150 - Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet"

[Mig Eater]

My contribution to the Group Build is Heller kit No.150, the Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet" in 1/72 scale. I have an original 1977 boxing that I bought for £5 about 25 years ago from a stall at the Duxford Airshow. Since then it has been been shuffled around the back of my stash waiting for the right moment. This GB has provided the prefect opportunity/motivation to finally build this kit, the Soviet BI-1 rocket plane I built during the recent Blitzbuild is also looking a bit lonely and could do with a fellow rocket powered friend too.

 

Edited January 5 by Mig Eater

[2996 Victor]

Looks like a great subject! Looking forward to seeing this one being built.

 

Cheers,

Mark

[Wez]

Good choice and good luck.

[Mig Eater]

Here are some sprue shots, one for the plane and another for the trailer so it should be a relatively quick build.

 

 

 

The instructions are just a simple exploded view of the model.

 

 

 

The decals look ok but have yellowed. any tips to fix this, I know some people put them in direct sunlight to try and bleach the yellow. The sun seem to has gone on vacation tho so I was wondering if the UV lamp I use for 3D printing might work instead?

 

 

 

The kit comes complete with a with a 48 year old glue capsule, I'm very tempted to open it up and see if its still usable but I think I'll stick with my usual Tamiya extra thin for the build tho.   

 

[IanC]

Nice choice. I did one of these in the bright red, although I think that scheme has been challenged and might have been RLM 02. Red looks better though! 😄

[paul-muc]

I have the decals of the Concorde 1/125 since about 2 months in the window. The yellowed film is nearly gone and clear.
The sun will be back in spring, so be patient. The use of a UV lamp for bleeching may be expensive.

[Mig Eater]

4 hours ago, IanC said:

Nice choice. I did one of these in the bright red, although I think that scheme has been challenged and might have been RLM 02. Red looks better though! 😄

The red Me-163 scheme is very distinctive and a interesting alternative to the usual Luftwaffe colours. I haven't decided which scheme I'll use yet, I probably wont make my decision until the airbrush tank is filling up.

 

 

1 hour ago, paul-muc said:

I have the decals of the Concorde 1/125 since about 2 months in the window. The yellowed film is nearly gone and clear.
The sun will be back in spring, so be patient. The use of a UV lamp for bleeching may be expensive.

 

I expect it will only take me a few days to build this kit, I dont want to then sit around waiting several months to add the decals 😕 As I mentioned, I have a UV lamp set up for curing my 3D prints, I was just wondering if anyone else has ever tried using one on old decals before?

[Mig Eater]

A bit late but I've started my build, before I could do anything tho there is a large pin mark on the side of the cockpit that needs to be filled. Looking at the rest of the parts its not the only one that I'll need to deal with too.

[Milan Mynar]

I like this  kit, I used to build it when I was young.

[Mig Eater]

The cockpit is done and the fuselage halves are glued together.

 

The instructions is just a blown out view of the model, it doesn't tell you want order to build the parts or their precise place. So I ended up gluing the control panel in the wrong position and to early, I luckily managed to get it back out without causing to much damage, once I had it in the correct place I needed to apply a bit of filler to blend it into the fuselage tho.

 

The fuselage halves have several locating tabs so they went together very easily, I needed to sand down the seam line tho which unfortunately removed some of the raised panel lines. I could sand down all the raised panel lines and rescribe them but I dont have the time and energy for that right now so I'll have to live with the "bald patch" along the planes spine.

 

 

 

 

 

While I was waiting for the paint to dry in the cockpit I put the transport trailer together, there is no painting guide for the trailer in the instructions, so any suggestions on the paints to use?  

 

 

 

I place the decals under a UV lamp and after 5 days they have gone from yellow to cream coloured, its given me some hope that I might be able to use them.

[hakkikt]

The Scheuch-Schlepper should be in standard army Dunkelgelb (Dark Yellow).  Discussions as to what colour is the correct one have been ranging far and wide for ages and have led to no definitive result.  I use Tamiya XF-60, but you probably have a paint manufacturer of choice with some form of Dunkelgelb, so I would just go with that.

[Mig Eater]

1 hour ago, hakkikt said:

The Scheuch-Schlepper should be in standard army Dunkelgelb (Dark Yellow).

 

Thanks, I have more Dunkelgelb paint then I know what to do with so that simplifies things.

[Mig Eater]

I've finished building the Me-163 and its ready for paint. It needed a bit of filler along the wing joints and around the cockpit, the radio mast behind the cockpit kept breaking off so I replaced it with some brass rod.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm currently doing a year long KUTA to try and complete as many unfinished builds as I can during 2025, so I've also been working on an old Airfix Me-262 and a Revell Fw-Flitzer. With the three of them finished I can now paint them all together and tick two more builds of the KUTA to-do list along with the Me-163.
 

 

I'll post some more photos of the Me-262 and Fw-Flitzer in the Aircraft RFI once they are finished.

Edited February 9 by Mig Eater

[Mig Eater]

I got a bit sidetracked with an armour build but I finally got some paint on this pocket rocket.

  

 

 

 

 

I put the decals under a UV lamp for a week and they seemed to have cleared up but we will have to see how they will react to some water...