Heinkel He-178

[Roktman]

If you been looking in the Figures forums, you been seeing that I've been doing a lot of busts and figures lately. Needing a change from my Figures, I decided to pull the Special Hobby He-178 out of the stash. I first saw this in the New Kits section of SAMI magazine. It's not exactly my "genre" of X-planes and jets. But being it's "A first" I figured it's worth a spot on the shelf.

The kit is one sprue, with a clear styrene "glass" , an instrumentation film, and a piece of PE. Nice -

 

 

I started the build with the cockpit and thats when I realized this wasn't going to be a simple build. The cockpit has to include a seat, the stick and the foot pedal mount. The foot pedals are formed with PE, but there are no indications on the part thats the floor of the cockpit. Oh boy...
So I just had to guesstimate. Then getting it in the cockpit I had to keep cutting the floor down so the seat and the stick would show in the opening of the plane. Ugh. I'm not used to, and don't like hacking up models like this.

Finally I got the two fuselage halves together with a lot of glue and tape -

 

 

I needed to leave this for a while to thoroughly dry. So I went on to do the wings, which is in 3 parts. The wings "sorta" fit and again with lots of Tamiya Thin glue and some sanding afterward it went together. I moved to the landing gear which has PE folded around them. After getting the parts fold and glue to the styrene parts, I was ready for a break.

How can a kit have excellent PE parts, and the film for the instruments be so devoid if marking for where part should go? Check back for another chapter.

[Mark Deliduka]

Looking good so far. I know how you feel with all the difficulties. I've built numerous models with the same issues. Still, it looks like you are conquering them all. Keep plugging Kevin!

[ghodges]

Welcome to the world of "limited run-low pressure injection" kits! They're made using cheaper copper molds which won't stand up to as long a production run as regular molds do and have looser tolerances. This means that the engineering and fit suffers, but you get a kit that probably would never have been injection molded otherwise. They use resin and pe detail parts because those are easier and cheaper than trying to produce those parts in injection. Low pressure is good for big parts, but not for "finesse" parts!

 

These kits are not meant for the main-stream model builder (generally), but are targeted at the experienced builder, and the builder who has built vacs and resin kits. You might note that your tail planes have no locating pins; giving you a simple "butt joint". Be prepared to mark and drill some holes for some sort of wire support pins to strengthen those joints.

 

It sounds like you've already started adapting and overcoming; so you're well on your way to banging this one out. You'll have a very significant aircraft in your collection for your trouble.

 

GIL

[mustang1989]

Nice choice Kevin. Gotta love those early Luftwaffe jets. No seats or control stick though?? They could have at the very least threw a seat in it! :o Watching.............

Edited August 31, 2016 by mustang1989

[Roktman]

Nice choice Kevin. Gotta love those early Luftwaffe jets. No seats or control stick though?? They could have at the very least threw a seat in it! :o Watching.............

 

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It's not a bad kit, but as you said, Gil, it reminds me of an older Anigrand or Unicraft resin kit where you know the seat goes in there... "somewhere."

The other thing that was annoying is when I test fitted the fuselage parts together, the panel lines were off from each other by about 3mm or so. Grrr I still debating as to get rid of them and have none, or scribe new ones.

 

 

Joseph, it does come with all those things - seat, stick pedals even PE for the footrest but not one indication of exactly where. I think I ended up a spot where the seat was glued onto the floor, stuck, the stick right in front and then the foot edals in front of that and then sliding the floor forwards and back until I thought I had the seat in the right spot. The pedals are completely invisible. They did look nice tho. Hehe

 

This time around the tail planes and the wings went on. They had to be puttied on one side and then primed. I also got around to priming the canopy, but forgot to take a shot of it. Oh well.

Next time we mask off for the metal bits and then a coat of RLM 4 and we're done. ..

 

[ghodges]

Heck, you got this licked! Looking forward to the end result!

