COMPLETED - Revell 1/32 Heinkel He 111 P-1 WIP

I need some advice regarding paint masking.

My typical approach has been to lay down the lightest color first, usually the underside.  In this case Hellblau RLM65.  I then put down a generous coating of Future floor polish to seal the paint in.  Then I will start masking if necessary, typically when I am trying to get a hard demarcation line.

So this is the process I followed on this build, with this result:

The paint is Model Master Acryl.  I am using Tamiya tape to do the masking.  I put the coat of Future on more than 24 hours ago, so that should have been sufficient time to properly cure.  The weather is surprisingly not humid here in SE Texas currently.  I did not apply a primer coat.  Perhaps that is the problem?

Should I coat several times with Future and let that cure properly?  I have never had an issue with Tamiya tape; I have also used Scotch painter's tape for delicate surfaces #2080 in the past, and don't recall having any issues with paint lifting.  I just tried a Post-It note and see that it also lifted a sliver of paint as well.

Any ideas on what might be going wrong here?

After church and lunch with my family, I had no other responsibilities or honey-do's so it was off to the work bench.  I was there long enough to watch both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Blade Runner while working on the one-eleven.  I have made such progress that I expect to start painting next time I find myself at the bench.

Gondola.  I only found one photo of the interior of the gondola, featuring a black probably vinyl pad on the floor.  I am certain the photograph was not WWII-era.  The kit features molded in detailing of what looks like it would be floor padding.  Makes sense in that there is a gunner laying down there to man the MG15 machine gun.  I imagine the padding offered a very bare amount of comfort, ie, not really any, for the guy laying there.  I painted the padding leather brown and installed a rack of MG15 ammo cases.  I have elected to not install any of the MG15's until almost the very end of the build to prevent breakage.  (And on that note, I noticed that I had used all the ammo cases throughout the aircraft, leaving none to actually mount on the MG15's.  Argh.  Plus, the MG15's are not this kit's strong point at all - the barrels look awful - so I broke my limited budget and found the Aires resin set on eBay for about $20.  I expect the MG15's to look pretty good based on the level of detail I see in the Aires set).

Instrumentation.  I am impressed with the decal for the IP bezel faces.  The decal matches very well with the references I have found on-line, down to a couple of bezels with a red ring.  I also elected to install some wiring for the instruments.  There are photos showing a bundle of wires coming from the back of the main IP through a slot between the IP and the "roof" of the canopy (metal portion) and routing to the port side of the aircraft into an internal bulkhead, where presumably it snakes back into the aircraft).  There is another minor IP located above and to the right of the pilot's seat.  I added a single wire to this piece and routed it toward the primary wire bundle described above.  I don't have any photos of all of this installed as it is impossible to focus into the cockpit through the one open window.  Peering in, I am moderately happy with that work, but ultimately I don't believe it will even be visible once I get all the window masking removed.  If it is, then I will be pleasantly surprised.

The bomb site.  I painted the knobs and installed as per the instructions, then discovered that its presence made for a tight fit when installing the canopy.  The bomb site fits under the wooden deck that the bombardier lays upon, and of course I had already glued that part into place.  I did some test fitting and verified that I could get the canopy attached but I had to hold it in place for a few minutes to ensure that it stayed attached.

This shot reveals that I need to spray more RLM02 to cover some that lifted under some tape I put on to help keep the canopy in place.

As I said earlier, I expect to start painting next time I get to work on the one-eleven.  I will start that with a pre-shading session.  In preparation for this, I used some tack to put the bomb bay doors and primary gear doors into place temporarily, which will help with painting those parts and serve as a mask for the already-completed portions underneath those parts.

Finally, an update on my progress.  I have spent most of this week addressing seams and masking windows.  Luftwaffe bombers and reconn warbirds typically had a lot of windows, and the one-eleven certainly does not come up short in that department.

For the masking, I really wanted to get the mask set but just could not find room for that in the budget.  So out came the Tamiya tape, an XACTO knife, a self-healing cutting mat and a lot of patience.  I was usually able to lay down a piece of tap over a window to mask, run a flat edge to rub into the tape the outline of the window, then put the tape on the mat and carefully cut with the knife using a straight edge as a guide.  When that didn't work due to curvature, I had to use multiple pieces of tape to approximate the curves. This is a painful exercise that I do not recommend.  

