He-162 Volksjäger, 1/72, HobbyBoss

[opus999]

He-162 Volksjäger | HobbyBoss | 1/72

German Luftwaffe, I./JG1, 1945

 

 

Finished this on 1/2/2022.  I just wanted a simple build to finish quickly before the end of the year -- and I just about made it.  I went with the more brown/purple interpretation of RLM 81 Brown violet rather than the dark green interpretation.  I believe now that I painted the tail fins wrong -- I believe they should be the bottom color blue rather than the top color, so the painting instructions guided me wrong there.  The wheels are black, but in the historical photos I found they seemed to be either black or a light gray (RLM 02 maybe?) or a combination. I went with black because there was no way to tell where the wheel ended and tire began on the HobbyBoss wheels, so I had to free hand a wheel in black and a tire in Tamiya NATO black.  Free handing circles is nearly impossible so the black on NATO black combination makes it nearly impossible to see what a terrible job I did.

 

I couldn't find a picture of Wr no. 120097, but I found several of 120067 which also was a light colored '4' and had the same unit marking, so that added some confusion.  So if nothing else, this model is a general representation of what He-162s might look like toward the end of the war.

 

The kit itself was simple and fit together well.  They made some engineering choices that made the gear doors easy to install, but at the same time the wheel wells look bad.  It's a tail sitter so I had to put some weight behind the cockpit (since the top half connects to the bottom half and there was an opening there).  

 

As usual with HobbyBoss, the cockpit was a featureless tub.  I used Eduard steel seat belts to spruce up the seat (since it will be plainly visible through the large, crystal clear canopy).  I decided to make an instrument panel and shroud and used the IP/shroud of a Testors F/A-18 back seater to do that (pictures follow).

 

I'm normally not a panel line pre-shader, but almost all the He-162s I found historical photos of had a distinct vertical striping in the paint under the cockpit and along the side to the back of the wings.  I tried to emulate this with black pre-shading.

 

Finishing:  Seams filled with Testors putty, scratchbuilt part of the cockpit, Eduard Steel Luftwaffe seatbelts

Paint: Hataka orange line paints:  Custom mix of 1 part RLM79b to 2 parts RLM82 for the green, custom mix of 1 part RLM79b to 2 parts RLM81 for the brown violet, RLM76 for the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's how I trimmed the F/A-18 shroud to fit the He-162 cockpit.  The edges are rough, but are concealed by the canopy framing:

 

 

And here's the instrument panel -- I should've trimmed it up higher so the pilot can get his legs under it, but with RLM66 Black Gray on it, you can't see it through the canopy:

 

 

The finished cockpit. Eduard steel seat belts and a gunsight I carved out of the absolutely enormous one that HobbyBoss provided.  In retrospect I should've made a new control stick, but I wasn't sure how to cut the old one out without damaging the seat and side walls.

 

 

The IP decal was trimmed from my recent HobbyBoss F8F-1 decal sheet.

 

 

Hope you like it!  Comments, questions and constructive criticism welcome!

[jackroadkill]

She's turned out very well.  Good job on that cockpit rebuild, sir.  I like it a lot.

[ColinChipmunkfan]

No criticism here- model and paint scheme looks very good.

Colin

[Tomcat101]

Looks great. I really like the two tone paintwork on the upper surfaces.    

Just now, Tomcat101 said:

Looks great. I really like the two tone paintwork on the upper surfaces.    

“Too Often We Enjoy the Comfort of Opinion Without the Discomfort of Thought.”

John F. Kennedy

[Tokyo Raider]

Nice Salamander!!!

 

I think you are correct with the decals and tail color (atleast in kit).  The white decals go on a dark cammo tail.  If you painted tails rlm76 light grey, then you would need black markings for that tail...

 

Im building a he162 and had to learn this the hard way...