 

GIL

[Roktman]

Thanks Gil, I'm coming down to the end. :P

The first thing done this session was to mask off the areas to be metal and apply the metallic colors. The instructions call for 2 different metallics. They recommend a "polished" metal and a "natural" metal. They had "H" designations to the colors. Since I use Vallejo, I chose White Aluminum and Steel. To my eye, the colors still looked too close, so I will add a thinned layer of Smoke to the natural metal color.

 

Pulling off the masking tape, I looked up the conversion for RLM 2 (I think I said it was 4 earlier, sorry) and it turns out to be V's Green Gray.

 

 

After that I once again turn to my Metallics set and brushed on some burnt metal to the exhaust nozzle.

 

 

While this model has it's problems and will definitely be a "2 footer"*, it's not looking too bad.

 

 

Feeling ambitions, I took some of my 1.5mm tape and created seat belts. I did this because test fitting the canopy, you could see right in and it looked a little bland. The 1.5 is still too wide, but it will do for now.

 

 

I didn't take a pic of it yet, but also during this session I added the canopy. I didn't fit correctly, but I just creatively painted it to make it blend in. Next time I should have it glossed and weathered a little bit since it never saw action. Then put the struts and wheels on and then I'm calling it done. In looking for markings that weren't included, I found none.

 

But I did find the biggest error in the kit in that they basically have the fuselage with the landing gear up and retracted and then have you just glue the landing gear to the outside of the aircraft. If I ever do this again (prolly not) I'd cut out the landing gear cover and box out the wheel wells ...

 

Thanks for looking.


* A "2 footer" is a model that will look OK from 2 foot away, don't look closely. ;)

[Roktman]

... And then disaster struck!
When we last left off I was ready to gloss the plane to put some weathering along the panel lines. I took some of the Vallejo gloss clear, put it in the airbrush and sprayed. I came out in a pebbly like pattern. I sprayed more thinking the dots of gloss would merge and form one uniform coat. Didn't happen. But my big mistake was thinking "Well, there's gloss on it, I'll move ahead with the weathering."
I put some of Citadel's Nuln Oil on it and it acted as if you put a wash on any Flat paint. It was terrible. And not only that, since it was supposed to be gloss, I just sprayed over the canopy. Arrrgh! The canopy now looks frosted!
Luckily I was able to take a Q-tip and some water and get most of it off. Cant be said for the rest of it. In some spots a scrubbed so hard I revealed the primer. I lightly sanded the pebbly coating off, and now it was time for a complete repaint.
When repainting, I used V's Metallics Steel, instead of V's Model Color Steel. You would think it would be the same color, but no. The Metallics is a lot darker. Which in this case is good as it separates the two metallic colors.
Do I care about color accuracy? Not at this point. I just want it done. So here it is - Taa Daa ;)

 

[ghodges]

Looks good, especially with the trials and tribulations it gave you. Congrats!

 

GIL

[WildBill50]

It always seems like the semi quick, little builds give off the most problems. Why...because they can!

 

Nice save on that build, 2 footer or not.

 

Bill

[Mark Deliduka]

I like it. You did quite well beating this into submission. Impressive work Kevin!

[ewahl]

Hi, Kevin,

 

I hear you about the disaster with clear gloss. I just had the same experience with Testors high gloss clear enamel on a car body. I had a custom two-tone paint job and all trim and badges in Bare Metal Foil polished and ready for its final clear coat. While I've had success with this product before, not today! I had the same clear pebble surface that did not blend with more clear paint added on top. There is only one remedy for me: strip the paint and start over. Being 3 hours from finishing the model now looks like 30 hours. Bummer!

 

Nice recovery on yours.

 

Ed

[Roktman]

Thanks guys.

All in all it wasn't a terrible experience. But I will do a little extra studing the kit rather than just dive into a kit with 'just a couple of parts.'

 

Absolutely WildBill, it certainly had me entertaining pulling some hair out. But I need all I have left. Haha ;)

 

Ed, I gotta hand it to you. if I saw the pebbly coat over all the work you did I think I would have had a fit and thrown it across the room. I hope you make a good come back!