Arado Ar-234 P5 Swept Winged Turbo-Prop Nightfighter - Completed

[Gondor]

That is really looking fantastic 

Gondor

[zenrat]

It's a gorgeous pig ugly beast and you're making a beautifull job of bringing it all together.
Can't wait to see it painted.

[loupgarou]

Terrifying! 

[trickyrich]

Just a quick update today as I didn't do much to this, mainly worked on the new Gunhed project, fixed the G5 MAC, and sorted and cleared out old electronic junk!

Spent quite a bit of time on the wings sorting or first the correct positions of the engine pods plus adding some panel detail to them as they had next to none. The engines pods are now aligned correctly with a very slight pitch up attitude, very much like the drawings. I would have attached them but I still need to see if I can make a cast of them. Didn't get time to go to the shop and get all the gear I need for that!



The new nose section has the perfect place for adding extra weight, this should stop it from sitting on its tail!



In the excitement of gluing the fuselage together I forgot a problem with the Hasegawa model. The fuselage when glued together is narrower than the nose section and the bulkhead that is glued to the front of the fuselage section (this is a problem of all the versions of the Hasegawa Ar-234, as they all share a common fuselage). So if you glue the bulkhead in first to one side then try to joint the other side you end you with a nasty gap on the top and bottom joins. If you trim the bulkhead to fit (did this on the first one I built), then you find the nose section is too wide to fit the main fuselage. To sort it all out you need to fit the bulkhead, glue the fuselage together, best you can, then use plastic strip to fill the gaps. However the C2 version which I'm using has an additional issue. The new C2 nose has a flush back to it and needs to butt up cleanly to the fuselage, however the old B2 nose has a recessed back which the bulkhead on the main fuselage front fits into. A all version share the same main fuselage, when you try to fit the new nose section on you are left with another nasty gap. Solution, fit the bulkhead on the inside of the location bead, then everything is good!



Confused, well it annoyed the crap out of me when I found it, hate having to cut nice joins up. As can just see under the fuller the sprue filler strip, there's another on the top. The can be seen to sit further back, I've add an additional thin card bulkhead to help secure the nose the to fuselage.

This project will now start to gather dust bunnies as work commences of the Tropic Moon beasty.

[KiwiZac]

As much as I'm looking forward to the Tropic Moon B-51, I'm really sad to see this put to one side. I hope you get back into it soon as you've done some great work.

[trickyrich]

Ok not my usual update as this build has been on hold while I contemplated whether I could cast a copy of the nose.

Well I have so a few people will be very happy!

I have never done this before so everything was a bit of a first for me. The results, well you can see them, though not to clearly as the resin is white.



Those arn't bubbles on this grey nose, just dust bunny crap!





This is just a one sided cast and a test to see if it was possible. It took me about 10 minutes to grind out the inside with only one slip! There are bubbles in the cast but they were in the silicon itself, the resin is nice and bubble free.

I intend to do either another cast or try and do a new mould hopefully with fewer bubbles in the silicon this time. Ultimately I will try and do a two part mould of the nose.

Plus I may do a cast of the engines as well, seeing the origins were so bad and nobody else does them!

Normal build service will resume shortly......hopefully!

[NARSES2]

Nice bit of casting  :thumbsup:s

I found I had a set of those engines whilst looking for something else yesterday. Got a couple of 262's as well

[trickyrich]

Well after another day of casting I've finished what I had planned to do and normal building resumed!

The new elevators have been cleaned up and look pretty good, just need a coat of undercoat to checkout the finish.



The bomb-bay cutout has been filled with card, the gun pod needs a flat surface so it was either this or use the supplied resin plug..........this way was simpler.



The cockpit has now finally been fitted, that little bit of work sorting out the fuselage was worth it, it fits really nicely. I can now focus on completing the internals before the canopy goes on.



Speaking of which, it too fits really nicely, it won't take much to have some nice clean joins here.



