International Scale Modeller

I've been wanting to join this SIG but haven't been sure with what. After looking around some shops I saw the Special Hobby Heinkel He 115 in Swedish markings and knew I wanted to build it. Problem was I couldn't find any shop here in Sweden that had it in stock, but one shop here in Stockholm had the German version. This shop is owned buy the same guy that owns Tarangus and Maestro Models, and Maestro have a set of decals to build the Swedish version. Last weekend we had a build meeting there and I was looking in the kit and talking about it and I said that I wanted to build the Swedish version. The guy working there said that if I buy the kit we could sort out the decals, now I didn't think that would mean giving me a set from his own stash for free, but it did, which I'm very thankful for. So I got the kit, plus PE zoom set and masks. One thing I have to say is that this thing is BIG! And I would like to do a small dio base for it, not sure where I could fit that but we'll see.




Kit comes with some resin bits like engines and radios.


The extra stuff


One of the floats next to a 1/48 P51D, so not small.






I would like to do something along these lines.

I saw your post on the "what the postie brought" thread & my "add to stash" moment happened Anyway i'm in...

Very nice kit, I'm building that as well but doing the German markings, the 115B version

That looks like an interesting subject. Nice choice buddy, good luck with it

This build is not the easiest as the fit of the kit is not the greatest. So until I have some proper progress to show for I thought I would post some info on the plane.


The first He 115 prototype

From Wikipedia

In 1935, the German Reich Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium or RLM) produced a requirement for a twin engined general purpose floatplane, suitable both for patrol and for anti-shipping strikes with bombs and torpedoes. Proposals were received from both Heinkel Flugzeugwerke and from Blohm & Voss' aircraft subsidiary, Hamburger Flugzeugbau, and on 1 November 1935, orders were placed with both Heinkel and Hamburger Flugzeugbau for three prototypes each of their prospective designs, the He 115 and the Ha 140.

The first prototype Heinkel flew in August 1937, with testing proving successful, with the He 115 being selected over the Ha 140 early in 1938, resulting in an order for an additional prototype and 10 pre-production aircraft. Meanwhile, the first prototype was used to set a series of international records for floatplanes over 1,000 km (621 mi) and 2,000 km (1,243 mi) closed circuits at a speed of 328 km/h (204 mph).

Armament initially consisted of two 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 15 machine guns, one in the nose and one in the dorsal position. Later He 115s were fitted with a fixed forward-firing 15 mm or 20 mm MG 151 cannon, and two rearward-firing 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine guns in the engine nacelles. Ordnance used by He 115 variants included LTF 5 or LTF 6b torpedoes and SD 500 500 kg (1,100 lb) or SC 250 250 kg (550 lb) bombs. Some also carried LMB III or LMA mines.


Ernst Heinkel with wife greeting Björn Bjuggren on delivery of aircraft no.109 to Sweden at Warnemünde on September 12st, 1939

General characteristics
Crew: 3
Length: 17.30 m (56 ft 9 in)
Wingspan: 22.28 m (73 ft 1 in)
Height: 6.60 m (21 ft 7.75 in)
Wing area: 87.5 m² (942 ft²)
Empty weight: 5,290 kg (11,670 lb)
Loaded weight: 10,400 kg (22,928 lb)
Powerplant: 2 × BMW 132K 9-cylinder radial engines, 706 kW (960 PS) each

Performance
Maximum speed: 327 km/h (203 mph)
Combat radius: 2,100 km (1,305 mi)
Service ceiling: 5,200 m (17,100 ft)
Wing loading: 103.8 kg/m² (21.3 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 139 W/kg (0.084 hp/lb)

Armament
1 × fixed 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun and 1 × flexible 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 15 machine gun in dorsal and nose positions
Five 250 kg (550 lb) bombs, or two such bombs and one torpedo of 800 kg (1,760 lb)
One 920 kg (2,030 lb) sea mine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_115

He 115 T2 in Sweden

Twelve aircraft of the variant Heinkel He 115 A-2 were ordered in the summer of 1938. The dozen Heinkels were delivered to Wing F 2 at Hägernäs near Stockholm from April to October 1939. The Swedish designation was T 2. They got the Air Force numbers 101-112. Further six aircraft were ordered, but were never delivered due to the outbreak of WWII.

On the 9th of April 1940, Germany occupied both Denmark and the most important parts of Norway in a lightning attack - operation Weserübung. In connection to this, Germany dictated a number of terms to Sweden, terms which were impossible for the Swedish government to agree with. The Germans demanded, for instance, that Sweden did not mobilize further troops. Germany demanded also Sweden to let three railway trains each of 30-40 wagons loaded with war material to be transferred trough Sweden to Narvik.

The Swedish refusal resulted in a crisis in the relationship between Sweden and Germany. As a war situation seemed possible, the T 2s left their permanent base at Hägernäs. They were relocated to Gålö, a war base in the archipelago south of Stockholm. The work to enlarge the Gålö base started immediately. Until more workshops and living quarters were built ashore, the navy ships Dristigheten and Rane was use as floating accommodation.

Other war bases were also used. The widespread archipelago provided many suitable places for operations and good camouflage of the aircraft and equipment.

The aircraft were based off F 2 at Hägernäs until the WWII was over.


Heinkel He 115. T2 no.102 in m/37 markings


Torpedo drop 1939


A few of the images of the T2 show light colored walk ways on both wings. In most photos there are none, where these markings only applied to a couple of the aircraft for war games?

More info on the Swedish use of the He 115 http://www.avrosys.nu/aircraft/Torped/192t2/192T2.htm

Finally making some progress on this. I've had some problems with the fit of the cockpit parts and bad instructions. So I've been doing a lot of test fitting and trying to find reference pictures, but finally it's all together.


