The nose section is a real sore point on this kit..just like the Airfix Sea Fury i recently finished apparently. The nose does not affix the front of the fuselage nicely at all so scraping, sanding and cleanup is required to get a neat fit. This ended up taking a lot more time than i initially thought it would and required many test fits and reworks to get it squared off and sitting flush.
Getting the body together was a real tight fit and once again i would like to thank Tamiya Tape for the supporting role it has played so far in this kit. Engines test fit as well.
The wings had a rather large gap to fuselage which i did not want to muck around with filling and sanding and then losing details so, ahem.. again, i would like to thank Tamiya for its supporting role.
First primer coat, panzer grey followed by black with some preshading and full black underneath is prep for the silver lower half.
The engine that will be covered has been fitted, engine door glued, top of the fuselage needed some extra work and a reprime. From here the whole lot, especially the underneath, will get a light sand with some 2000 grit in prep for laying some colour. Once the Gloster is at that stage i will get the wings and engine assembly on the 162 and primed up.
All the pieces for the 162 engine.
The bulk of the 162 primed or ready to be primed along with some Gloster parts.
Gloster engine bay and some of the 162 engine pieces
162 Engine base colour, and silvered and sitting in its pod.
From here i wanted to add some detail, wiring, pipes etc. I haven't really dressed an engine up before so wanted to take a shot at it. I looked up a few other 162 builds as well as some static 162 engine displays and made a bit of a mish mash of both.
Finished it off with some slight weathering to hopefully make it pop a bit more. Definitely looks better than the oob version and it was fun little project.
Silvered the Meteor. A couple of coats, let it sit overnight, then i will sand/smooth the silver with some paper towel and a nice soft rag before giving it the final silver coat. 162 in its underbody RLM76.
Some minor engine detail for the Gloster. I used these brake calipers off the Skyraider as they resembled pretty closely pieces attached the engine, painted and sliced them off, six circular pieces in total for the one engine. A couple of pieces of wire to finish it off.
RLM83 for the body of the 162 and one wing. A different and slighter darker mix than what i used on the Me262. One of the wings, part of the tailplane and the engine cover will be in RLM81 and 82, which are a brown violet and another shade of green. Something like THIS but without the red engine cowl.