Reich Defenders V: Hunters of the Dark

Agreed and specially such a grand old aircraft, and one that is way under represented in the modeling community.  I know that alot of the "uhu" kits are kind of expensive, and are not as common as some kits, but to me thats what makes them such a treat to see. I bought a RMX 1/32 He 219 on sale one time and it was still a pretty penny.

Doug

It's always great to see a model reach this stage, Nob! Nice work, and you just know she's about to "come alive" when the paint hits her!

M/TB379

Not a huge update, but the major assembly is done, now I just have to mask and prime it.  After that preshading...

Looking forward to more pics!!

Thanks simpilot. I think I'm going to be doing it with flaps up.  The pictures show it that way and like you said, makes sense from the safety standpoint. Plus, with the flaps up it will be easier to paint the camo on the upper surface 

Hey Bob looked in my Luftwaffe Camo and Markings Vol II and the only pic of an owl is with flaps up and it looks to be in a hangar. I think with most any aircraft, unless maintenance was being done on the flaps or their mechanisms themselves, they remained up for ground safety reasons.

Yeah, not a whole lot of them made it into action.  A lot of the pictures I've seen are of bombed out birds.  Too bad they haven't attached the wings on the one at the Smithsonian's hanger yet...

Hey Bob... I haven't forgot about you. alas... its kind of like you said, Not a lot of pictures on this birdie, as beautiful as it was ... If I'm not mistaken, I believe I read there were less then 200 actually deployed? Not good odds for pictures.

Thanks!  When I saw how bare the kit parts were, I knew I had to add something.  Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of pictures of the bays so I had to wing it.  The kit also give me the option to pose the flaps up or down, and most of the pictures I've been able to find show them up when the plane is landed.  However most of the modelers that have built this kit (that I've seen online) built it with the flaps down.  Decisions decisions...

Bob she's looking good mate! I think the gear bays look just fine. There's enough there to make it look right.

Real life managed to get in the way of bench time, but I've been able to snag a few minutes here and there.  I finished the main landing gear bays and assembled the main components of the wings.  I thought the landing gear bays were a little sparse...

So I added a bit of detail to them based on a picture of the ZM 1/32 kit.  I didn't add as much as I could have, but I don't have a whole lot of experience with scratchbuilding.  I think it looks busy enough anyways.

And the completed wings...

After spending the better part of a week trying to get the decal seatbelts to look right, I gave up.  Luckily, I saw a deal for PE seatbelt sets on Ebay so I picked a few up.  And they look much better.

Fuselage is closed up and ready to move on to the next bit

Thanks Moose, I found that site earlier in my research but forgot about it. I'll give it a good read tomorrow.

Hey Silent,

I found this for you.  Hope it helps.

www.asisbiz.com/.../Heinkel-He-219.html

moose

I appreciate you looking into that for me Doug.  I've been trying to find information on the internet, but I haven't really seen anything that helps.  I'm still going back and forth on the scheme, but my wife is pushing me to do the black bottomed one on the box, so we'll see...

Not sure if I have any info on NJG1 but I'll look to see when I get a spare moment. I have a fairly good book entitled Night Fighter units of the Luftwaffe... Might be something in there. Yeah they are confusing, and even the Do17Z I did here was I believe a Njg unit in Finland 1940, she still wore the London Blitz emblem. But yes, still plenty of time, I was just wondering...Take care...

Doug

Thanks guys!

Thunderbolt - I was pretty surprised by the instrument panel decals myself.  I don't usually like decals for instrument panels, but I decided to use the ones in the kit as there was no detail molded onto the part.  I'd also heard horror stories about Tamiya decals, but these settled down nicely with Micro Set and Micro Sol.

Doug - I haven't made up my mind on markings yet.  I'm going to go with 1 of the 2 markings for NJG1 in 1945.  I really like the look of the black-bottomed bird on the box art, but trying to get the right look for the black and weathering the black paint kind of intimidates me.  The other option I'm considering has a RLM 76 bottom and the same pattern of RLM 75 on top, but the markings look a little dull.  I still have a bit of time before I have to commit though.  Something else that I find a little confusing is the decal sheet includes the emblem for NJG1, but the instructions don't show where they would go.

Great aircraft to build Bob! Love the He219! Your doing a great job , Any idea of the paint scheme and markings yet? Regardless, looking good!

Doug

Yes indeed, an excellent start. The instrument decals are especially convincing! I look forward to this one coming together, I have it in my stash and am saving it for some future time to enjoy at length!

Cheers, M/TB379

Thanks guys!

Very nice start Silent!!! Looking good!!

Great start Silentbob.  Keep it up.

Well, I've finally gotten around to starting my Uhu!  I suppose that's what I get for signing up for a bunch of GBs at the same time.  But, better late than never I suppose.  Here's the box:

The parts all look really nice with fine detail.  Something Tamiya did that I thought was pretty clever was to make the cockpit floor/nosegear bay out of metal, which means you don't need to add any weight to the nose to keep it from being a tail sitter.  I forgot to take a picture of it before I primed it and started painting it, but here it is anyway:

I've just about finished the cockpit.  I didn't weather the cockpit too much as these planes were relatively new and well cared for.  Essentially all I did was some drybrushing and a wash.  Something I thought was strange was Tamiya didn't supply decals for any gauges other than those on the instrument panel in front of the pilot.  I raided some spares to fill in.  I still need to put the straps on the foot pedals and the seatbelts.  The kit comes with decal seatbelts, which normally I hate.  However, when I built the Accurate Miniatures SBD-5 Dauntless, I put them on the metal foil that comes on wine bottles to make them thicker and easier to pose.  I'm going to try to print my own seatbelt decals since the ones in the kit look horribly wrong.  If that doesn't work out or look right, I'll have to order some photoetched belts to put on.  Here's where I'm at:

Any comments/critiques are more than welcome.

Hey guys! hope all are well! Builds are awesome as always! posting on several GBs to try and get the juices flowing again! Trying to finish a peanut scale staggerwing I started 8 years ago and then see what happens after that. Will be about! Miss the comeraderie on these things!

Moose a most excellent looking 110 and even more amazing that its your first in so many years!

Doug thats one great looking Do17, really effective paint work. Black is so hard to get the right look but you nailed it!

Thanks Bob... what I tried to do here was to hit the higher areas with a flat black mix about 50 to 60 percent thinner to a mix of flat black and dark sea grey , then add a bit more drk grey and thin some more, to slightly lighten the individual panel centers, leaving the edges slightly darker. Then just misting a coat of that over all upper surfaces, avoiding to much on the sides.

Thanks again bud...

Doug

Looks great Doug! I really like the weathering on the upper surfaces.  It's always been difficult for me to weather black and you did a fantastic job.

I only use PB for my forum uploads, so even after eight years I'm only on 7% capacity used -- I don't think I'll ever get through the free allotment!

M/TB379

Thanks Brandon... I agree, these do look good in black, I had never done a black scheme like this before. Thanks again.

Appreciate it Mike... yeah my Photo bucket woes and there 10 gb for 30 dollars per year fee drove me to flickr where you get 1 Terabites for free! Thats about a half million photos. (Per Flickr) So far am happy with flickr...

Doug

P1 updated, I think I've licked the Photobucket code thing -- it was just a matter of a new interface. Okay, half way along and six completions down!

M/TB379

You really did that one up nice. I really like that bird in black. Great job, Doug!!!