SPA Modeler

A while back Bruce asked me “If I sent you a kit, would you build it?” And I said “Sure!” Next thing I know, this beautiful kit arrived in the mail:



Kurt Tank’s masterpiece of aviation engineering.

I have been wanting to build it for months, but I neglected to add it to my round-robin of projects because frankly, I didn’t think I was ready to tackle it. The work on my 1:48 Zero boosted my confidence, and the work I’ve been doing on my 1:32 Zero has solidified in my mind that I can indeed accomplish an array of different visions for aircraft.

And since Bruce introduced me to Tank’s Ta 152, I have had a very specific vision in-mind. This:



Obersleutnant Fritz Aufhammer’s aircraft.

I like monochromatic (or almost monochromatic, like my A6M2) paint jobs, and this... this is so unusual. And I think it will be a great project to do as the next step in the evolution of the personal style I’m trying to develop.

This kit is, frankly, ridiculous. and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean it was ahead of its time, amazing, and mind blowing all at the same time. The molding is fantastic. It comes with photo-etch parts as well as soft metal parts for things like the exhausts. The surface detail is subtle and quite nice. I’m quite impressed by it and enamored by it, honestly.

Sprue shots forthcoming. I’d like to shoot for finishing this one this year, concurrently with my 1:32 Zero.

Freaking yes!!!

This is going to be a good build!

Floki wrote:This is going to be a good build!

I might add that Bruce is quite the Santa...

I'll definitely be watching this.

Those Trimaster/DML kits are a little fiddly but with patience can be built into beautiful kits.

Oh man... this one is going to be epic! Part of me wants to see your take on the Late War 76/82/83 scheme but I'm pretty sure you're going to impart that mono orange scheme with lots of depth so it'll be groovy either way. The 1/32 Ta152H-0 (backdated from the Z-M H-1 kit) is on my radar as a future build but I can't really think about it until I get the F4U and 109K-4 builds back on track. Kudos to Bruce for flinging out the kits like some sort of Plastic Pied Piper!

Thank you guys for the encouragement and the thoughtful words, mucho appreciated, amigos! I’m still getting sprue shots together along with a game plan for each step, and I’ll be sharing that here before too long. Probably in another day or two. I’ve been looking over the various parts and studying the instructions. This kit is rad, the panels around the engine can be built to open and close, so you can show off the engine if you want to. I love that stuff. Only thing is- you have to cut the panels out of the fuselage! Whoooo boy, never done that before. So I’ll be sacrificing mules a lot here before too long. I’ve already decided that the major surgery and installation of the hinges will be one of the preliminary things I tackle with this project. More to come soon.

I have been working on the Ta152’s Jumo. But before we get into that, I’ll show you a sprue shot here:





The plastic is sturdy and the surface detail is very nice. Good panel lines. And note the dime down there, I put it there with the IP for a size comparison. To-date this will be the smallest IP I’ve done. It’s a little intimidating but I think it’ll be okay. The other cockpit parts are small too (obviously) but the detail is about as crisp I believe as you’d get it for the time during which this kit was manufactured.

I mocked-up the fuselage, expecting for issues here and there, but I actually didn’t find any at all! Both sides meet up beautifully. I had to clean up a little bit of flash along with nubs from the sprue gate but no big deal at all.





As to the Jumo, I’ve got it about half-way assembled:


I had trouble getting the plate that goes onto the bottom seated properly. The only place a positive fit was available was on the rear. What I ended up doing was cutting a piece of sprue, sanding both ends flat, and gluing it toward the front, with a shim glued on top. That gave me a little platform for to allow the plate to rest on. That worked pretty good!

I’m building out the Jumo before painting it up, because I’m anticipating fiddly for work when it comes time to attach it to the aircraft via the mounts. Those mounting pieces are made of metal. I anticipate having to perform surgery on the parts here and there in order to get them all fitting well, so I’m the interests of all the handling and dry-fitting and whatnot, I’m opting to build it first, test, fine-tune, etc. and then paint and detail it up. As you know, I dislike fiddling with parts which have already been painted and detailed -a sentiment further reenforced after super-detailing and mounting the Sakae 12 in my 1:32 Zeke).

So that’s where I’m at, at present! The next few days will see the completion of the engine, and the test fitting.

Thanks for looking!