Messerschmitt Me 262

Tamiya's 1/48 scale Messerschmitt Me 262A-2a is available online from Squadron.com

As most of you already know, Tamiya's 1/48 scale Messerschmitt Me 262 is a jewel and there's not much more to add.

So here are the pictures of "Jabo Bait", one of the war prizes tested by "Watson's Whizzers" after the war.

The model is built almost straight from the box, with the exception of the cables added in the wheel wells and on the gear legs.

The gun compartment was completed with an extra pair of Aires MK 108 as a comparison. The gunsight and armored headrest were removed since this was a "demilitarized" aircraft. I also added a few levers and details in the cockpit but that is about all.

Ah, no, I forgot, even though this isn't obvious on the pictures - I tried to replicate the grooved and ragged look of the fuselage and wing roots skin by scraping the plastic along the rivet lines. Finally I also partially riveted the skin here and there.

The most interesting part was the paint job.

The model was painted in a combination of Gunze paints: H 422, 423 and a modified 421 (with a custom made brownish hue) over H416 reflecting the original (in my view) camouflage of RLM 82, 83 and 81 over 76.

The chipped look was achieved by masking part of the light green coat with Maskol, spraying dark green and sharpening the edges of the chipped areas with a fine brush and either color.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Decals come from one of Eagle Strike sheets dedicated to the Schwalbe. They went on without a problem although I had to press into the panel lines with a toothpick to get the decals to conform perfectly.

Overall, I found that this was a very nice model, without a single problem, built on and off over a period of three weeks only, which is quite fast for me!

 

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

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