All the hole drilling is done, the second half took just over an hour and all but one of my remaining drills. This last drill worked the holes for the bottom half of the tail fin and the fuselage area, I was as nervous as hell once I was down to the last drill as they are not the sort of drill you can just nip down the road for.

So here we have the completed tail section, the two halves and tail rudder. Anyone want to guess how many holes I have drilled. First one to hit it on the button could be in for a little prize, so give it a shot guys. I'll keep the guessing open until the end of the month then post the figure.

 

[Catch22]

Jesus Vic, wow! Great work! I'm going to go with 320.

 

[Wayne Little]

Well done Vic, looks like you had loads of fun....