Amusing Hobby’s Me 262 HG IV in 1/48th size

From Amusing Hobby

Kit No #48A003

1/48th scale

Plastic injection moulded kit.

Two marking choices included in the box

Today: Build Guide Pt. Two marking options are included in the box.

Today: Build Guide Pt. This flat clear coat reduces the distracting shine of the vinyl parts and helps them blend into the cockpit tub. Paint is applied now to the interior of the fuselage. The primer is Mr Finishing Surfacer 150 Black, followed by AK Real Color RC933 RL 02 RLM-Grau. The small exhaust at the rear of the engine was also painted with Alclad 101 Aluminum. I then applied heavy enamel wash to create a distressed appearance. The top and bottom half are ready to be glued together. The interior could have used more detail, but these days I am less likely to do so, as the exterior will look better. Weight in the nose is required for most model aircraft with tricycle undercarriage (having a nosewheel instead of a tailwheel). This will prevent the model from balancing on its tail. The lead shot is small enough to get into the tiny nooks and crevices in the interior of your model. Two-part epoxy or Super glue are the two methods that I’ve seen most often used. In the past, I’ve used epoxy resin but I was worried that the thin resin might leak into the nosewheel bay and cause a mess. The two-part epoxy glue that I chose is a much better option. It takes only 5 minutes to set and it’s more viscous. It is winter in Australia, so my Pacer ZAP ZPoxy 5 Minutes glue was thicker and colder than ideal. To make the glue runny, simply warm up the parts for five minutes in boiling water before using. Tamiya Cement is ideal for applications where the parts have already been assembled. The cement is thin enough for it to be able to fill in gaps, such as between the fuselage of the Me 262 and the wings. To ensure that parts do not move during the cure of styrene adhesives, I use clamps. These clamps are Hobby Mio’s Soft-Pad Clamps. The tips of the clamps can be swiveled to accommodate odd shapes that you may find on airplane models. Only on the rear starboard engine nacelle did I find a tiny gap. It was probably my fault as I didn’t see it during the dry fit. Once I reached this stage, I thought it best to let it be and fill it later. The manufacturer must make decisions about the design of any kit to strike a balance between ease and accuracy. It is the number and location of part-joint seams on plastic models that can determine whether or not a build will be enjoyable. This kit has two major parts that require patience and work. These are the inlet sections and the nose section seam. The seam runs along several rivet and panel runs. This will cause damage to the majority of these as you fill in and sand off the seam. It’s all part of what makes scale modeling so much fun. In such situations, I find that applying a panel wash of black to the plastic allows me to see surface details more clearly so I can work better on them before and after I sand. Once I had seen how the joins looked, it was decided to remove both interior and exterior joints. Superglue mixed with filler is the best way to fill in the gaps, and blend it into a surface that can be painted over. Over the years, I’ve used both cheap and expensive CA-based glues. However, my current favourite is the family of

modelling glues. VMS offers these glues in a variety of flavours, including Slow, PE, and

. If you prefer to use CA as putty/filler instead of a cement, then you can mix the fine powder with CA glue to create a quick-curing putty that can be used to fill gaps instantly. It looks and feels like a paste. You can easily apply it to the area you want. I filled the large joins on the intake lip with putty, and then cured it for 30 minutes before sanding. The putty was also applied to the engine nacelle and nose seams. The

is a battery-operated cordless sander that has 8 interchangeable heads in different shapes and sizes. It is great for those hard-to-reach places, like engine intakes or exhausts where fingers can be too large. The tool includes self-adhesive pre-cut sheets ranging in grit from 180 to 1,000 that you can adhere onto the shaped head. This is not an essential tool but it comes in handy when needed. The black wash helped me to see what needed more work. I also added back most of the details. The four cannon port holes on the nose were blanked out by Amusing Hobby, so I opened them up with a 0.9mm bit. This is a minor detail, but it’s easy to correct. The completed sub-assembly will now be offered to the fuselage, with the resultant join on the natural panel line. The join had a small lip, but was small enough that I decided not to sand and deal with the repairs. As these were not panel lines, the seams at the root of each wing have been removed. Riveting work along the top and bottom was handled by a 0.65mm

.

