Building Review of the Me-163B produced by STARR Miniatures/Paul Gold
First of all, a big thanks to Paul Gold for producing this kit. It's the
only one of its kind out there I believe.
The kit: The Me-163 kit is molded in resin (9 pieces), with 2 single
piece clear canopies, decals, and building instructions. Also included in
the kit is the Scheuch-schlepper (towing/lifting tractor) molded in resin
(4 pieces) and white metal (3 pieces).
Building: This was the first resin kit that I had built. The first thing
I noticed was the resin remained tacky and fingerprints quickly covered the
thing. (Paul just wrote me to say that he changed brands so this problem
should disappear.) To combat this problem, I sprayed a light coat of gray
primer over the entire kit and let it dry for several days. After that, I
started cleaning up the edges etc. etc., attached the front half of the
fuselage, the wings and vertical tail. To fill in the joints I used
Squadron Green putty mixed with Testors liquid cement. I used a fine brush
to apply it along the seams thinning it as necessary with additional liquid
cement. If you're careful with your application you can reduce the amount
of sanding significantly. After sanding all of the seams I cleaned up the
landing gear, painted the wheels and undercarriage and attached to the
fuselage. Next I detailed the interior. In retrospect I probably over did
things a bit here but it sure looks cool! To me that is! Anyway... I
built a new seat, shoulder harnesses, control stick, enhanced the side
consoles, center instrument panel complete with instrument casings sticking
out in front of the panel, gun sight, canopy handles, throttle etc. Much
too much time spent on it probably but it was fun.
Fitting the canopy: My canopies were very thin and very clear with just a
small amount of distortion at the front. The hardest part was actually
gluing it into place. I ended up making a small gig that held the plane
while I applied white glue to the fuselage then placed the canopy in place.
I used tape to hold it while it dried. You need to be careful not to let
the glue touch the tape or capillary action takes over and messes
everything up! After the white glue dried, I used the Squadron Green putty
and Testors liquid cement to fill in the cracks. Next came the antenna,
pitot tube, wind generator and wingtip skids.
Painting: I used a paint scheme out of a reference book I have. I don't
even remember the squadron but I liked the paint scheme. I used Microscale
liquid mask to cover the canopy. I also painted a strip of blank decal
with the schwartzgrunn then cut them as necessary to make the canopy bows.
Decals: I made my own. I could have used the ones that came with the kit
but I thought they were too light. After applying the decals I coated the
entire kit with dullcoat then used liquid Future on the canopy. Pretty
neat. You can easily see all of the details I added to the interior.
Scheuch-schlepper: I added railings, steering wheels, hydraulic lines etc.
and added a few things of my own. The drawings that came with the kit were
helpful which was good because my reference material was very limited.
It's one very small kit but I would recommend it to anyone. You may need
to push your eyes back into their sockets a couple of times while you're
building it but in my opinion it's worth it. I'm very pleased with the
final product.
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