Revell 1/72 Blohm & Voss BV 222 a.k.a. "Where am I gonna fit this thing?"

[PrivatePublic]

So I've made a big mistake, so to speak. Long story short the BV 222 was big, like really big. The already large B-29 measured 30m long and 43 wide, by contrast the BV 222 comes out at 37m by 46m. in 1/72 scale that makes for a big kit, around 50x63cm, and I have no idea where I'm gonna put it










A little history on the thing shamelessly paraphrased from Wikipedia

Development

The BV 222, like the Fw 200 Condor, was originally a civilian aircraft pressed into military service. Initially designed by Dr. Richard Vogt for an order by Luft Hansa in 1938, construction began in 1938. V1 made its first test flight on 7 September 1940 under the registration D-ANTE with further trials continuing until December in order to correct a number of small issues. The V1 was then passed to Luftwaffe service with the registration CC+EQ later changed to X4+AH.

The type was noted for a long flat floor inside the cabin and a large square cargo door aft of the wing on the starboard side, with such a flat floor for the hull interior being a welcome novelty for that era. The usual balance floats for a flying boat design were ingeniously designed as a matching pair of retracting float units per side, which extended from beneath the wing's outer panels in "clamshell" fashion when fully extended, and fit fully flush with the wing panels' undersides when retracted.[2] Only 13 aircraft are thought to have been completed.

Originally powered by Bramo 323 Fafnir radial engines, later aircraft were powered by six 746 kW (1,000 hp) Jumo 207C inline two-stroke opposed-piston diesel engines. The use of diesels permitted refueling at sea by special re-supply U-boats. C-13 aircraft was a sole example fitted with Jumo 205C and later Jumo 205D engines.

Early aircraft were identified as V1 to V8. Production examples were designated C-09 to C-13

Operational History

V1 made seven flights between Hamburg and Kirkenes up to 19 August 1941, transporting a total of 65,000 kg (143,000 lb) of supplies and 221 wounded men, covering a distance of 30,000 km (19,000 mi) in total. After being overhauled at Hamburg, V1 was sent to Athens, from where it carried supplies for the Afrika Corps, making 17 flights between 16 October and 6 November 1941. The V1 was at this time unarmed, and was given an escort of two Bf 110 heavy fighters.

Following these flights, the V1 returned to Hamburg to have defensive armament fitted, comprising a 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 81 machine gun in the hull, two turret-mounted 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131 machine guns, and four 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 81s in waist mounts. The registration was changed to X4+AH at the same time and the V1 formed the basis for the new air transport squadron Lufttransportstaffel 222 (LTS 222). Between 1942 and 1943, the aircraft flew in the Mediterranean theatre, until in mid-February 1943 it sank following a collision with a submerged wreck while landing at Piraeus harbour.

The V2 (CC+ER) made its first flight on 7 August 1941, and after extensive testing was assigned to LTS 222 on 10 August 1942 as X4+AB. Since the aircraft was intended for long-distance overwater flights, in addition to the armament fitted to the V1 she received two rear-facing wing-mounted turrets with dual 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131s, accessed via the tubular wing spar which was 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in diameter.

In 1944, the V2 participated in Operation Schatzgräber ("Treasure Seeker"), the code name of a German weather station at Alexandra Land in the Arctic, whose sick crew needed to be evacuated. The BV 222 dropped a spare wheel for a Fw 200 which had sustained damage during landing near the station.

The V3 (initially DM+SD) first flew on 28 November 1941, and was transferred to LTS 222 on 9 December 1941 After V1's sinking, V3 returned to Hamburg where she was armed. She was destroyed along with V5 on 20 June 1943 at Biscarrosse by RAF de Havilland Mosquitos of No. 264 Squadron RAF.

V4, which had an altered height tail, was also assigned to LTS 222 for Africa flights.

V6 was shot down on 21 August 1942 on the Taranto to Tripoli route by a Bristol Beaufighter; V8 was shot down on the same route on 10 December 1942.

The V7 (TB+QL), which made its first flight on 1 April 1943, was fitted with six 746 kW (1,000 hp) Jumo 207C inline two-stroke diesel engines. With a takeoff weight of 50,000 kg (110,000 lb) and a range of 6,100 km (3,800 mi), it was intended as the prototype BV 222C.

Following the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the remaining BV 222 aircraft were transferred to KG 200.[5] Of these, C-09 was probably the BV 222 reported to have been strafed and destroyed by Hawker Typhoon aircraft of No. 439 Squadron RCAF on 24 April 1945 at Seedorf.,[6] while V7 and V4 were scuttled by their crews at Travemünde and Kiel-Holtenau airport respectively, at the end of the war.

C-10 was probably the BV 222 reported shot down southwest of Biscarosse on the night of 8 February 1944 by a Mosquito of No. 157 Squadron RAF.