More seam and riveting work was needed on the bottom tail. Amusing Hobby provides wingtip navigation light lines that are engraved. The kit’s lines were a good guide to help you cut out the wedge. Step 2 involves sanding the square cutout using 400 grade wet and dry that is double-sided taped to GodHand acrylic FF Board. This thick board is a great way to mount grit for sharp, flat sanding. They will fit into the wingtip cutout. For the navigation light, I used a hole drilled at 0.8mm in the corner of the clear plastic sprue. Then, I put a small drop of green for port and a red clear colour for starboard. Super glue was used to adhere the section of clear sprue to the kit’s wing cutout. This was left for about 30 minutes to dry. After roughing out the shape with the 400-grit sandpaper, I switched to the 600-grit for the final shaping. After I was happy with the shape, I used GodHand’s GH-KS2-KB Kami Yasu Migaki sanding/polishing sponges which have a range of grits from #4000 to 10000 to polish and buff the clear sprue. Soft packing foam, such as the kind found in Eduard Brassin kits, is a great way to mask awkwardly shaped areas like wheel bays. The soft packing foam can be pressed into any shape, and is a good fit. When masking cockpits, I use tiny sections of Tamiya 1mm or 2mm tape. When I think it is necessary, I will also seal the edges with a mixture of PVA and Water. For the “accessories”, such as the doors of the landing gear, I roll up some tape and use it to keep them in position before spraying. Frog Tape Delicate Surface Painter Tape is more affordable than expensive Tamiya Tape. The Amusing Hobby schemes did not appeal to me and instead I chose the Luftwaffe North Africa colors of RLM79 Sandgelb/ RLM80 Olivgrun on top of RLM76 Lightblau. Peter Allan’s brilliant Luft 46 profiles were a great source of inspiration. They were a great way to spark some creativity. To finish this model, I used 3 different airbrushes. Each one was designed for a particular purpose. My airbrush of preference for general coats like primer/base and finish clears is a GSI Mr. Procon Boys PS-290 trigger. It is a miniature sprayer with a very small nozzle of 0.5mm. This is because the shape of the tip allows for a spray that looks like a rattle-can, but has much more control. The brush works best for smoothing out paint on large surfaces. When the Mr Finishing surfacer 1500 black is thinned down with

, it dries into a semi-gloss finish that’s perfect for the next coat. This was achieved by using AK Real Color RC321 Version 2 RLM 76, thinned down with GSI Creos Mr Color Leveling Thinning Thinner. Iwata Revolution (4247) airbrush was used to apply this layer. Iwata Revolution is my go-to airbrush. It is also a 0.50mm brush but the point is very fine (unlike Mr Procon PS-290). This allows you to get down to very small lines if necessary. This brush is great because I can use it to paint large areas, or decrease the size and work finer. The Revolution Series is the only Iwata brush range to have PTFE seals, so there is no need to worry about the internal rubber sealing swell when lacquer is used. After building an

, I decided to replicate the color demarcations. It is important to use hard masks at the intersection of the wing and fuselage, as well as the top surface of the fuselage. Frog Tape was used for the backfill. The Tamiya thin tape followed the panel lines gently. MRP was used for the first colour, RLM 79 Sandgelb. I switched from AK Real Color. AK RC has two shades (early or late) of RLM 79 and I find the early one far too yellow. I lightly sprayed the

over the primer to create a random finish. The MRP acrylic lacquers are pre-thinned for airbrushing and are in my opinion the best model paints available.

Once the RLM 79 was dry, I switched to my third airbrush, an Iwata Eclipse HP-BS Gravity Feed. It is a very small brush, 0.3mm. I use it to do finer work such as creating the next camouflage mottling. If I’m working up close with an airbrush, I lower the pressure of the spray and add a bit more paint. The first shade of mottle I used was AK Real Color RC324 Version 2, which had a lovely brown tone. As with many other things that changed during World War II, AK offers three versions of RLM 81. The next shade I chose was RLM 80 Olivgrun, as I wanted to create a mottle. I decided to use AK RC948 RLM80 using their RC702 high compatibility thinner. You can tell if you look very closely that I tried to change the circular shape of the mottles in the green paint to give it a more subtle change. After the wings were complete I had to mask the upper fuselage spinal ready for RLM 79. The edge was masked with thin sausages of Bostik Blu Tack. This type of masking is best done with the flexible, low-tack Blu Tack. It can easily handle bends and curves. The backfill is tape to prevent overspray. These Blu Tack sausages were rolled to approximately a 3mm diameter which results is a very clean demarcation with little or no feathering.

Once the Blu-Tack and masking is removed the mottling is added to the fuselage, this time running down the side of the fuselage, over the top of the RLM 76 Light Blue. You can also see that I added RLM 04 yellow and white identification bands to the nose, the tail, and the wing tips. The underside was looking very clean and monotonous at this point. It is important to give the decals a good bed by applying a thin coat of clear gloss to the surface to prepare it for weathering and future washes. My washes are usually enamel or oil-based, so the gloss clears that I use tend to be acrylic or lacquer-based. Tamiya Lacquer LP-9 clear was used to load the GSI Mr. Procon Boys PS-290 trigger. Then, I applied two thin coats over the whole airframe.

as this is a gentle hydrocarbon and it will not damage paints or decals underneath. It is never a good idea to use solvents like thinners to remove excess washes. Amusing Hobby has added a lot of detail to those monotone undersurfaces that were once boring. This step is not part of weathering a model. It’s more of an easy and quick way to give a 2D surface dimensionality. I often have to rework some areas to ensure that the panel line wash is uniform. It’s important to look closely at all the details on the panel lines and rivets. The

CONCLUSION – Amusing Hobby 1:48 Me 262 HG III (48A003)

This was a very enjoyable, trouble free build. The modern injection kit from Amusing Hobby is a great addition for Luft ’46 modellers. What-if’s give you more freedom to unleash your creativity.

This is my first Amusing Hobby build but I doubt it will be my last. Highly recommended.

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