Edited January 7, 2022 by Tokyo Raider

[Walter]

very nice build👍

[Wulfman]

Lovely build, I’m about to start mine so your cockpit mods will be very helpful !

 

Wulfman

[opus999]

4 hours ago, Wulfman said:

Lovely build, I’m about to start mine so your cockpit mods will be very helpful !

Thank you!  I just couldn't let that cockpit stay the way it was...  

 

18 hours ago, ColinChipmunkfan said:

No criticism here- model and paint scheme looks very good.

 

15 hours ago, Tomcat101 said:

Looks great. I really like the two tone paintwork on the upper surfaces.  

Thanks guys! I'm really happy with how the brown violet turned out -- it's been hard to match that color that I've seen on other builds.  Doing internet searches during the build coughed up several examples of models made with the dark green version of RLM81 and that looked very nice too.

 

15 hours ago, Tokyo Raider said:

Nice Salamander!!!

 

I think you are correct with the decals and tail color (atleast in kit).  The white decals go on a dark cammo tail.  If you painted tails rlm76 light grey, then you would need black markings for that tail...

 

Thanks!  When I figured out that I might need to change the tail to blue I looked for black decals, but didn't have a werk number. I've since realized that I was looking at pictures of 10067 and not 10097 (which I modeled).  So maybe it's right.

 

11 hours ago, Walter said:

very nice build👍

Thanks!

 

4 hours ago, Wulfman said:

Lovely build, I’m about to start mine so your cockpit mods will be very helpful !

Thank you!  I gather yours is a HobbyBoss too.  Because the only convenient place to put weight is just forward of the main gear, it takes a fair amount to keep it from tail sitting.  I used round fishing weights cut into pieces and epoxied them so they were up against the cockpit's rear wall.  It took a little over 20 ounces (5 grams) of weight.  I was able to press fit the whole aircraft together (and tape the vertical stabilizers to the Horizontal stabilizers) and test the weight before I glued it.  Hopefully this will help you so you don't have to assemble and disassemble it over and over to get the weight right!  

[Vulcanicity]

Nice job, it looks the part to me! I've forgotten how flimsy and alarming the He-162 looked, to think they were planning to send mere teenagers up in the things in 1945 ...

[Sky Keg]

Excellent results on improving the kit and overall subject.  I like the unique camouflage scheme / colors on it.  

 

Mike

[RMCS]

Superb 

[opus999]

5 hours ago, Vulcanicity said:

Nice job, it looks the part to me! I've forgotten how flimsy and alarming the He-162 looked, to think they were planning to send mere teenagers up in the things in 1945 ...

Thank you!  Yeah, I was amazed at how small this aircraft was!  It was truly a desperate measure -- to send kids up in a hard to control and flimsy airplane!

 

2 hours ago, Sky Keg said:

Excellent results on improving the kit and overall subject.  I like the unique camouflage scheme / colors on it.  

 

Mike

Thanks Mike! I like how the colors came out. I have a Bf-109K that is supposed to be this version of RLM81 with a dark green.  I think it will look pretty sharp!

[billn53]

Excellent! I do like how your pre-shading turned out.

[Mig88]

Simply great. Lovely paintwork!

 

Miguel

[opus999]

Nuts.  It just occurred to me that there is a seam in the bottom of the intake.  I completely missed that until now. 

[Jackson Duvalier]

Looks like a fun, quick little build.  I'm no Luftwaffe expert but the colours look good to me.  😎

 

Have you ever tried masking wheel hubs with an old-school drafting circle template?  I just took delivery of such a template and can't wait to try it.  Might be a good trick when the hubs are indistinctly moulded.

[opus999]

On 1/8/2022 at 8:34 PM, Jackson Duvalier said:

Looks like a fun, quick little build.  I'm no Luftwaffe expert but the colours look good to me.  😎

 

Have you ever tried masking wheel hubs with an old-school drafting circle template?  I just took delivery of such a template and can't wait to try it.  Might be a good trick when the hubs are indistinctly moulded.