Various photos of the masked canopies.

For the nose turret, I elected to just mask the entire thing except the ring around the base of the part.  The four pieces of framing are far too thin to properly mask but I figure I can paint them free-hand.

I will next mask the interior of these windows then lay down a coat of RLM02 to depict the interior framing color.

I am moderately pleased with the number of seams in this kit.  There are a few but given the size of this beast there are not nearly as many as there could have been.  And some very well may be a result of builder error.

I am happy with the thin seams that I have here.  They should disappear nicely under the coming painting session.  As I noted in an earlier post, there was a major issue with the alignment of the outer to inner wing panels on the underside.  I filled in the gap but the mis-alignment is still clearly visible.  Short of pulling all of that apart and trying to force alignment via installing some kind of wing spar - which I am not really wanting to do as this kit is not going into any kind of model competition - I am just going to leave it as is.

Photos of my seam work.

I went ahead and finished constructing the bombs.

Finally, my one disaster that is related to the size of this beast.  As I was maneuvering the big boy from front to back to start working on the seam on the rear of the fuselage, I brushed one of the trailing ailerons against my chest and snapped it off.  There is damage to the part that holds it in place - there are small rods on the aileron designed to slide into the protruding hinges on the main stabilizer that are broken off.  I have elected to leave these parts off until I have painted that section of the one-eleven, then I will re-install them and glue them into place.  I am also going to glue the rudder into place once I install the actuator pieces.

UKguyInUSA

Great work so far, Aggieman, she's looking wonderful! I look forward to seeing you put her clothes on.

 

I love BIG birds....I just finished the Ju 88A-1 bomber which had a 22 inch wing span...not quite the size of that bird, though!

 

Keep having fun!

Cheers

Martin

 

I followed your work on that Ju88.  I thought your big bird turned out great.  I have that same kit in my stash and actually considered building it for the bathroom bomber, but the one-eleven won out because it is the warbird I most closely associate with both the Luftwaffe and the Battle of Britain.

Great work so far, Aggieman, she's looking wonderful! I look forward to seeing you put her clothes on.

I love BIG birds....I just finished the Ju 88A-1 bomber which had a 22 inch wing span...not quite the size of that bird, though!

Keep having fun!

Cheers

Martin

Just catching up on this build,that office looks awesome! That thing is going to be a Monster! Looking forward to the next update.

After taking yesterday off, very modest progress today.  

I had issues affixing the outer wings to the inner wings.  I believe I relayed that in an earlier post.  In any event there were significant gaps on the underside - the starboard wing I will refer to as the Grand Canyon, and the port wing I will refer to as Valles Marineris (this is the huge canyon on Mars that dwarfs our own Grand Canyon).

Grand Canyon:

Valles Marineris:

My first thought on dealing with these two canyons was to use sheet styrene to help fill in the gap prior to filling with putty.  Unfortunately I was not able to get significant amount of styrene into the gap to adequately assist in filling the gap due to this next issue, that I was only able to see when gazing through my optivisor:

Note how the lower wing panel is significantly out of alignment with the curve of the inner lower wing panel.  The parts were assembled as per specs, and this is not present on the opposite wing.  I am not sure if this is a molding problem or the result of builder error. Argh.  Fortunately this is not going to be noticable once I display it in the bathroom, as it will be hanging on the wall from its tail gear.  I went ahead and filled both gaps with a good bit of putty, resulting in this:

I am getting to the point now that I need to start addressing seams and finishing external construction so that I can prep for painting.  I am beginning to work on the seam that is running along the length of the fuselage while working on the underside gondola - masking and installing windows.  In the next few days I plan to finish all the seam work and start the time-consuming process of masking the main windows, of which there are a lot in this aircraft.

And now I am starting to focus on the bombs, getting those prepped for final construction - installing the braces found along the fins - and then painting, decaling and weathering.

knox

   I am really enjoying your wip on this plane, and I love the picture which shows how big the plane is.  It is a monster!  Thanks for posting and I hope you find your dream job soon.      gk  

 

Thanks Knox.  I am actually surprised at how large this is.  I built a 48th scale one-eleven many years ago and while that is a pretty large kit, this 32nd scale kit dwarfs it as if it is a 72nd scale build.  As for the job, I hope to land something in the next couple of weeks with an interview scheduled for this week.

