1/48 special hobby Heinkel He 115

[MickE]

A while ago I asked for some help with building the Special Hobby Heinkel He 115 as I was having a problem with the fit of the cockpit. Unfortunately nobody could help but someone suggested that I post the build. I have had a break from the kit and have now started on it again. Here are some pictures of my progress so far.

I had problems with the cockpit floor and bulkheads. As can be seen in the last picture if you align the front bulkhead to the correct place on the fuselage side there is a gap between the cockpit side insert and the rear bulkhead. Also the instructions show the pilot's cockpit floor as flush with the rest of the floor however if it is inserted flush it sticks out too far in front. The seat assembly is supposed to sit on the cockpit floor but then it sits too low. Therefore I have located the floor and seat as seen in pictures two and three. I don't know if is entirely correct but it looks better than if you follow the instructions. I will post more as I progress.

[Martian]

This is going to be a very valuable thread. Gill bought me one of these at the Abingdon show last year and they seemed to be selling like hot cakes. Some of the fit problems you are experiencing seem to underline a suspicion I have had for a while now that Special Hobby have got a tad sloppy as regards fit of late. I mentioned it on this forum before and seemed to be in the minority but subsequent builds of their kits both on line and in the modelling press seem to confirm this.

I suspect I will just cut to the chase with mine and replace floors and bulkheads with plastic card.

As I said I think there will be more than a few following your adventures with this kit.

Martin

[MickE]

Only glad to help, the forums have helped me with my builds in the past so it is time I gave something back. I forgot to mention that I had to narrow the forward bulhead as it stops the fuselage halves from closing up.

Mick

[MickE]

_{I have managed to paint and weather the interior except for the black boxes in the rear crew cockpit. I could not find any cockpit pictures to use as reference however I found a picture of a colour etched cockpit set that I can use to paint the detail on the boxes. I also need to add the seat belts that come with the kit. I fitted the bomb aimer's seat before adding the belts and, unfortunately, broke it off adding them. Therefore I recommend adding the belts before fitting the seats. I have been trying to post some pictures but all I get is a square with a red cross in it. What is going wrong..}

[MickE]

The seat belts are now fitted and the rear black boxes are finished. The right side crew cockpit wall does not fit properly if it is glued to the fuselage side first so I glued it to the rest of the cockpit walls first. The fuselage halves will be joined next and the rear seat glued in place.

[MickE]

Oops I seem to have posted the same picture twice. This is a shot of the rear cockpit.

[Tail-Dragon]

I'm going to be following this build closely, I have one on the top of my to-do pile (I'm going to try and use a left over torpedo from a Monogram He-111 - don't know how well that will work)

What scheme are you doing?

Colin

[Martian]

Nice tidy work!

Martn

[MickE]

_Colin:

_{I am doing version A - the aircraft with the partial snow camouflage as it will be a bit more colourful.}

_Martin:

_{Thanks for the comment.}

[stringbag]

Watching with interest Martin.

All the best.

Chris.

[MickE]

The interior is almost finished. Before adding the front gunner's couch I joined the two fuselage halves as it did not sit correctly, although the couch has not yet been fitted. I forgot to mention earlier that the interior was painted with Xtracrylix RLM 02 and the seats with Linolium Deck Brown, which was then buffed with a soft cloth to resemble leather. Instruments panels are RLM02 with the instruments painted Tamiya NATO Black. Weathering was applied using a wash of black/brown oil paint and then, after matting, drybrushed with some aluminium.

Next up was the engines. These come as one piece items. I added the push rods from 0.5 mm carbon rod. The cylinders were painted silver with a black oil paint wash and the casing painted in RLM 02 darkened slightly to match photos seen on the net.

[Martian]

More nice work! Notes continue to be taken!

Martin

[MickE]

Now that the fuselage halves are together I fitted the transparancies in the nose after applying some Eduard masks and painting the frames RLM02. Most of the holes where the windows went had to be sanded before the tranparancies could be fitted. The trick is to check the fit first. Some did not need hardly any sanding.The upper and lower gondola type windows were the worst fitting and, although all transparancies needed some filler, these required the most filler to blend them into the airframe - I still haven't finished them yet.

The nose window is slightly larger than the airframe so I sanded the fuselage back until it was the same diameter as the window. I have not fitted it yet as I need to insert the gun first.

The tail planes were fitted next. The locating lugs are too big and need sanding down till they fit in the slot.

Once fitted there is a gap betwen the tail plane and the fuselage that needs filling.

While the filler was drying I glued the wings together. The trailing edges of both the tail planes and wings need sanding as they are a little thick.

After gluing the trailing eges of the wing still look a bit thick - I should have sanded them a bit more.

Thanks for looking.

Mick

[Martian]

Good progress!

Martin

[MickE]

Whilst test fitting the transparancies I found that the fuselage was about 2mm too wide,

After some headscratching I removed the middle bulkhead, sanded the sides down and refitted it. The sides were still a bit too wide - I shall just have to sand them down after the transparancies are fitted. As a break from the fuselage I decided to fit the engines. These are loose in the nacelle and there are no locating devices or guides. I tightened the fit by applying 6 mm Tamiya tape round the circumference and temporarily secured them in place using white tac. I aligned the engine using pictures from the internet, some EZ line and a ruler. The distance from the engine boss side and the nacelle edge was just on 8 mm all round.

