When the
Tamiya He 162 kit was first released, I bought a copy and started work
almost immediately. At that time there were no aftermarket sets for
this kit, so I set about to add lots of scratch-built detail. I
started with the cockpit. The ejection seat was inaccurate,
so I added scratch-built details such as foot rests, hand rails and the
ejection lever, all from Evergreen plasic bits and wire. I
fabricated seat harness attachment poins from fine wire and used the only
prefabricated aftermarket parts in this build, Eduard PE seat belts.
Detail was added to the side walls and instrument panel from fine wire and
stretched sprue. I scratch built the Revi gunsight from plastic rod,
soda can aluminum and clear accetate sheet.
The front
landing gear has an unfortunate ejector pin mark on the oleo. I cut
the oleo out and replaced it with aluminum tubing. This allowed me
to position the wheel in a turning attitude.
The main wheel
bay is detailed with various diameters of wire and solder. Various
sizes of hex rod are cut and used for compression fittings and disks
punched from plastic sheet with my Waldron punch and die set were
used to fill ejector pin marks. Brake lines are added to the main
landing gear from wire, solder, stretched sprue and hex rod.
The Jumo jet
engine is detailed using various sizes of wire and solder for plumbing,
hex rod for fitings, Tamiya tape cut in thin strips for tie downs and hose
clamps and stretched sprue. The engine is painted in various shades
of Alclad for the bare metal and Tamiya Semi Gloss Black. The inside
of the engine covers are Alclad Aluminum and post shaded with highly
thinned Tamiya Flat Black/Red Brown mix. The antenna connection
wires are twisted copper wire and the cable ties are made from thin strips
of Tamiya tape. The loop antenna is cut from an aluminum soda
can.
The cannon
barrels and pitot tube are fabricated from various sizes of stainless steel
tubing acquired from the Small Parts, Inc. (http://www.smallparts.com/products/descriptions/htx-tw.cfm).
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The model was
airbrushed with Tamiya Acrylics shot through my Tamiya HG and Iwata
Revolution Airbrushes. After gloss coating with Future, kit
decals were used and sealed with another coat of Future. A light
wash of Windsor Newton artist oils thinned with turpenoid was applied and
various chalk pastels completed the weathering. The entire model was
sealed with Model Master Flat Lacquer.
The scratch-building
was fun and a break from using resin and PE aftermarket parts. I used
various on line walk around photos and a visit to Planes of Fame to see a real
He 162 for reference. The Tamiya kit is great fun to build, even if you
don't go "all out" like I did.
Rian
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