   I am really enjoying your wip on this plane, and I love the picture which shows how big the plane is.  It is a monster!  Thanks for posting and I hope you find your dream job soon.      gk  

She is beginning to look like a Heinkel - a menacing German medium bomber.  I told my wife last night that there are probably quite a few people who would have familiarity with this old warbird if they have seen obvious movies like Battle of Britain or Patton, but also with unsuspecting movies like Pearl Harbor or even The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I'm sure this aircraft has been featured in other movies but those are the four that I can think of off the top of my head.

So today I put together all the flying surfaces - the wings, control surfaces, flaps, rudder and horizontal stabilizers.  This beast is sucking down Tamiya liquid cement like a sailor on leave.  I am impressed that most of the pieces have gone together with little hint of seams.  I did find a need for filler along the engine nacelles and the wing roots, but now that I have assembled the outer wing surfaces, I have found a major complaint with this kit.

The outer wings have very small tabs to help align, and quite a bit of surface area, but even with that, there is a chasm along the underside where the outer wing connects to the inner wing.  The dihedral eliminates most of a gap along the upper surface.  Perhaps it is more me than the kit but in looking at the pieces I don't see where there is any additional plastic on the lower wing pieces that could have eliminated the gap. Oh well, I have plenty of filler currently available for use to fix that problem.

So here are a few pictures, including one where I am holding the beast with an extension rule to demonstrate how big this thing is.

I would chime in with a lame April Fool's joke, but nah, I'll let that one go.  

It was a good day for modeling.  Pleasant weather here in SE Texas, so I spent the vast majority of my day at the bench.  I feel like I knocked out a lot of this build but in truth there is still a long way to go.

I started by completing the engine nacelles and underside radiators.

Next came both the wheel bays.  I started by sludging a Flory wash and cleaning up most of it.  Then I put these parts together.  These bays comprised 5 major pieces, not counting the small cylinders in the bays themselves.  They were a bit fiddly, much like the nacelles, but with a little patience and some tape, I was able to get them together.

I then turned my attention to the bomb-bay.  These are cages where the bombs are hoisted nose upward into.  There is a hook at the nose of the bomb where, presumably, there is a catch inside the cage to hold the bomb from.  That detail is not represented in the kit.  The parts are fiddly as well, with not a whole lot in the way of solid attachment points for the inner partitioning walls, but like everything else in this kit, just a little patience goes a long way.  Once everything was constructed I had to do some touch-up painting on the RLM 02 followed by some soot smudges from Tamiya weathering pastels.

Next up was to attach the engine nacelles to the wing.  This kit features a lower wing section with the base of the nacelles and wheel wells.  The outer wing sections are separate parts.  To attach the nacelles, there was only a handful of small locating tabs. There were side-wall pieces that were a bear to fit into place, but once I determined how they were designed to fit, I was able to get them all into place looking reasonably accurate.  I spent a lot of time online looking at other build photos of this part to verify I was approaching it correctly.  

This is also where I ran into a head-scratching problem with a couple of kit parts.  During some of my research of online build reviews, I noted more than once that people had trouble installing what could be firewalls into the nacelles (I say could be because it looks more like a simple bulkhead, not a firewall but is located where I would expect a firewall to exist).  The build reviews indicated that if you followed Revell's directions, you would encounter issues fitting the nacelles correctly.  I never could recreate that problem, but I ran into one of my own.  These parts did not seem to fit anywhere near where they were supposed to go.  It looked as if they were to snuggle into a narrow slot between the flat horizontal plate at the rear of the nacelle and the bottom of the radiator.  They also did not appear to be parts that would ever be visible.  So when I was unable to determine exactly how these parts were to be installed, I simply decided to not install them.

This also leads me to my only true gripe about this kit (everything else is more builder related).  The instructions.  I have noted more than one instance where the instructions indicate part numbers that do not exist.  Or there are part numbers that are reversed from how they should actually be installed.  Or they indicate that there will be a locator tab or something where there is not one.  On a kit with this many parts the instructions should be of better quality.

Anyway, so here is my work on the nacelles.

Here are the wheel bays installed.

Here are the bomb-bay cages installed.

