Next on the line - Academy 1/72 Messerschmitt Me262A-1

[Brad Cancian]

Hi all - continuing my off-topic building spree, in continuing with my last Luftwaffe themed build, I decided to tackle this one next -



It's been many a year (decades?) since I last tackled an Academy kit, and about the same since I built an Me-262 (which goes to show how much I know about the 262)... this will be another strict out of box build, so let's see how this one goes...!

In the box, the plastic looks quite nice, albeit marred by lots of very inconveniently positioned mould release pins. That'll be fun later... other than the pain that comes with that, it looks like a straight forward build.

Not much progress so far... but, first up I concentrated on polishing up the canopy. The plastic here was quite thick, and curved, so it's never going to come out crystal clear unless I aggressively sand the whole thing (which would no doubt lead to me cracking the plastic at some point). These pieces came out ok, and look a bit better in person than what the piccies show, but it's certainly not as nice as some of the other thinner canopies produced by other manufacturers. That'll do, though.



I have also snipped the major components off the sprues, glued on the back halves of the fuselage, and done a quick fit check.




Having been spoilt by my last build from Tamiya, generally, the fit looks to be not too bad around the various fuselage panels and wing joints. However, the engine nacelles look to be a bit of a rough fit to the wings. They also have panel lines that stop halfway and don't line up between the two halves. Oh well. A little bit of work to do there. Can't win 'em all!

Wish me luck on this one!

Cheers,

Brad C
 

[DaddyO]

Pulling up a seat and wishing you the required luck (Not that you'll need it) 

Paul

[KiwiZac]

I tend to enjoy Academy models - the decals tend to be a less-than-pleasant experience for me - so I'm keen to see how this goes together. That said, I'm still keen to try the newish Airfix 262...

[RAGIII]

Having built two of these I found them extremely enjoyable and for My standards the fit was great  Looking forward to your progress!
RAGIII

[Alexis]

Following along ....



Alexis

[Brad Cancian]

Hello everyone! Been a little while between posts here, due to a slog with the kit itself, as well as being away for a little bit with work.

Firstly, the kit has LOTS of mould release pins. Everywhere. Pretty much on all of the parts; all the gear doors, the wheels, wheel wells, cockpit tub, seat, etc etc. This took quite a bit of time to clean up to a level I was comfortable with. There are still some remnants here and there, but they were in areas I couldn't get to without making even more of a mess. Focussing on these pins straight up was a deliberate decision, in order to not completely kill the mojo through the build. After this slog of cleaning up, my bench looked like this:



While I was at it, and in sticking with the 'out of box' theme of this build, I also added some seat belts from Tamiya tape.



Then, I got some paint down:





The instrument panel was a nightmare to paint, with soft detail... so don't look too closely. The interior of the fuselage halves had absolutely no detail, so I added some shading to give some kind of illusion of something there. Not great, but better than nothing.

I am hoping construction can now start with some speed....!

Cheers,

Brad C

[NigelR]

Good work with all the bits and bobs, clever use of masking tape to represent all of the seatbelt buckles. The instrument panel looks fine to me, and it will be hard to see anyway in this tiny scale!

[KiwiZac]

It's looking terrific, and well done with all the pins - I don't envy you all that work!

[Brad Cancian]

Hi all - have had a couple of distractions over the last fortnight, but i've now worked through the hard stuff...

I decided I'd tackle the wings and engine nacelles as a single unit before attaching to the fuselage. The nacelles are a poor fit to the wing, so this way I was able to jostle the fit as best I could. There was still quite a bit of sanding and rescribing, especially on the joint between the upper wing piece and front of the engine nacelles. I also had to fill some spurious panel lines, and correct the misaligned panel lines around the exhaust areas between the separate nacelle parts. I also shimmed the upper wing part on one side with .005" card to assist with the fit at the wing root.



The fuselage went together well, though the gun covers are a poor fit. I had to be careful with adding the weight into the nose; there's plenty of space there but you have to be careful to allow enough room to joggle the gun cover in to place to achieve the best fit. Tidy up is still required in any case. I scribed the panel line down the centreline of the upper and lower fuselage, as well as add the hatches that Academy misses for the fuel fillers. This was the first time I had actually used SMS scribing tape. Where has this stuff been all my life!

The wing attachment to the fuselage, and the under-nose panel (which is a separate part) also had some gaps, but with some persuasion here and there while the glue was drying, I managed to achieve a nice enough fit, minimising clean up around all of the separate panels as well as the upper wing to fuselage joint. Happy days. 

I've now completed one of my favourite parts of a build - priming! Here the 'blank canvas' all comes together.  I've deliberately left the horizontal stabilisers off to aid with painting; they are a nice fit so won't be too much trouble to attach later.  There's still some areas here and there that need some additional tidy up, but nothing too significant.






Now, to choose a paint scheme...!

Cheers!

BC