One BV 222, V4, is said to have shot down a US Navy PB4Y Liberator of VB-105 (BU#63917) commanded by Lieutenant Evert, on October 22, 1943. Since the war this has often been mistakenly quoted as a BV 222 shooting down an Avro Lancaster.

Note: I've seen a few conflicting accounts of the armament on the early variants including inconsistencies within the kit itself. I've got a decent looking book coming that should hopefully shed a little light, but at the end of the day I'm not about to start rivet counting.

And now some photos and a video








[youtube]v-eL78Ti3KY[/youtube]

[DBMiller]

That's a big baby! But, if you measure it in inches, 50x63cm comes out to 19.7x24.8in! See, smaller.

[PrivatePublic]

Update from earlier this week, it's just taken me this long to post it. The sprue layouts and instructions are... typical Revell really. Some of the parts are grouped by general applications for lack of a better term and the instructions are pretty decent but the lack of indexing by sprue letter and part numbers being all over the place made for a lot of time spent searching, but altogether it's been a fun build. The part count isn't terribly high considering the size of the model but it still has some very nice details plus some opportunity for superdetailing for anyone that way inclined.

One thing to notice too is this aircraft has a lot of windows, and while the main sections i.e. turrets, cockpit etc are fairly nice some of the smaller window pieces look like they've had a run in with a rogue piece of sandpaper. So they'll need a clean up and will mostly be left out until the interior's painted.

Many of the parts have some minor flash or noticeable seams but they're pretty easily cleaned up. The fit has been very nice too so far, only minimal trimming and a little filling required.

First up was the nose and cockpit section. The instrument panel is mounted on this with the rest of the cockpit being on another assembly that fits into the fuselage



Then that interior section


There's some good detail on the floor and walls here, but most of it's not going to be seen anyway, hence why I didn't bother cleaning up the huge epms on one side of each bulkhead bit.


The interior all attaches to this, including the cockpit and the cabin area behind. Some photos I've seen show a crew area with bunks for long flights behind the door to the rear. As aircraft in military service go the BV 222 is cruising in style.
One small thing I noticed, one of the few equipment desks is meant to slot in to a couple of locating holes on top of the upper deck.


Turns out they've been molded on the bottom Not really a problem, just remove the locating pins or drill out the hole and away you go, but I found it amusing.


But in the end it goes together pretty nicely. Up front.


And out back.


Should look nice with a coat of paint. Revell's also nicely solved the issue of this being hidden away. The fuselage section above in which one of the MG 151/20 turrets is installed is a separate part to the two fuselage halves, theoretically it could be left unglued to take a peek inside.


Cargo doors installed. Unfortunately they're one molded piece with the frames so it would require a little hack and slash to be able to pose them open.


Fuselage MGs also installed. There's 4 of these and they go together pretty much the same.


Also installed the turrets in the top centre of each wing. Supposedly the main wing spar was a 1m diameter tube through which these turrets and some parts of the engine could also be accessed. The hole for it can be seen in one of the photos up the top, and it's been recreated on the kit in a way as well, that's how the wings attach to the fuselage.


And just for a little scale...


That's a 1/72 Mossie on what passes for my idea of a 'workbench'
Painting this beauty is gonna be a mission and a half, but that's a problem for another day. I've been doing a lot of steps out of order to get a lot of the sub-assemblies done so I can get the first round of painting knocked out in one go.

Cheers

[Lysus]

Yeah...I'd be at a loss for how to paint it. In my driveway with my airbrush? Maybe it's time to dig a pool out of the back yard and it can float there.

Great start!

[PrivatePublic]

Yeah...I'd be at a loss for how to paint it. In my driveway with my airbrush? Maybe it's time to dig a pool out of the back yard and it can float there.

Great start!

Yea I uhhh, don't even have a driveway Primed it yesterday (pics to come later today probs) but I had to drag a chair and make a makeshift table outside the house to be able to have the space without the compressor deafening everyone inside. Haven't used it many times and already considering replacing it with something else because it's so LOUD.

So yea, did a little work on this a day or two ago. Gluing the two halves of the wings together. The turrets in the center should probably have been painted separately but they were already set in place so I'll deal.


The section of the leading edge that holds the engines comes in two separate parts that attach to the wing.


They're a tight fit and required a bit of clamping to stay in place until the TET can grab on, but in the end they look quite good.


Got all the engines together too, gonna paint these and the interior of the nacelles before sealing them all up (which I just realised I forgot to prime ). The prop shaft with the round bit sticking out the top is held in by a little plastic split ring, but the end of the shaft requires a bit of trimming to fit over that stub sticking out the leading edge.


The basic assembly of the engine nacelles. There's 6 of these and the access panels can be posed open. There's some nice enough detail in there but it'd require a bit more detail and some hack and slash to make it worth looking at and honestly I can't be bothered.


