I’m back from camping, and we had a great time. While we were gone we managed to sell our house. While this is great news for the family, it’s going to cut into any bench time I was planning on. Figures that after the house sits on the market for three months, it sells just as I decide to get started on a project. Oh well. Hopefully in the next month or two I’ll be set up in my new place and ready to get back to this.
Yeah, hopefully! I was waiting for this to pick back up again lol. Dangit.
Well, it’s been a few months since I’ve posted anything here. We’re out of our old house and after a hectic month we moved into our new house. We’ve been slowly unpacking everything, and I finally got the go ahead to unpack my work area. I have a much larger area to build and display my models than at the old house which is really awesome. I have all my tools and paints unpacked as well as my stash. I still need to unpack my finished kits, but I’m getting there. I sat down to look at this tonight and remembered about the horrible scribed line at the nose. I was also surprised to see that I used your tip Mike and used stretched sprue to repair it. I rescribed a new panel line tonight, and while it isn’t pretty it’s much better than it was. My phone is charging so I’ll have to get some pics up when I get a chance. It feels really good to be sitting at the bench again.
Glad you’re back, Bob. 
Looking forward to some new pictures. Oh, and good ol’ DoT3 brake fluid works amazingly well to strip paint without any harm to the plasic. Found out for myself. It works.
Good to be back Mike! I meant to get these pictures up sooner, but the end of the term snuck up on me and I had to get ready for parent-teacher conferences this week. But I managed to get a few pictures. There are a few mistakes here and there, but overall I’m pretty impressed with my first try at scribing panel lines. I have to take my son to Cub Scouts tomorrow and then my in-laws will be visiting so I’m hoping to start stripping paint off on Sunday.
I was able to get down and do something at the bench today. I’m using Super Clean to strip the paint. I did a great job on the Tamiya acrylic I used on the top of the plane, but didn’t do a whole lot to the Model Master enamel on the bottom. I sprayed more on and I’m leaving it overnight just to see if it will do anything. I also managed to scrape off the molded on lapbelts from the seat so I can use some PE seatbelts. I’m going to try adding some details to the cockpit, gun bay, and landing gear bays so we’ll see how that goes. I’ve looked at some references and I have some kind of idea of where to go from here. I know that I’ll also have to fix some seam lines too. Sorry for the lack of pictures with this post, there’s just not much to show at this point.
After a few days and some scrubbing with an old brush 99.8% of the paint came off which is good enough for me. I spent some time doing research and found a couple of builds online of 1/32 Hasegawa Me-262s that I’m using for inspiration. I’m starting off by adding some detail to the main landing gear bay. Here’s what I started with:
And here’s where I am so far:
I still have a bit more to do on the tub before I move on to the sides of the bay. Any comments or criticisms are more than welcome.
I managed to sneak in some benchtime tonight and finished the main component in the wheel bay. I still have a few details to add, but the wiring will come after paint. Next I’ll be moving on to the cockpit.
As always, any comments or critiques are welcomed.
You’re adding a lot of nice detail, the kit won’t be recognizable as the Monogram kit.
Very nice!
All the little bits and bobs you’re adding is going to make this old kit a show stopper for sure. Very interesting to watch your progress and I’m learning much. Thank you for posting all of this.
Thanks guys! This projects has involved a lot of firsts for me, and I’m learning a lot doing it. It’s also been fun scrounging around in my spares for anything that “looks” like what should be there. I think this is going to work out, so I should probably start looking for a set of decals to use and decide on a paint scheme.
I think you should as well.
I’m already entranced by what you’ve done so far. Nice scratching.
Thanks Mike. I’m eyeballing a few decal sheets on eBay right now. Usually Squadron is my go-to, but I can’t seem to find any Me-262 decals there.
I managed to finish the cockpit. It’s not my best work, but I can live with it. The coloring around some of the instrument dials didn’t really come out very well, it looks a little better in person. I used PE seatbelts and haven’t had any real problems with the same kind in the past, but today they fought me every step of the way. Oh well. Any comments or critiques would be greatly appreciated.
I finished up the main landing gear bay. There are a few things I would do differently if I were to do this again, but overall I’m pretty happy with it.
With the wings dry-fit on.
Fantastic detail work, impressive!
Toshi
Thanks Toshi!
Bob, that’s quite a project you’ve tackled there and it’s looking good! You’ve got me looking at a couple of my old models that have had some crashes or early mistakes that possibly could be saved. Anyway, good work and I’m watching! [:)]
Max
PS–There might even be hope for my old Revell brush painted Phantom that I’ve been dragging around for years! Hmmm.
Thanks Max! I’ve been looking at the other kits that I thought I couldn’t save and have been thinking about giving them the same treatment, plus a kit I built when I was a kid.