tub to the fuselage first, so
as to correctly align the most
visible join on the top. I added
the required weight (5 g of lead
shot) to the nose before fixing
the front wheel bay in place.
Next came the wings, and
everything was a perfect fit until I
dry-fitted the upper wing halves,
which left a prominent gap on the
wing/fuselage joint. A smear of
filler resolved the problem quickly.
Tail wings and rudder fit snugly
into place, and the model really
starts to look like a Me-262 now!
The engines consist of six
highly-detailed pieces each. I
carefully aligned the halves to avoid
tedious sanding sessions, but to my
shock, I realized that more fit issues
were awaiting me when I tried to
fit the engines into the wings. They
were not a positive fit at all, being
too wide, which resulted in an
unwelcome step at the front edge.
After close inspection, I decided
to remove some of the plastic with
a hobby knife, starting on the
inside of the forward wing/nacelle
joint. This didn’t do the trick, so
I next tried reducing the width
of the engine assemblies. After
several sessions, I was finally able
to attach them to the wings with
clamps on both ends, but I was still
left with a slight kink on the inner
forward wing/nacelle joint. This
was not difficult to fill, but I did
need to repeatedly sand and polish
the joint to make it look perfect.
With the engines in place, I
turned back to the cockpit, adding a
couple of Eduard’s photo-etch parts
(like the rear cockpit bulkhead),
and attaching the clear parts in
place, leaving the middle section
off to position open later. The
front section with the windscreen
includes a piece of the upperfuselage, but sadly this is not a
perfect fit either. I had to use some
filler on the sides to blend it in.
The lower portion of the canopy
caused no issues. After masking the
transparencies with Tamiya tape, I
sprayed RLM66 over the frames for
the inside colour before moving on.
Airfix’ representation of the
underwing Morane mast does notresemble the real thing, being
too short and stubby. Also, the
DF loop is moulded on a plastic
block, which inserts into the
fuselage spine, providing a solid
attachment point and stability,
but no finesse. This is where the
Eduard set really comes in handy,
and all antennas were duly replaced
with etched brass examples.
The pitot tube suffers from the
same problem, being blunt and
overscale, so I substituted it withThe model sanded, polished and primed, ready for painting Correcting the wing/engine nacelle joint required repeated sanding sessionsWWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • MARCH 2018 • 25
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