Here's what it looks like dry fitted, still needing some cleanup obviously.


There's a couple of holes each side of the nacelles I need to fill too, but all in all it's coming together. Next up comes the painting of the interior some time in the next few days

[PrivatePublic]

And here's the pics of the primed interior. As my first major experience of priming with an airbrush (I mostly used rattle cans up till now) it turned out pretty nicely IMO. I used AK's black acrylic primer straight from the bottle and it seemed to do alright.




I'm starting to think about paint as well, I'll likely be using Tamiya XF-23, 26 and 27 for the RLM 65, 72 and 73 respectively called out in the instructions, they're not 100% accurate but they're pretty good matched overall. With such a large surface area it's gonna need something to break up the monotone, so I'm thinking prime in black as well, not quite the same as preshading but it might give a vaguely similar effect maybe (don't really have any lighter primer on me atm). Then go over in the primary colours, hit up the larger panels with some highlights and then my first try of a proper dot filter. But that's still a little way away yet, gotta close the whole thing up first.

[PrivatePublic]

So the book arrived, $17 NZD from the UK is a pretty good deal for a few photos I'd seen before in better quality and a whole bunch I hadn't seen.

It also sheds a lot of light on the differences between the individual aircraft, particularly the armament differences between them. I knew there were a few variations which isn't unusual for an aircraft with such low production numbers but there's a lot more than I thought. Particularly for the kit the armament layout varies hugely from what the V1 had IRL, different MGs in different mountings and two fuselage turrets with MG 131s and no wing turrets. However it is accurate for the V2 and C production series circa 1944-45. Also as expected the kit doesn't include the swastika decals for the tail. It does also help me with the painting scheme I want to go with, with 3 good photos of the V2 in Norway in 1945 around the time of the German surrender, one in German markings, one in British markings as they were the first to take over it and one in American markings who eventually shipped it off to the states for testing.



The whitewash is clearly very washed out so I hope to have it looking as in the German markings.
Also an interesting story:


In the meantime cockpit, cabin and engine details are mostly painted, just needs a little weathering and a wash

[PrivatePublic]

Some more done. It's a bit slower nowadays now that I'm getting back into uni work but it's ticking along nicely. Sprayed the interior with Vallejo Model Air Interior Green, certainly not the most accurate colour but it's what I had on hand, it looks nice enough and it's mostly not going to be seen anyway through the numerous but small windows. I definitely sprayed it too thick as it pooled in a few places and pulled away from the edges, but again it's mostly not gonna be seen. Afterwards I went over the lot with some detail painting in the cockpit/cabin area with various colours and went over the floor with Vallejo Model Color Dark Olive or something like that, the name escapes me atm. Followed that up with a little silver drybrushing. Engines were painted Tamiya Dark Iron and drybrushed in Silver. All was then covered in a coat of Alclad Aqua Gloss (my first time using it and it was pretty much flawless) and then I went over with a light wash and some heavier washes on the engines, AKs OEF fuel streaks and track wash IIRC. In the next few days it'll get a matt spray and then she'll be closed up. Progress

[PrivatePublic]

Right, I've been neglecting this too long and it's about time I made some bloody progress, so lets do this

With all the interior done I got the clear parts installed. There's a lot of windows in this thing and they weren't particularly good. Lots of scuffs, scratches and burring here and there but they're small enough to not be too noticeable and the cockpit glass was reasonably clear.

Then I got the interior section glued to one half of the fuselage. It was a bit finicky trying to get it to sit right but it went in fine with some jimmying.

Now up to this point the fit has been mostly excellent. Not so much when it came to joining the fuselage. It's hard to complain too much considering it's actually pretty good considering the size of the damn thing but it took a fair bit of wiggling, clamping and bit by bit gluing until I had one joined piece. I started with the tail end since it was the easiest to clamp and line up for the rest of it.


Then I just needed to clean up the seams which was a pretty simple task all told, just a lot of surface to sand.

Canopy went in next. It's a bit finicky as it's made up of 4 parts, 1 section for most of it and 1 at the top in the middle and 1 for each side. Having the open bit of the fuselage to reach through helped a lot.

Finally I needed to do the last bits of the exterior, like the floats...

...aerial anchors or whatever...

And the props

Then it was on with the masking. For the priming I just covered over the frames for the clear parts and will actually do that properly later.

And then I broke out the airbrush and gave the whole thing a good coat of AKs black acrylic primer.

Naturally I forgot something, as always. This time it was the engine cowlings but I just went over those with auto primer in a spray can because I wasn't about to get the airbrush again just for that. They're marked according to what side they're on and which position they fit the best.

That's it for this one, hopefully next update (around the weekend by my plans) it'll be painted or near enough. The race is on.

[ElCapitan]

Enjoying watching this giant take shape!

