Almost a "what if?" - Hobbyboss Ta152C-11 in 1/48

[jackroadkill]

With the completion of Jupiter's red spot (ie a seemingly never-ending Tempest) and the Vampire build rapidly approaching the end, it was time to raid the stash and choose my next build.  I had a few considerations which I bore in mind when making this choice:

 

1. As much as I've enjoyed my recent Beaufighter (1/48) and Beaufort (1/72) builds, I was keen not to embark on another twin-engined kit.
2. I wanted to build a Luftwaffe kit as although this is my main area of interest I haven't built one since the Bf109 GB back in the summer (and there's no danger of having to include invasion stripes!).
3. A simple, quick build, by my standards, anyway, was definitely on the cards.
4. Something a bit out of the ordinary, with few available references (and therefore plenty of leeway) seemed like a good idea.

 

With the above criteria in mind I went up into the attic and it wasn't long before this presented itself:

 

 

First impressions are that it'll be a simple build and that the plastic is very soft indeed, possibly softer than the chewing gum my ICM Spitfire was made from.  When I opened the box I found that I'd already bought some Montex masks and a Quickboost propeller and cowling, so I'll use them along with the laughably basic HB PE set.  The Reich defence bands come as decals but if I'm feeling brave I might airbrush them.

 

There is debate as to whether this version of the TA152 ever saw service, and references are not very prevalent.  With that in mind I will consider it largely a "what if?" build and go with the 76/81/82 colour scheme on the box.  One advantage of this state of affairs is that it'll be hard to get the scheme wrong....

 

The plan is to squirt a load of RLM 02 over this lot first and then build the cockpit:

 

 

Following that I'll get the airframe together reasonably quickly.  I'm not anticipating doing much in the way of alteration to the kit; I suppose I might do something with the control surfaces if the fancy takes me.

 

Thanks,

 

JRK

[Sturmovik]

It's a really nice kit, which goes together easily. I built mine as the boxart plane plus heavy mottling on the fuselage sides.

[jackroadkill]

6 minutes ago, Sturmovik said:

It's a really nice kit, which goes together easily. I built mine as the boxart plane plus heavy mottling on the fuselage sides.

 

Have you got any pictures of it that I could see, please?

[Sturmovik]

Here you go:

[mick]

look forward to your build

[jackroadkill]

10 minutes ago, Sturmovik said:

Here you go:

 

Brilliant - thanks very much.  Yours looks really smart.  I'll have to pull my finger out to compete with it.

 

5 minutes ago, mick said:

look forward to your build

 

Thanks Mick, me too.

[jackroadkill]

I've managed to get on a bit with the build, and the majority of the airframe is built.  The resin cowling is on, and I've got the prop built (and it's much nicer than the kit prop, too.  I mean, it's for the right aircraft for a start).  I painted both rear cockpit decks - there's a choice of plastic or PE - and went with the PE one, even though there was absolutely no discernable difference between them.

 

There are fit issues around the wing roots:

 

 

 

 

Hopefully I'll get onto the painting shortly.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[mark.au]

So far so good.  I’ve got a Dragon 152 kit I mostly assembled while in hotel quarantine a while back.  I might bump it up the schedule based on seeing your build.  In the mean time, I’ll follow along here…

[jackroadkill]

Having built up and painted the rear end of the engine, which you can see through the wheel wells, I had some thinking to do:

 

 

 

As you can see in the above pictures the engine looks fine - but the yawning emptiness of the fuselage doesn't.  I decided that although it would mean the engine being lost to sight and not being correct in the rivet-counting sense that I would do this:

 

 

There are supposed to be tie rods, hydraulic rams, pipes etc etc in there but I couldn't really find much in the way of references, so I went with visuals over historical accuracy.  As you can see I've also added filler where needed to limit the wow factor of the wing joints.

 

Thanks,

 

JRK

[jackroadkill]

Today's news is that the airframe is complete other than aerials and other easily breakable stuff,there's been a bit of filling, sanding and polishing done (most notably on the chin panel, which had a proper old furrow of a seam line running through it) and I've done some pre-shading along the significant panel lines:

 

 

I had a bit of a nightmare with this; I used my exceedingly cheap airbrush for the job, and in retrospect maybe should have stuck to my faithful Iwata, but no matter, it's on.  You'll see form the photo that there were issues, but I have to say that I potentially pushed the thinning of the paint a bit far.  Also the camera seems to have artificially darkened the pre-shading.  In reality it's not as heavy as it looks in the image.  Anyway, it will all come out in the wash, I'm sure.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[Werdna]

Looking good Jack.  I built this kit a while ago, and it goes together well, same issue with the wing/fuselage join, but nothing a bit of filler couldn't fix.  Maybe too high a pressure, with that mix?  What colours are you going to be using?

[jackroadkill]

29 minutes ago, Werdna said:

Looking good Jack.  I built this kit a while ago, and it goes together well, same issue with the wing/fuselage join, but nothing a bit of filler couldn't fix.  Maybe too high a pressure, with that mix?  What colours are you going to be using?

 

I think I just mixed way too thin; that was sprayed at about 8psi with very little paint flow, believe it or not!

 

Anyway, I'm going to go with the kit scheme, painted with Colourcoats enamels.  I remember your build and I'm hoping this one might be half as good!

