I found the Lindberg Stuka/262 double kit on sale at Hobby Lobby for $12 on Friday. Two fairly good, classic kits for under $20. Had to jump on it while the jumping was good lol. I was going to leave it in the stash as I already have three other projects running at this time and some of them you guys already know about, lol.
Well, idle hands and such.
I couldn’t resist the Stuka any longer. It is one of my favorite planes and since there are many similarities to the old monogram kits (raised panel lines and rivets) I wanted to try out my ideas of scribing and adding my own rivet details to see if that alone could make the kit a little more interesting to look at. Since I have seen on other peoples builds that the combination can really make such an old kit look really fabulous.
So far it’s been a lot of work just for these results, but I think I’m headed in the right direction for sure.
I started with cleaning up the fuselage halves. They have EP marks that keep the fuse halves from closing completely.
After that I spent hours scribing, sanding, riveting, cleaning up the mess, and then painstakingly carving out all of the exhaust ports.
Its a little sloppy in some areas, but after a good paint job I’m hoping it will look much better than it does now. I’m going to try and keep this one straight from the box as much as possible. I’m thinking this should cut down on the build time as I have way too many going on at the same time and I’m eager to have something finished.
I always see this kit every time I go to Hobby Lobby. I’m looking forward to this WIP. What kind of tool did you use to make those rivets? Thank you in advance.
I’ve also been seeing it at Hobby Lobby for a long while now. They marked it down 40% off so I had to strike while the iron was hot, lol.
The rivet detail was already there so it was a simple matter of using a scribe (The pointy needle-like object in pictures 2-4. A needle will also work as well) to push the impressions into the plastic. After that I used my micro drill to widen and deepen the holes. I left them deep because I want to make dang sure a wash will get inthere after I paint this thing.
The smaller rivets you see are simply the scribe impressions that I didn’t drill out. There are a few locations on the wings as well where I will do this as well.
I glued the wings and the elevators on earlier and I dry fit the wheels and the propeller. This kit still goes together really well after all of these years. I have it sitting on the landing gear and its not even glued together yet lol.
I think you would like this kit Toshi. It brings back a lot of great memories even though I never built a Lindberg kit when I was a kid. But it reminds me so much of the old Monogram kits that its nostalgic.
You’ll see that with a little work this kit can look good when you’re done with it. Its got those classic lines and good engineering that make it a pleasure to build.
The details are old fashioned because of the functionality that was built into it, but it still looks like a Stuka. The decals are a little simplistic, but I’m sure they’ll look fine. The only thing I need to research is where the ejection ports should be located for the wing mounted machine guns. There isn’t even a hint of where they should be on this kit.
Next time you see this kit at Hobby Lobby and you have the opportunity to grab it with a discount, do it. It will be great to have in the stash for later.
That is very interesting, I’ve never thought of using a micro drill to enhance rivets! Very cool. I just went to Hobby Lobby two days ago as I was having issues with splattering with my NEO like you. Mrs. Toshi got me a new needle. She also grabbed the kit you’re working on currently, then she mentioned the Stearman only to settle on the F-22 and the F-104G. She picks out the kits to work on 75% of the time, she has great taste.
I will definitely consider a purchase of this kit, I’ll keep an eye out for the mark down. I have never worked on a Lindbergh kit before, this sounds very tempting!
Good morning, Toshi. If you’re having splattering issues with your Neo like I was, then you may want to consider your air pressure. As in my case no matter what I did with the paint it just wouldn’t spray correctly. It was my compressor not giving me enough air pressure. Once that was fixed it worked perfectly.
I also picked up a new needle. A 0.35 with a new nozzle and its amazing how much finer the lines I can make are. I can’t wait to try it out. lol
As for the progress of this kit, as I said before, I have it sitting on its landing gear which are unglued. The propeller and wheels are only dry fitted and they fit really well. They need to be cleaned up and properly cemented still, but I just think its neat that I can do this without the pieces cemented together lol.
The wing roots and elevator roots fit like a glove. No need for any sanding. Mind=blown lol.
Anyways, here’s a couple of pictures just to show you guys out there that this kit is still a neat old one to have fun with.
Really interesting build. I too have been in Hobby Lobby looking at the ‘old school’ Lindberg kits. I remember building their F-100 Super Sabre as a kid and loved the “working features” such as the ‘real engine sound’ and the working ejection seat! I’ve held this model and actually thought about buying it; but always chicken out. I may have to reconsider the Lindberg line of kits…will be watching…
Thank you gents. Its really not a bad kit. Simple and basic, but plenty of room for improvements. Electric motor? That explains the bulkhead mounts, but no blukhead. I was wondering about that. I’ve never taken Lindberg kits seriously because I grew up in the age of Tamiya, lol. But this kit is pretty solid. Its got the right shapes and it does look as it should. Some of the details are thick, but this was meant to be more of a toy in its day, right? Well it has got some charm, that’s for sure. Its definitely easy to build.
Thanks for the replies and the kudos, on what I hope will be an impressive finish.
Last night I sprayed the pit in something close to the real color, but I’m not overly interested in exact color matches. I just go with what looks good and that doesn’t seem to fail me. I had some extra color in the cup so I decided to have a little fun using up some of what I had left. Hence, the spots lol.
This morning I decided to try my own mix of Sky Grey for the bottom. My first mix was a little dark, but more Sky Blue and White paint sorted that out so I practiced a bit of shading. Not that any of this is permanent. I’ll be spraying more primer on it later anyways, but the practice feels great. Its very nice to have my compressor working at top spec again.
I suppose I’ll have to get serious later. I need to get the pilots and seats painted and installed so I can get the glass mounted, masked, and ready for painting. I think I’m really going to enjoy this.
Just to update your fine gentlemen, I finished sanding the wings and elevators and resprayed the primer.
"Back in black I hit the sack I’ve been too long I’m glad to be back Yes, I’m let loose From the noose That’s kept me hanging about I’ve been looking at the sky ‘Cause it’s gettin’ me high Forget the hearse 'cause I never die I got nine lives Cat’s eyes Abusin’ every one of them and running wild"
Can’t get it out of my head now lol!
I’ve spent hours upon hours painting and repainting this plane in my head. I’ve got this planned down to the last details and I haven’t even finished building it yet. Man, this is exhausting.
Anyways, hope I’ve put a smile on your faces and a tune in your heads for the day. HAVE A GOOD ONE!
Speachless? That was just a test spray session to see if an idea was going to work and also to test how the new seal in my compressor was working right. I already re-sprayed over all of that lol. Good to know I’m on the right track though
I haven’t been working on this one in a couple of weeks. Again, I was side-tracked on another project. Which I shall not name at this time.
I started in on the seats and the blobs that represent the pilots. I wasn’t going to modify the seats at first, but after I broke the tabs during a very tight fitting dry-fit I noticed the pilots seat sits a bit too low anyways. I’m modifying this a little with some card stock just for a little more definition through the really thick canopy glass later. These pilots are crude and one of them has a sink hole in his abdomen, but they’ll do well enough after some paint. As stated, the canopy glass is thick, so a high amount of detail won’t be overly necessary. I think a decent paint job will suffice.
The age of the molds shows here. That is a LOT of flash.
On the left I have mostly carved out a pilot figure. His radio headset needs more defining so I’m working on that. Once the glue sets I’ll shave those down to a proper size. One thing to mention here is the white plastic. This stuff is hard to see while you’re working with it. Every little shape blends together and its very difficult to see how much more plastic you need to carve off, or if you’ve done enough already. Talk about a challenge lol.
Well these are not the best painted figures I’ve ever done, that’s for sure. It was difficult to see what I was doing because of the white plastic and the figures have really soft molding. There is almost no shape to the faces besides their noses. I’ve finally settled for “this will have to do”. After an hour or so just trying to get some kind of facial resemblance out of these guys, it sort of looks like they have some features and that will have to do I suppose. The heads themselves are the most misshapen parts of these figures and that’s where I had the most trouble getting any kind of details out. The rest of the figures, below the shoulders, are hidden mostly in the fuselage and there’s not much to see once the glass is on. Thankfully the glass is so thick it distorts the figures enough that you can’t hardly tell they have flat, oblong heads lol. A bit like Stewie Griffin from Family Guy.
I have to fix the cockpit color because that’s too light, and I plan on drilling and pinning the pit glass so I can install it for painting and then remove it later to install the MG in the back. Otherwise we have ourselves an interesting masking situation to deal with lol.
The figures look good Mike. I know what you mean, a good figure is a joy to paint, the badly molded ones where you try to do with paint what the sculpter should have done- not so much…
Thanks Max. I didn’t paint their chute harnesses over their jackets because I thought it would make the figures look too busy and with the glass over them it would just look kaleidoscope-like and make it more difficult to see that they are pilots. I was afraid it would just end up looking very distracting so I just left all of that detail painted brown. The addition of the seat belts would’ve just muddled it all up and you wouldn’t have been able to tell anything apart.
Yeah, Gamera. Painting in the details the sculpter should have put in isn’t easy at all. I basically had to fall back on my 54mm figure painting skills and make them look like they have more detail and depth then they actually do. Not much shows through the glass, but its better than the toy-like flat faces they come with. When I first applied the base cote to their faces they didn’t look like much at all. The most annoying part was getting those dang goggles sorted out. There isn’t much definition between the flesh and the rest of the heads.
Challenging is the word for these figures lol.
Thanks for the kudos guys. I think I’ll like these figures a little more once the newness of them wears down a bit in my mind. You know what I mean lol. The “fresh eyes” period after you’ve not looked at them for so many hours over a hairy stick.
Heh, heh. I’m hoping to make it look pretty good by the time I finish it. Its not much more than a ceiling hanger as I wouldn’t invest a lot of money into upgrades and such. Its missing too many details, has the wrong details, or has overly thick details, but its fun to build and I am enjoying working with it.
I found a Spitfire Mk II today, to hang up there with it as well. Even though they were in different theaters of operation. Gotta have a classic Spit.