[sheppsea]

Really enjoyed reading through this so far - nicely done so far :thumb:

[EvilCarrot]

Great work so far, PP! I'll be keeping this thread in mind if I ever get around to starting mine.

[PrivatePublic]

Thanks guys, I seem to be getting there. Hope I can be done by the deadline
New update, all painted except for some touchups.

First I had to get the engine cowlings attached. Painted the insides, stuck the engines in and mounted the cowlings, then masked with some foam


First colour went down. Sprayed Tamiya's XF-23 about 2:1 with the X-20A thinner through my H&S Ultra with a 0.2mm needle, as with the rest of it. I'm not yet terribly experienced with it and my working environment is rudimentary to say the least but it went down beautifully.


Then the real masking begins. I removed the temporary mask on the clear parts and properly masked them.


Then I masked off the underside of the rest of the parts. I used a combination of some lowish tack masking tape and the flexible 3mm Tamiya stuff.


Next down was Tamiya XF-26 on the top side. Again this turned out really nicely.


After that yet more masking. So much masking. This really is a massive kit




Down went Tamiya XF-27 and finally off came the masking.



All in all the result is quite good. I need to do a few touchups, there's some spots I missed and a couple of spots the masking tape lifted the paint right down to the plastic, possibly some mold release agent left on it (I should actually clean my sprues ) or perhaps just areas the primer didn't adhere too well. But other than that the painting's done. After the touching up I'll get a gloss coat down and then it's on with all the decals. Then another gloss coat, weathering and a flat coat or two. I probably won't have time to do the whitewash and I kinda like it as is anyway, so I might just model it as the V2 without the winterising.



Getting there!

[PrivatePublic]

Another small update, I decided to do the whitewash and it went... alright for my first time actually using the hairspray technique properly. Problem is when I went to lay the paint down it started pulling almost immediately because I'd put on too much hair spray. I didn't have the presence of mind to take photos while trying to make it look presentable so I only have photos of the result, and although it's not ideal I think it turned out alright.



Props were painted in Tamiya black, next they need the yellow tips.



And then the next gloss coat down on the fuselage and wings, Alclad Aqua Gloss again. I did have a minor problem spraying it out of my H&S Ultra. Turns out if you're taking as long as is required for a kit this size it has a tendency to gum up the 0.2mm needle which meant having to strip it down and clean it in the middle of spraying. After doing that I switched to the 0.4mm needle to hopefully alleviate that issue and although it required more careful control it sprayed perfectly, so there's something good to know for next time.



I have the decals mostly done so next update will be those, then weathering and the final matte/flat coats. Looks like I might be done on time

[PrivatePublic]

Right, decals done. I 'cheated' a bit on the no walking area on the wings, each was about 10+ decals so I just masked and painted it instead.


In total there are a little over 100 decals for this kit, mostly small stencil markings. Anyone looking to build this beware though, there aren't enough of some of the markings.

Also as you would expect from Revell there are no swastikas included. I didn't have any spares of appropriate size (according to my references they're huge) so I just didn't add any.

The decals are a little on the thick side for my liking and they took a bit of encouraging to get down over the panel lines, but with a bit of encouragements and some liberal Micro Sol/Set they turned out pretty nicely. The upside to being quite thick is you can work them quite a bit without fear of tearing them.

Then I got some of the details painted, such as the exhausts here.

The next day I tackled it with a wash, thinned burnt sienna (I think, can't remember and it's buried again by now ). I then took to the leading edges for some lightish chipping. From what I can tell from my references in the later years of the war they didn't see too much flight time so most weathering would just come from sitting in the fjords of Norway. Hence I didn't go too crazy but wanted it to look a little grimy and neglected. It worked, kinda

Next bit was some pastels/pigments in areas like smoke stains from the engines.

There were a couple of other minor steps but nothing worth elaborating on really.
The final step was getting a clear coat down. I ummed and ahhed about what exactly but it was getting late so I put a coat of Microscale Satin down and I really do like the results. Satin gives a nice sheen without making it too glossy.


Possibly the best part for me, taking off the masks.

Aaaand with that, I just had to attach the last bits, like the wings and prop blade and we're done!
The wing joint is very nicely done. Revell have pretty much modelled the actual wing spar which goes into the hole and then the wing rotates up to fit the fuselage pretty much perfectly. This is why I left them till last. I knew otherwise they would get in the way but with extensive test fitting I figured I could put them on at the very last step. Again, something I recommend anyone building this kit consider.


All in all it was an enjoyable build and I think it turned out alright. I could have done better but by the end I was just working on it to get it done. It's an impressive kit to behold, but working with such a large piece gets tiring after a while. I had hoped to try some more stuff on it and there were a few mistakes along the way but that's all part of the process I guess
Now on to the reveal, looks like I've got a few hours before the final deadline and I'm glad I made it
Here's the reveal http://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.p ... 86#p245386