I had to build a bomb with the fins installed to verify that I could get the bombs into the cages after installing the cages.  They are a tight fit but they do get into the cages through the bomb-bay slots.  I really wasn't ready to fire up the airbrush today to paint all those bombs plus decal and weather them when I had a goal of getting the wing section attached to the fuselage today.

Wing attached and taped/clipped to dry.

Gotta check the dyhedral.  It looks correct based on all the photos I have looked at.

While I don't relish being out of work, I do like that I have more time to spend at the bench and actually appear able to knock out this beast in a pretty quick time (which of late would be considered NOT par for the course for me).

Beautifuly done interior !  I looked at it for the third time already...amazing.

I'm sold on that

It was actually just dunklegrau - dark gray

Nice mix for that tire black!

I think I have found the weak spot of this kit. The engine nacelles. There are no engines included, but the pieces that make up the nacelles have little in the way of sturdy connection points - just a thin rail of plastic to align the adjoining piece to. I did manage to get them together after much dry-fitting.

Now I am looking at how they will attach to the wings, and this is where it is getting especially tricky. There is a connection plate that will form the entrance roof of the big radiator found beneath the nacelle directly in front of the gear bay. Again, there is not much of a connection point. With the way all this aligns, there are big gaps along either side that are to filled with panels that adhere to the curvature of the wing's leading edge and form the rear underside of the nacelles. From dry-fitting this looks like it is going to be a real patience tester! But I was just able to get one part placed so hopefully this will be much ado about nothing.

Aggieman

 

 

silentbob33

This is looking really nice! I've seen a few of these kits around and have been thinking about picking one up. About how big is the wingspan?

 

 

 

 

Looks like it will be right about 28". It is very close in size to the Monogram B-17 in 1/48

 

That's a bit smaller than I was thinking for 1/32, but I'm glad to hear it since I should be able to fit it on a shelf.  Now to convince my wife I need this kit...

silentbob33

This is looking really nice! I've seen a few of these kits around and have been thinking about picking one up. About how big is the wingspan?

 

Looks like it will be right about 28". It is very close in size to the Monogram B-17 in 1/48

Today I have managed to complete quite a bit on the big one-eleven.  I started by masking all the individual windows scattered throughout the fuselage, a left-over from this bomber's origin as a civilian airliner.  This was a pretty time-consumming task, and I have not even gotten to the windows found in the underside gondola nor any of the forward greenhouse or other windows.  Geesh.  Yes, I should have just gotten the Montex mask set but hobby expenses are difficult to justify to the wife at the moment.  To maintain my sanity, I used a Sharpie to number each masked window in case I managed to mix any of them up before installation.

There are a number of details to install in the fuselage that will be largely unseen - a lot of ammo cartridges and other stuff.  I painted everything as if all that detail will be fully visible and installed to their designated locations.

Then I completed the tail wheel, which must be installed prior to closing up the fuselage. The gear was a bit fiddly even in 32nd scale, and proved to be somewhat difficult to align properly when I was closing up the fuselage halves.  But I knocked that out after a few minutes of dry-fitting and then fiddling with a long set of tweezers to force the alignment.

Then came the fuselage halves.  There is a lot of real estate here.  I am using Tamiya liquid cement, so capillary action was my best friend during this stage.  I had a couple of difficult moments when one of the interior bulkheads decided it did not want to align properly into the molded-in groove on the adjacent fuselage half.  That caused me a bit of consternation until I was able to see what was going on.

Any way, here are some photos of my progress.

Next up will be the bomb bay.  I have some sink marks to address followed by a coat of RLM 02 and weathering. 

Nice work so far on the office. I really like your detail painting. Well done.

crown r n7

So far so good .you going to paint it in standard 70/71/65 ?

 

Indeed I am.

So far so good .you going to paint it in standard 70/71/65 ?

WOW the office looks terrific !

On the seat belts, you can make your own with bits of aluminum foils. They look pretty good all painted up and you can scrape the paint off to simulate the buckles.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.

i would love to get those masks, as well as a set of seat belts but given my current employment status, that kind of purchase is simply not in the budget. The pilot's seat belt is pitiful at best, and there is nothing provided for the bombardier's seat. It does look pretty barren in that regard.

You're doing a excellent job on this build.  You have a great eye for detail.

Toshi

Off to a great start,the office looks really good!

AM - 

It's looking great, and some real nice detailing going on there.