Airfix Me262-1A 1/72

[Adam Poultney]

FINISHED MODEL

Got this kit for £12(?) off a guy on Facebook, it sat in the stash for a week or two, but I was itching to build my first German aircraft (German aircraft being my favourites in WW2).

Yeah the canopy needs a little clean up, but that's effort. It's not built to an amazing standard, just enough for me to be happy with it on display without close scrutiny. Criticism welcome though, I'm always looking to improve where I can (be bothered)

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Yep wonky gear, haven't glued it yet, so that why.

REVIEW

 

Quick version (copy pasted from my review on Airfix's website)

The cockpit goes to together nicely, and is well detailed for the scale. I added some seatbelts made from masking tape as that's the only area I can really fault the interior on, not having any. The wing fit however I found to be off, I don't know if this was due to my error or the kit, which also messed up the fit of the engines to the wing. 
The landing gear doors (front of the nose gear door, and both of the main gear doors) have quite a tight fit, and may need a small amount of sanding to fit well.
The decals were a little difficult to get on right around the tail, the checker pattern being made of two decals, which I think were labelled with the the wrong number (which was rather confusing). I got them on in the end, with some chipping using some silver paint it looks acceptable now.
I completed the kit in little over a week, a very good speed for me, and it was a fun kit to build. I would consider getting the other variants available to add to my collection. 

 

Long Version

First thing is the sprues, the parts are aranged onto 3 (not 4, one was cut so it'd fit in the box I was washing them in) main sprues, and one clear. The parts are well organised with only a few small issues immediately obvious, one of the wheels was a little off and misshapen, but that was fixed with relative ease. This looked like it would be an easy build, and as per normal now, I decided on a gear down build, and wanted the cockpit open with no pilot.

First thing to build was the cockpit assembly, which goes together very nicely. I added seat belts using masking tape and painted them in a tan-yellow colour (looks more yellow on the photo.

Next was the wings, which had a terrible fit with the body, and threw off the fit of the engines

I kinda stopped taking so many pictures here...

Lots of filler, and sanding, and frustration around the engines (ended up trimming most of the join away and using filler instead), and added bullet holes.

Painting, always silver primer for me, Maskol was sued for chipping, and blu tac for the cockpit and wheel wells.

Not bad for a first attempt (no practice) at mottling

Decals now

Tail band decal was a nightmare, and I got aftermarket for the swastikas, which are not included

 

 

Link to the kit here: https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/shop/aircraft/messerschmitt-me-262-a-1a-schwalbe-1-72.html

[Sturmovik]

Lovely build, German planes are also my absolute favourite regarding WW2.

 

[Duckwizard]

If I could build and paint that good I would be happy, Adam.

 

I really like your work.

[Adam Poultney]

1 hour ago, Duckwizard said:

If I could build and paint that good I would be happy, Adam.

 

I really like your work.

Thank you 

Been at this for 4 years now