Airfix 1/72 Heinkel He111 P-2

[WordenB]

Thought I would have a go at this one as currently aircraft builds, especially 1/72, seem to be my thing. As a teenage modeller many, many years ago the Heinkel 111 was one of my favourite planes although I never actually got around to building one. I've been concentrating on models from the Battle of Britain era and one of the decal schemes supplied with the kit fits in nicely.
I have the Eduard exterior p/e set for the kit but was a little disappointed to find that it concentrates mainly on the wheel wells rather than hatches etc for the fuselage like the Blenheim one I had.
I see that Krusty was working on the H version of the plane so apologise if the first sections are a little repetitive.

[digger303]

[cor]

Nice.

[Stokesy44]

Nice subject, looking forward to the build

[WordenB]

Like many I've found the moulding on Airfix kits can be a bit soft along the mating surfaces. I try to deal with this as early as possible with some dry assembly. In my experience with their more recent kits, this one is 2015, with a bit of clean up the fit is generally pretty good (tempting fate here).



Happy so far I assembled the bomb racks and painted the rear fuselage internals in Mr Color RLM66, rubber black and a bit of dry brush highlighting. With research it appears that this may have been a lighter colour but not much will be seen when it's all together.





With this dry I glued up the main fuselage parts. The fit was good enough to just use Extra Thin, no filler so far!





After a couple of days drying and some initial clean up I'm happy with the seams but to me the fuselage looks a little bare so having found some relevant drawings I'm going to attempt adding some rivet detail to spice it up a bit.

[Garion77]

A kit that as been I'm wishlist for a while now. Can't wait to see how the build goes. THat's a pretty nice start.

[WordenB]

After many hours with the rivet wheel I got the fuselage done, a couple of wobbly bits but hopefully not too obvious when it's painted. On reflection I think i should have sprayed a coat of primer first which would have made marking out and certainly photographing easier. I was a bit worried that the rivets along the seams might cause issues but a couple of days allowing the extra thin to harden up appear to have paid off.






Before attempting the rivets on the wings I really would like to glue the upper and lower surfaces together but feel the need to check the fit with the fuselage assembly first. To do this the wheel wells really need to go in so I got these finished which involved a fair amount of p/e. Some parts were really small and I don't have one of those fancy benders but with a couple of pairs of tweezers I managed to get it all together.









Before fitting the wheel wells to the fuselage assembly it seemed a good idea to use them as a jig to get the gear glued up, more p/e! When dry they can be removed so not in the way.

[digger303]

You might not have a fancy bender yet, but you did a Stirling job with the PE.

[Stokesy44]

Agree with Digger. The PE looks really good

[WordenB]

You might not have a fancy bender yet, but you did a Stirling job with the PE.

Agree with Digger. The PE looks really good

Thank you very much chaps, these eyes are getting a bit tired nowadays but a bit of paint should help hide any indiscretions.

[WordenB]

Some more progress although I'm starting to wonder if the rivet idea was a good one, many hours spent so far and still a way to go. Anyway the wings are done although I did end up doing the rivets before joining the halves.



Painted the wheel wells and fitted them after attaching the upper wing halves.



With the lower wing halves fixed I set about making the engine nacelles with p/e radiators.



Having seen a few online builds of this kit it appears there is a common fit issue between the nacelles and wings but nothing that a bit of filler won't hide. I found the fit around the wing root to be very good.

[digger303]

Just seems to be the upper half of the narcelles or should I say the upper wing half being the problem.
Even a bit of thin evergreen might be the trick.
A job well done with the rivets ....so even and straight.

[WordenB]

Just seems to be the upper half of the narcelles or should I say the upper wing half being the problem.
Even a bit of thin evergreen might be the trick.
A job well done with the rivets ....so even and straight.

Thank you very much Mr Digger Sir, you are right, plastic would be better than filler, I'll give it a go. As for the rivets, there are a few wobbly bits but I'm trying to forget where they are and hope I don't notice them again!

[Garion77]

Nice start ! The pe looks amazing ! and I'm on the same side of digger for the fixing.

[WordenB]

Nice start ! The pe looks amazing ! and I'm on the same side of digger for the fixing.

Thank you very much Francis, I have at last filled the gaps around the nacelles. I didn't have any plastic card thin enough but ended up using some stretched sprue that I flattened in an engineers vice, worked pretty well. Update coming soon.

[WordenB]

Before paint I thought it a good idea to permanently attach some of the clear parts. There are 3 pieces that make up each of the nose glazing and lower turret and they all fit together pretty well. The canopy is a fraction oversized where it meets the fuselage but not enough to warrant clear part surgery. Leaving the cockpit hatch in the open position will hide this somewhat but means a fair amount of the interior will be even more visible. With this in mind I managed to find a now discontinued Eduard interior p/e set, it's journey from Switzerland to the UK being more than offset by my lack of foreign travel in the last 25 years. And to blow the budget even more, a set of resin exhausts.



With the interior being upgraded I thought I should use the interior masks that came with the set, enough of the cockpit should be visible to make it all worthwhile. There are kit and p/e parts that fit to the in side of the glazing but with the interior painted and masks removed I think they went in without too much damage.









Reasonably happy with the results, at least content that I made the effort. Ready for paint at last.

[cor]

Its looking great.

[Tomcat64]

I could have sworn I'd already replied on this one but apparently not - sorry mate!

That's superb tidy work all around - the rivetting is definitely adding another level of detail and all the PE work is really neatly done.

Great job - looking forward to seeing it under paint now

[WordenB]

Its looking great.

I could have sworn I'd already replied on this one but apparently not - sorry mate!

That's superb tidy work all around - the rivetting is definitely adding another level of detail and all the PE work is really neatly done.

Great job - looking forward to seeing it under paint now

Thanks very much for your kind comments guys.

The base paints are now down. I have RLM 70 and 71 in Mr Color and AK Real Colors, both brands I really like but they are quite different shades. I'm certainly no expert and try not to get too concerned about colour accuracy and decided on the Real Colors purely because the jars had more in. The dark green looks very solid to me but hopefully I can sort that out with some oils later on. The closed gear and bomb bay doors were just temporarily fixed as masks. At least the rivets still show up, maybe a little too much!

[digger303]

Damn marvellous paint job.

[Parker]

beautiful build.

[WordenB]

Damn marvellous paint job.

beautiful build.

Thank you very much guys, sorry about the delay, progress is being made albeit a bit slow. I've been 3D print machine minding for my daughter recently and trying to learn more about it all. From the engine for my Stearman build I can see this is a very useful tool to have, in fact I have already printed some machine guns for the Heinkel from a downloaded file and they look excellent.

Anyway the decals went down beautifully, Airfix's Cartograf stuff really work well for me. The photos are before and after a coat of VMS satin clear and an oil wash to dull them down a fraction. Thankfully the clearcoat and wash has taken the edge off the rivetting which is a relief!

Nearly there now.

[Garion77]

Catching up on the build. Pretty nice ! indeed the paint job is great and the decals too. And the model seems to have fitted well not like the Airfix one I'm doing at the moment.