Thanks Jackson!  Actually, I was looking for something to mask the hubs with and didn't have anything suitable.  However, when you mentioned a drafting circle template, I thought of a couple ways I could fix the wheel to it and paint the hub through the circle.  I think I will try that next time because painting wheels is one of my weak points.  So thanks for the idea!  

[Jackson Duvalier]

2 hours ago, opus999 said:

I thought of a couple ways I could fix the wheel to it and paint the hub through the circle. 

 

 

Tape or finger pressure should do fine.  The concept was passed on to me as a time-saver for painting any old wheel hub (press! spray! on to the next!), but it also seems a decent way to impose some resolution upon an indistinctly-moulded wheel casting.

[BleedingBlue]

I like the choice of camo on the tail.  Looks much better, IMO, than if painted the underside color.  Your pre-shading came through beautifully.

[spejic]

17 hours ago, opus999 said:

Thanks Jackson!  Actually, I was looking for something to mask the hubs with and didn't have anything suitable.  However, when you mentioned a drafting circle template, I thought of a couple ways I could fix the wheel to it and paint the hub through the circle.  I think I will try that next time because painting wheels is one of my weak points.  So thanks for the idea!  

 

Plastic ones are a little tricky because the thickness means you will get a fuzzy circle unless you spray into the corner of the template in a circular manner. There are really thin metal templates which don't have the problem.

[djos]

I like it a lot, colours and weathering, excellent.

This small HobbyBoss bug will be totally ok if cockpit glass do not looks little too flatten, but that is HobbyBoss, always something must be off

Anyway great looking folks jager.

Best regards Djordje

 

 

[opus999]

7 hours ago, BleedingBlue said:

I like the choice of camo on the tail.  Looks much better, IMO, than if painted the underside color.  Your pre-shading came through beautifully.

Thanks!  I'm really happy with the shading!

 

4 hours ago, spejic said:

 

Plastic ones are a little tricky because the thickness means you will get a fuzzy circle unless you spray into the corner of the template in a circular manner. There are really thin metal templates which don't have the problem.

That's a very good point.

 

1 hour ago, djos said:

I like it a lot, colours and weathering, excellent.

This small HobbyBoss bug will be totally ok if cockpit glass do not looks little too flatten, but that is HobbyBoss, always something must be off

Anyway great looking folks jager.

Best regards Djordje

 

 

Thanks!  Yeah, Hobby boss always has something wrong, and usually the canopy -- although I recently discovered that their F-86F-40 kit had the wing chord way too small!   So I guess it's not always the canopy.  

[Wulfman]

On 07/01/2022 at 17:52, opus999 said:

Thank you!  I just couldn't let that cockpit stay the way it was...  

 

 

Thanks guys! I'm really happy with how the brown violet turned out -- it's been hard to match that color that I've seen on other builds.  Doing internet searches during the build coughed up several examples of models made with the dark green version of RLM81 and that looked very nice too.

 

Thanks!  When I figured out that I might need to change the tail to blue I looked for black decals, but didn't have a werk number. I've since realized that I was looking at pictures of 10067 and not 10097 (which I modeled).  So maybe it's right.

 

Thanks!

 

Thank you!  I gather yours is a HobbyBoss too.  Because the only convenient place to put weight is just forward of the main gear, it takes a fair amount to keep it from tail sitting.  I used round fishing weights cut into pieces and epoxied them so they were up against the cockpit's rear wall.  It took a little over 20 ounces (5 grams) of weight.  I was able to press fit the whole aircraft together (and tape the vertical stabilizers to the Horizontal stabilizers) and test the weight before I glued it.  Hopefully this will help you so you don't have to assemble and disassemble it over and over to get the weight right!  

Many thanks for the heads up, I’ll probably use the front of the engine too. Haven’t decided on the colour scheme yet, maybe overall RLM 02 !

Wulfman