As I was test fitting the nacelles to the wings I decided that the wing lights did not look right blank so I fabricated lamps frpom plasticard and pieces of clear sprue. I wish I had done itbefore I stuck the wing halves together!

The wings are fitted by butt joining them to the fuselage which is a pretty weak way of doing it so I drilled some holes and inserted two 3 mm carbon rod wing spars to give some strength and rigidity. They will not be seen as the cockpit between the pilot and the rear gunner is hidden by a roof.

Although they don't look it the spars are parallel. Next I will fit the cockit roof, transparancies and the wings.

[SleeperService]

I'm also watching this with interest. I noted some of the issues you've flagged up and decided to come back to it later. Good work so far I wish you well.

One of the BM Massive is based in Norway where the survivor is. Hopefully somebody there can wade in with assistance??

I agree with you Martin that some of the recent Special Hobby haven't been as good. It's a pity as they do great subjects.

[Martian]

Thanks for the heads up about the transparencies, Special Hobby manage to get them wrong yet again!! Just how hard can it be to get them to match the rest of the kit? I am beginning to lose patience with this company

Anyway, much kudos to you for persevering and it continues to look good!

Martin

[MickE]

Thanks chaps. I don't think I caused the fuselage width problem although I could be wrong. In hindsight I should have dryfitted the transparancies to the fuselage halves before adding the cockpit assembly and gluing them together. As an aside if you were wondering what the small sliver of resin in the resin bag of parts is for it is part of the fuselage - take a look at the wing spar piccy above. It is the cream coloured part located on the rear port side at the gunner's position. Why it had to be a separate part is beyond me! On a similar vein one of the pilot's rudder pedal assemblies is plastic while the other is resin. It doesn't make sense.

Cheers

Mick

[SleeperService]

I was chatting to a guy at Cosford who mentioned canopy issues. He has taken to using the kit transparency as a master for a vacformed replacement. It seems like this kit needs it. He used a dental vac machine at his work apparently they go for reasonable money on eBay.

However you look at it though it's still a better option than an expensive resin kit.....and probably easier than some of them.

Good luck with the rest of it.

[MickE]

Thanks. I glued on the cockpit roof and test fitted the transparancies last night and they are just about right now, I will fit them over the weekend and also, hopefully get the wings on.

Mick

[Martian]

Seems to me as though there is a niche market for vac-formed replacement canopies for some of these SH kits. All credit to you fr persevering with this though.

Martin

[MickE]

Thanks Chaps.

I have now fitted the transparancies and they only required a bit of filler. The pilot's canopy has a slight gap at the back but as it is supposed to be moveable I ignored it.

I left off the gunner's canopy as I aim to pose it open. I wanted to do the same for the pilot's canopy but that is impossible as it is the same size as the rest of the canopies and so will not sit properly.

Next up was the wings. The engines are another butt fit like the wings with only a very small contact area. I glued a couple of pieces of 2mm plasticard to the back of the resin engine inserts and sanded the plastic until I was happy with the fit. The card ended up about 3.5 mm thick although this may not be the case for everyone as it depends on the thickness of the pour plug on the back of the engine. Once these were dry I then glued the wings on and - voila it is starting to look like an airplane!

The wing spars I fitted really helped to keep the wings level although I had to thin the port upper spar a little to ensure that the wing was flush with the fuselage. Unfortunately the uppper and lower wing roots on the starboard wing were not entirely equal resulting in a large gap underneath when the wing was fitted.

Early on in the build I test fitted the floats as the instructions say that there there may be some minor fit problems. I found that you could either align the top of the floats or the bottom as ther is a slight step. I attempted to cure the problem by immersing the float halves in very hot water. Unfortunately I warped a pair. Special Hobby came to my rescue and sent me not one but two pairs. I had to pay the postage which was very fair. I glued both pairs together, aligning the bottoms first and squeezed one side of the top whilst the glue set but I still had a slight step. I sanded the step and applied Mr Surfacer 500 before sanding again. This is tricky as there is some surface detail. I need to prime the floats to see if I have eliminated the step.

My next job is to fill the gaps in the wings and prime the aircraft as well as the floats.

Thanks for looking.

Mick

[Martian]

The more I see of this build, the more I admire your perseverance!

Martin

[MickE]

Thanks Martin. I thought I would have problems with the wings but I can live with the gap. A bit of plasticard and some filler hopefully will do the job. What I am not looking forward to is fitting the floats and struts. I was building the Azur La 298 a couple of years ago, got as far as the floats and had so many problems geting them on that I gave up and haven't gone back to it since. If the He115 goes well enough I may dig it out and have a second go. Although after this build I may dig out a Tamiya or Hasegawa kit for some therapy!

Mick

[Tail-Dragon]

That's coming along very nicely indeed!

Thanks for charting the potholes for the rest of us that have one in the stash, aren't limited run kits fun!

Following closely,

Colin