Bomber HE-343 1/48

[sharunas]

Hello fellow modelers,

Started a short-term project. For such reasons:

1. To add some variety in my modeling activity as Canberra’s project is rather demanding, long-term and far from phase when it will be started in paper form.
2. To practice a little more with texturing.
3. To test newly brought scroll-saw machine (wohoo!!! )

• First of all the He-343 is an aircraft that existed only as a pre-protoype drawings. It is somehow rather fictional, that is why I don’t have to stick to any particular details. The model is an interpretation of my own how HE-343 might have been look like. Scale 1/48



• Textures
I’ve always admire work of people who a very good ion texturing. Professionally accomplished textures might give as good improvement to a simple model as a multiplication of parts or shapes.
After testing various software I’ve choose “Inkscape”. A bit buggy but fast to work and have some nice tools. BTW decided not to enter “raster area” ant stay in vector environment. I know, I won’t achieve any good results only in vector editors but my enthusiasm vanished as texture editing is as much demanding work as 3D modeling itself...

Here’s my humble achievement:

Duplicated rivet line, one line made dotted and for another used blur tool to create something similar into shadow or sludge area around rivets.

• And finally the craft scroll-saw.

Brought a tool that I’ve always dreamed about. I won’t bother to tell what a frustrating work is to cut dozens of formers out of 2mm card paper… Moreover when designing Canberra I realized how many former pats it will have so without many hesitations took Dremel saw (plus it had a discount ).

Here’s first result

About 30 parts from 1.5mm card-paper in ~ 1 hour.
The saw cuts without scratching edges with some conditions:
The thickness of residual paper along the edge must be at least 4-5mm. Although I managed to cut out wing frame which is about 7-4mm in thickness, but the end of parts were a bit damaged. Smaller and more precise cuts still must be accomplished with knife.
But again, for larger parts (especially for ship building) scroll-saw is an ideal tool.

[Ponytail]

Hello Sharunas,

Can you convert the formers into a .dwg or .dxf (Autocad) file?
Some builders can get to lasercutters and these can easily cut them from 2mm board.
Maybe you can send that to them on request.

Greetings
PT

[Isaac]

Always nice to see a new Luft 46 project plane.


Good luck!


Consider an enlarging to 1/33 scale as well when done.


Isaac

[nighthawk78]

Looking good, the formers look as though they are going to create a strong fuselage.
NH78

[sharunas]

Originally Posted by Ponytail

Hello Sharunas,

Can you convert the formers into a .dwg or .dxf (Autocad) file?
Some builders can get to lasercutters and these can easily cut them from 2mm board.
Maybe you can send that to them on request.

Greetings
PT

Actually no problems on that (converting).
However I've never considered (or knew) about such service
Still as I usually do my own projects for me it is better to have a situation when I can any time to create or re-create parts during test building.
I believe LC service is good for original paper model kits (Halinski and others) when you are sure that all formers are correct and definitely would fit each other.

Thank you for your interest PT

Originally Posted by Isaac

Always nice to see a new Luft 46 project plane.


Good luck!


Consider an enlarging to 1/33 scale as well when done.


Isaac

Thanks Isaac,

believe me or no,t I've spent whole day browsing Luft'46 website while choosing an aircraft
actually with this project I wanted to achieve something similar like Murphy does - fast to build, small and neat model. However 1/48 also might be a bit to large, but still...
1/33 demands far more deeper approach: cockpit, ailerons, flaps, maybe bomb compartment. I don't think this model worth to be re-scaled into 1/33.

Originally Posted by nighthawk78

Looking good, the formers look as though they are going to create a strong fuselage.
NH78

Thank you nighthawk78
must say a bit overdone with wing to fuselage connection area. Too many parts, should done something less complicated.

[eric_son]

Awesome design!

How did you factor in the thickness of the card/paper that will wrap around the fuselage and the wing formers?

RE: dremel craft scroll saw
Droooooool... beautiful tool!

[chicharrero]

The He-343 appears to be the Ar-234 big brother...

[sharunas]

Originally Posted by eric_son

Awesome design!

How did you factor in the thickness of the card/paper that will wrap around the fuselage and the wing formers?

RE: dremel craft scroll saw
Droooooool... beautiful tool!

Thanks

I usually make 0.3 mm offset on a formers via perimeter. Then during build apply sand paper to even former edges. Such method usually works, if no - apply more sand paper ...

Originally Posted by chicharrero

The He-343 appears to be the Ar-234 big brother...

I guess so too, as HE-343 had to be next generation bomber just like Ar-234. Probably it was used the same conception on both planes.

-*-*-*-

Some progress. The parts are almost ready to be unrolled.


Now dilemma what color scheme to use.
Tend to paint in traditional dark green colors:

or make something more modern and unusual as such:

[elliott]

I vote for something more modern and unusual. Since this is a Luft 46 plane,who knows what the paint scheme would have been?

[chicharrero]

I second Elliott.