[Thom216]

Doing some nice work! Have a slew of these in the stash and it's nice seeing someone put their's together.

[jackroadkill]

A quick update - I've pre-shaded the whole airframe and applied the RLM76 on the lower surfaces and fuselage sides.  I've also done the initial round of RLM81 on the fuselage and tail unit (wings and tailplane to follow).  I've tried to keep the mottling reasonably subtle as there is some RLM82 to go on top of it.  So far I'm pretty happy with how it's looking, and have stuck reasonably closely to the scheme provided, even though it's only HB's idea of what may have been...

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

 

[jackroadkill]

There's more paint on the airframe!  Flushed with success after the previous update I've cracked on and got the RLM82 onto the fuselage sides, wings and tailplane.  There is also a bit of mottling on the tail.

 

 

 

As you can see, the 82 on the wings is at present very thin; this will change after the 81 has gone on.

 

So far, so good.  I'm quite happy with this one, which is not very usual for me - normally I'm kicking myself about something at this stage.  I'm keen to crack on with it as I'm really enjoying this build.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[Vesa Jussila]

Good progress. Looks really good. I have old Revell/Frog Ta-152 in my table. This looks much better kit.

[jackroadkill]

1 hour ago, Vesa Jussila said:

Good progress. Looks really good. I have old Revell/Frog Ta-152 in my table. This looks much better kit.

Thanks very much!  To be fair to the kit, other than the cowling and the wing root fit issues it's very nice.  It's simple but not simplistic.

[jackroadkill]

Afternoon all, I wonder if I can ask your advice.  I've just sprayed the RLM81 onto the wing and tailplane surfaces using the Blu-tak method:

 

 

 

In this picture it all looks pretty good but I'm not totally convinced by the results.  I was hoping for slightly feathered edges between that and the RLM82 but as you can see in the picture below they're pretty sharply defined:

 

 

What's the consensus?  Do I need to feather the edges of the RLM81 a little to match those on the nose areas or should I leave them as they are to match the rear edges of the cowling?  Alternatively I could blend the wing and cowling areas a little.  I'd be interested to see what folk think before I make up my mind.

 

Thanks,

 

JRK

 

 

[Sturmovik]

I like the way it currently looks.

[Werdna]

Those demarcation lines seem quite hard considering the masking, I would expect them to be a lot softer than that.  However, what you have there is probably closer to 'scale', ironically.  Either way, depending on how much weathering you plan to do, you could always blur them a bit by running a fine sanding sponge over the transitions..?

[jackroadkill]

2 minutes ago, Werdna said:

Those demarcation lines seem quite hard considering the masking, I would expect them to be a lot softer than that.

 

Yes, I was expecting them to be a bit softer myself, and they came out harder than I thought they would.

 

2 minutes ago, Werdna said:

Either way, depending on how much weathering you plan to do, you could always blur them a bit by running a fine sanding sponge over the transitions..?

 

It may well have to be something like that.  We'll have to see what I can come up with.

 

6 hours ago, Sturmovik said:

I like the way it currently looks.

 

I suppose it may well end up staying like that, if I can't decide on a method of softening the lines.  As Werdna mentions, it may actually be scale enough not to be a problem.  There's more thinking to be done, I guess.

[jackroadkill]

 

Well, that's a shame.  I've just sprayed Mr Super Clear gloss for the first time and all was going well until I sprayed the underside, at which point this bubbling happened.  I don't know why, or why it was so localised.  Anyone had similar experiences?

 

Thanks,

 

JRK

[Marklo]

The hardness of the edge is proportional to the thickness of the bluetack sausages and the angle you spray at. So for a more diffuse edge bigger sausages and keep the airbrush perpendicular to the surface. That said I think it looks fine, but if you’re feeling brave you could try redoing the edges freehand.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Marklo

[Marklo]

23 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

Anyone had similar experiences?

Yes I’m always paranoid about mixing brands as I’ve had a few real  

 

disasters 

 

But it turned out ok at the end.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Marklo

[jackroadkill]

Okay folks, this is getting there now.  I've rescued the paintwork and got the decals on.  I ended up painting the Reichsverteidigung bands on as the decal was the wrong size and shape and then fell apart when I tried to beat it into shape.  I have to be honest in saying that although it cost me two days it looks pretty good, so I'll take that.  I might make this a regular thing as I like the result.  The decals otherwise went on well, but of the major decals I only used the Yellow 11 markings, as the various kreuzen were sprayed using Montex masks, and again I'm happy with the results.  The stencils all went on pretty well other than the red trim tabs, which are a bit too big, so following the matt coat I might have to razor the carrier film down to size.

 

Also, if anyone knows where the hell stencil number 25 is supposed to go, I'm all ears!

 

 

The guns are now in, which is good; I used some Eduard barrels on the wing guns as they had pre-drilled bores (and I couldn't be bothered to build up the HB ones, which for all their faffing would remain hidden by the wing spar...).  I managed to get the bores drilled on the fuselage gun barrels too, so even though they're not very accurately represented they do at least look like pipes rather than billets.

 

Next job is weathering.  I'm not going to go wild as there's not much likelihood that this airframe variant ever actually got into combat.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK