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Me-410 Monogram 1/48 + goodies


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Hello!

 

Wanted to share my new project, this is Monogram/Promodeler's 1/48 Me-410.  I didn't know much about the 410 before seeing this kit, but it's my new airplane crush 🙂

 

The kit is really well detailed out of the box, especially for 2008 ish vintage.  I did order Aires resin set for the gun bay detail, but the stock parts cockpit is very nearly as good.  Beige is stock, green is Aires below.

 

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I really liked the open engine nacelle on my Pe-2, so also adding CMK DB603 engine and gear bay set.  I'm not suuuuper happy with the engine detail, there's a lot of detail missing and some parts are too chunky.  But it's a good starting point.

 

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These detail sets are a project unto themselves, so there isn't a lot of plane to show right now, just a collection of parts in various stages of paint.

 

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Really looking forward to seeing this fill out my twins shelf alongside the Mossie, P-38 and Pe-2.

 

Thanks for looking!

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Loki,

 

That''s some nice work!  I'll enjoy watching your build.

 

As a resource, you might want to find the Me-410 build by "chukw" over at Hyperscale.  Great build with lots of great information.

 

C2j

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Engine piping added.  As far as I can figure, most of the external piping is crankcase ventilation 😮

On the flipside I really get why the germans used inverted V engines now.  The heads, coolant circuits and other serviceable bits are clearly easier to work on and your wrenches and nuts fall to the ground, not into the engine bay!

 

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So the CMK engine kit is a little disappointing. 

 

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The oil tank is wrong, the engine cradle is wrong, obvious details are missing and the top cowl portion from CMK can't actually fit over the engine, because the engine cradle arms sit too far out.  I intended to model the top of the cowl closed but removable, and the bottom (DIY) cowl open, so now I think we're going with a permanently closed top cowl if I have to grind down the engine cradle.

 

I console myself with Aires cockpit which is hitting all the right notes!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Update time.  It's not going EXACTLY as planned, but here's where we are.  

On the plus side, it looks like a plane.

On the minus side, I'm finding a lot of the same issues chuckw found in building this kit with these extras.  Individually all the components work fine, but when you start fitting them together into the fuselage, it's another story.  For example, the port instrument panel was straight, but the curve of the kit cockpit wall forces it to bend down and to the right.  Likewise, the gun bay, radio/gunner and cockpit components interfere with each other when assembled.  It's been a fun few days of sanding, trying, sanding, gluing, manipulating, unseating, reseating, sanding, etc.  Some of these walls (kit and resin) are down to less than a mm of thickness and I dare not flex them any more.  They're still not 100% fitted in the pictures, you can see the gaps, but I have a plan for those that will be done after I'm done major manipulation of the airframe.  Handling it causes things to come unglued inside.

 

All that aside, it's a surprisingly simple kit once you have the cockpit parts together.  There isn't a heck of a lot left to assemble, just empennage and cockpit glazing and we're ready for paint.  I will not be doing the landing gear doors open since that wasn't normal in regular operations.  They were parked with the landing gear doors closed, from all the pictures I've seen, which gives the bird a sleeker, cleaner look.

 

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Edited by Loki_v2
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  • 3 months later...

Long overdue update!

 

The cockpit before closing it up: 

 

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Another hitch in the assembly: the resin gunners sight is too wide for the stock canopy glass.  Doh!

Perhaps not the wisest choice, but I elected to grind down the inside of the canopy glass to win the necessary millimeter or two on each side.  It worked well on the starboard side - grind, sand, polish, Future. 

 

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But, on the port side I .... went through the glass.

 

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At that point, I put the project down for a bit and did other things while I figure out what to do.  The glass pane was beyond saving, so I trimmed it back to the framing, and as of this writing its still open. 

 

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I will fix this later some sort of transparent material.  Ive tested a few different transparent plastics, but have not found one that glues well.  Open to suggestions!

 

In the meantime, to make forward progress and stay motivated, it was time to fix the engine intakes.

The stock ones are molded oblong, whereas they should be round.  Turns out, a 1/72 Soviet missile I had left over from some older project is an almost exact fit!

 

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A bit of sanding, priming and filling later, muuuuch better:

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Fixed intake on right, original on left:

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Another thing Im trying in this kit is to give the metal surfaces some unevenness. Stressed skin tends to deform over time, and panels that are repeatedly removed get banged up.  To that end, I applied a thin layer of water-soluble filler putty on some panels and smoothed it out with a wet sponge.  We shall see how it looks with paint over it, but at least the engine cowling panels look promising?

 

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Next step preshading and paint!  

Thanks for looking!

 

 

Edited by Loki_v2
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  • 3 weeks later...

Paint is going on!  The mottling might need to be redone, will see how it looks after a unifying layer.  I like how the area around the cockpit came out, but the tail section is less good.  I kept spraying with a broken reg, and wondering trying to work with spatter rather stopping to think.  Little streaks here and there are easy fixes though.

 

The subject will be 9K VV of KG51.

 

The Perfect Putty trick above actually kind of worked! It gives juuuust a hint of dinged up metal on flat surfaces.  Difficult to catch on camera without a gloss coat. On vertical surfaces its a bit more pronounced and looks like a step.  But.. promising!

 

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Edited by Loki_v2
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  • 1 month later...

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She's starting to take shape!

I went back to the engine, cleaned it up and fixed the mounts.  Warming the mounts in hot water helped bend them into the right shape and the openings were with first with Microscale Micromask (liquid mask that can hold a film and dries reasonably hard), and then water soluble putty for shaping and permanence.  That's one long-lingering problem put to bed!

 

Wing surfaces are cleared, decaled and in the process of weathering.  The fuselage mottling is not done yet, so no decals there.

 

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Edited by Loki_v2
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  • 3 weeks later...

Thant Mr. Happy!

 

Picking up the pace.  My airbrush situation is finally resolved.  I have gone from a 20+ year old Paasche VL to a collection of second-hand Iwatas.. and so, the mottling is 95% where I want it to be!  A bit heavy after all, but I'm happy with the effect.

 

Model has all of its colour and decals, gloss and some weathering. 

I will set up the open engine with the radiator panel attached and plumbed, which means scratching the inside of that panel.  Starting on that.  The thinking here is you wouldn't have the engine cowling all apart in pre-flight and with ordnance already on the plane (which there will be).  

 

More to come soon! 

 

 

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Edited by Loki_v2
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  • 2 weeks later...

The whole package is together!  I've decided I'm going to leave the broken window as it is.  I don't have a good way to fix it, and since the frame is intact, and it gives interesting detail, let's say it's out for repair 😉

 

I feel it's starting to pop, and I could stop here, but there's something missing.  Going to let it marinade a bit and come in with some extra weathering/variation.

 

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Edited by Loki_v2
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