Revell Mistel V (it's probably more than I can chew)

[CJSomerset]

I love WWII Luftwaffe aircraft, I love the weird camo patterns and I especially love the crazy secret weapons!

But I live in the middle of rural Somerset and although I do have a model shop locally, they only have a handful of Airfix planes as they specializes in trains. (damn there's no yawning emotion!)

So when I stumbled upon this kit in the Works for £19.99 I had to get it.

Crazy design, weird camo, no postage fees and TWO planes for £19.99 what's not to like?

I haven't done enough kits to be able to write a review, this is really only 2nd attempt at any serious modelling.

So if you're also starting out and making one of these, hopefully you can learn by my mistakes. If you're more experienced than me, feel free to offer any tips, once you have stopped laughing.

First thing I did was cut the box down! It's way too big for the contents and took up too much room on our kitchen work top.

The cockpit went together nicely and I made up some seat belts using some grey Fimo from my kids art supply.



The fuselage was a really fiddly fit with bits needing squeezing and others held outwards whilst the glue dried. In the end I resorted to super glue on the inside. But it seemed to go together fairly well and only needed a tiny bit of filler around the nose.



WARING! There's no bottom to the fuselage, it's a triangle with the wings forming the bottom. But the front has to fit into the nose cone. The instructions tell you to make the nose cone and fit to the fuselage and then make the wings and then fit the two together. But if you do, this is what happens!.



You actually need to make the wings first and then make the fuselage fit them!

Remember kids, I'm stupid so you don't have to be….

There'll be more exciting instalments soon, but I'm gonna be sanding filler for a few days

[AchtungPanzer]

Good work with cockpit Well done mate

[NeneKirbs78]

Cockpit looks great also thanks for mentioning you got this at the works. I'd never thought of looking in there for kits and their is one local to me.

[CJSomerset]

Plenty of filler and lots of sanding and I had a nice flat surface that cracked whenever the wings flexed



Thanks to JohnMC for the advice, I scrapped out all the filler and glued in the spare missile pylons from a Harrier. With not to much sanding I got a nice surface that hasn't cracked!

But when I went to prime it I broke the nozzle of my airbrush

So whilst waiting for a spare to arrive I started work on the Ta154. I immediately realized that this kit is going to be a lot bigger than I thought. It went together okay ish, compared to the FW it hardly needed any filler. Although the kit includes the full interior, you have to make the plane without it and then cut the front end off! Anyone want a cockpit?



Amazingly I managed to cut it right (there's not really any instructions for it)



Now back to the FW190.

Although the kit includes all it's undercarriage and the box art shows it with it's wheels down, there are no instructions for this option, so I'll have to use the artwork as a guide and try to make all the linkages fit. Also the instructions refer to some parts on sprue K. But there isn't one! It's not missing, the what's in this kit list doesn't show a sprue K. So I've started using the instructions as a "Guide" only!

Finally got my nozzle and laid down some primer.

[UKguyInUSA]

I had filling issues with my Revell P-40B Tiger Shark....the material was so flimsy and weak. so when you filled joints, just like yours, they cracked open with the smallest of pressures and flexing. The old Revell kits suck!

But, you're overcoming the issues well, not giving in and persevering!

Look forward to seeing the camo colors go on

[Prop72]

Looks great so far. A very interesting subject so look forward to seeing it progress.

[CJSomerset]

Have you ever laid awake at night wondering what the battle of Britain would have looked like if the Luftwaffe planes had camo patterns designed by a pearly queen?

Me neither! But it must have looked some thing like this...



I knew my airbrushing wasn't good enough to paint random splodges every where, so I sprayed everything with the darker RLM and then cut hundreds of little masks and attached them with blu tack so that they gave a feathered edge. Then sprayed it all again with the lighter grey.

On my first attempt the pattern wasn't splodgy enough. On the second they were to big. On the third they too uniformed. By the fourth, I'd got all but one wing as I wanted it, but it took another two attempts to get that wing to match the rest of the aircraft. ( Though I'm still not that happy with it).