Sorry about the photo, but after the 4th attempt I gave up so this is it! I needed to do a thin strip of plastic along the RHS wing root to level it up. Plus you can see the plugs fore and aft to help locate the wings correctly. When fitted just a thin strip will be need at the back plus some thin strip underneath to fill some gaps in the wing/fuselage join. Cleaning this area up again should be nice and simple.



Plus finally I was able to fit the engines...though I did forget to do panel lines on them! The final alignment and fitting took sometime to make sure everything was square. Even still it does look out, though it is exactly square, will blame the camera for that!



And how does it all look now.....fantastic! All the major work is completed, I just need to clean up the joins on the engines to wing, they'll be nice and simple, along with the wings. Then complete the model as normal, even the drop tanks fit correctly.






Oh and the results of my casting, am very happy with them. Now have all the bits to build another one!!

[NARSES2]

It's not only the quality of build it's the speed of working that make me 

[trickyrich]

It's not only the quality of build it's the speed of working that make me 

this is what you get when you stop working those horribly long shifts with next to no time off! 

have done more work in this one while I wait for the new cockpit for the Tropic Moon build to arrive!! (actually think the it's gotten lost in the post so have had to order another one...expensive and frustrating!)

I wasn't quite happy with the way the fairings for the engine to wing look so decided to change them. I have continued the shape of the original bulge on the engine to the wing, this gives me an smoother and better looking fairing. This was made with some plastic strip and filler, simple and quick.




Have just about finished the cockpit and RO's station finally! After the final painting I just need to find a gunsight, then everything can be closed up.

All the resin bit have been given a undercoat of neutral grey to help show up the flaws and scribing stuff-ups, there is a bit of work to do but nothing some 600 or 800 grit and Mr Surface 500 can't fix!




She now looks much more together now she is basically a single colour. Plus this is a hint of her final colour scheme!

[dumaniac]

looking really great - well done

[Captain Canada]

Oh wow....this is my new favourite thread ! Excellent work, all of it. Love the wing shape and the details you have added, and don't even get me started on the casting ! Love this one. Can't wait to re-read the whole thread.

[Old Wombat]

I'll be brutally honest - the plane looks cool but it doesn't interest me that much.


The build process, on the other hand, is absolutely facinating!

[trickyrich]

Well back to this build after a bit of a break, though I had been doing little bits and pieces to it every now and again.

The wing was fitted without too much drama at all. Some careful measuring was needed to make sure everything was nice and square. There were only some minor gaps on the underside of the wing where it met the fuselage. These were easily fixed with some plastic strip and filler. Sorry I forgot to take photos of this.

First main bit is the props. I cut my new props off their original spinners then drilled a 0.4mm hole in them so I could fit a wire pin.



I did the same to the spinners, though I did manage to snap the tip of the drill inside one of the shafts!!!  Next I fitted steel pins to the props and test fitted to the spinners, then to the engines. The props just touched the fuselage so some alterations were required.

The stubs on the spinner were removed and very slightly drilled out, this was just enough for the props to sit nicely.



They actually look quite good, a million times better than the originals!



 
Next the cockpits, seat belts were fitted along with all the final bits and pieces, plus a final touch-up with paint. The cockpit windscreen was made from a piece of thick plastic I had and its thickness makes it look quite realistic, and as a bonus it fitted!




With this final task done the cockpit were closed up.

With all this done a quick coat of paint to see how much work I have! The canopy needs some work, for some reason it's wider than the lower section and they're the original parts! As mentioned previously there are some issues with the Hasegawa kit and its fit. There are a few little spots that need a dab of filler, but on the whole it's not too bad.








I am half tempted to leave the spinners/intakes in their natural aluminium as they look quite good, but of cause the metal paint sure shows up any flaws!!

I think I have finally decided on a colour scheme. I have decided to make her an all-weather, day/night fighter, so she'll be the usual RLM 75/76 nightfighter colour scheme, but rather in an all-weather scheme fairly similar to some of the late war Fw-190's or Me-262's.

[NARSES2]

Seriously this gets better and better, if that's possible