Left side cockpit side is a pit too short, the floor is even shorter and the right side is a bit longer but still too short.


So I made some resin copies that I could cut a some strips from and extend the kit parts. I had to remove some of the details on the inside of the right hand fuselage to fit the extended cockpit.






Got the rest of the cockpit build, it's a mix of plastic, resin included in the kit and Maestro PE parts. I'm still thinking of adding some wires and extra details.


The fit is is really not the best, and this is the good side.


However all the glass seems to fit well, so at least that's good.

Got the cockpit done, started with painting everything in RLM 02 followed by some detail painting. Then added the PE parts, also added a couple of wires. Used a silver water color pencil to add some scratches and then finished it by adding a dark green brown oil wash.









The fuselage needed some clamping to close. The seam is far from perfect but not as bad as I feared it would be. Did a quick test fit of the wings, they have some fit issues but I hope to be able to fix them. It's not a small plane this.

Taking shape very nicely, pardon my ignorance but did you paint the detail in the dials (i.e. the white on the black) or was it PE or a decal or something?

It looks fantastic and just wondered how you go it looking that way

Thanks! The dials and the belts are pre colored PE from Maestro models, exactly the same as Eduards colored PE. I think it's probably the best and easiest upgrade to any cockpit.

JonMW wrote:Thanks! The dials and the belts are pre colored PE from Maestro models, exactly the same as Eduards colored PE. I think it's probably the best and easiest upgrade to any cockpit.

Fantastic - thanks, they are something I have been looking into as well, certainly something to seriously consider once I'm happy that my skill level is reaching a level I'm happy with

Progress has been a bit slow on this, but it has needed a lot of sanding, especially the top of the wings and the floats. So that removed almost all the panel line details from the wings that needed to be rescribed. For most of the scribing I used a Tamiya PE saw as I find it a lot easier to control then a normal scribing tool. However the top of the floats had a lot of raised details that will need to be replaced later. So after over a week of fillin, sanding and scribing I think it's close to good. Now I just need to fill and sand the wing roots and add the glass and floats before I can start painting.









Have also started to think about the base for it. As I want to make something that looks similar to the picture I posted earlier I will need some things. First off I need a 1/48 scale cow, Pegasus makes a set of farm animals that I will try to get a hold of but until then I wanted to see what I could do myself. So I found a pretty good 3D model that I scaled down and 3D printed, it's far from perfect but it's a start. Still need to fill the print lines and it would be nice if it had a better pose, I'll see what I can do about that. As the legs are a bit fragile I made a silicon mold of it so I can make a resin copy that will hopefully be a bit stronger. I also found a drawing for a small wooden row boat for use the archipelago, that has been used in Sweden since about 1450 and you can still by new ones today. So I made a 3D model of the frame parts that I printed, I plan on making the hull out of thin strips of plastic and build it up like the real thing.

This thing is moving along slowly, but it should at last be ready for paint, or at least primer. Have been doing a lot of small fixes, first up was the air intakes under the engines. There is a big seam that runs down the middle that is really hard to sand, so I cut some strips of 0.5 mm sheet to fit inside to cover it up.



Next up was the floats, there are five access panels on the top side that are raised. Now since the fit of the floats is not the greatest and needs a bit of sanding all of them are lost. So I 3D printed a couple of cutting templates to make new ones. First I cut out rectangles of 0.5 mm sheet, this was then placed in the cutting template to cut out the oval panel. That was then placed in the second template and drilled in the center. Took a bit of time but I think it came out ok. Finally all was attached to the floats as well as the kit PE, I also added a small PE bolt head in the center of the panels.





Getting the floats on straight took a bit of time, the hardest art was the left one, as the instructions has the wrong numbers for the mounts for it so it looks really bad.



If anyone is thinking of building this kit, get the mask set for it, there is a lot of glass.



The resin engines where painted in Alclad dark aluminium, then all the pushrods where made from 0.5 mm rod that where then painted black.



The machine guns and mounts where painted back and then rubbed with dark steel pigments to add some shine.



Finally everything together ready for paint.

Your making a grand job of a difficult kit

Amazing work there John, and i love the way you just make molds of stuff that bothers you. You have a uncanny nack of just making it al look easy but if we mare mortals were to try it would end up in a right flap. you sir are a doctor of plastic.

Awesome work so far mate!!

Thanks guys!

Always48 wrote:Amazing work there John, and i love the way you just make molds of stuff that bothers you. You have a uncanny nack of just making it al look easy but if we mare mortals were to try it would end up in a right flap. you sir are a doctor of plastic.

Not sure I would go that far, I mostly just make stuff up as I go along. Still thanks for the kind words.

Have made some progress on the He 115, started with a coat of Ultimate black primer and then painted it in MR Paints Swedish colors, 058 blue grey for the under side and 328 dark olive drab for the top with the walkways in 325 olive drab. I then added a few drops of white to the 328 to lighten it and used it to bleach the panels on the top of the plane. I really like these MR Paints, they spray nice, the colors looks great, dries fast and can be masked over within minutes.





I have the Meastro Models decal sheet for the Swedish markings, but it's missing one decal. It's a warning sign that where put on the floats under the propellers that says "Varning för propeller" or Caution propeller in English. Luckily there is a good image of the sign in a book I have about the Swedish torpedo bombers. So I scanned the book, took the image into Adobe Illustrator to clean it up and convert it to a vector file. This way I can scale it without loosing any quality, it also makes it really easy to change the colors of the background and the text. When I had something I was happy with I printed it on white decal paper, cut it out and used it as a normal decal.





Also got the rest of the decals on, it's nice with a plane with only 14 decals as it goes pretty qiuck.



Now I really need to get started on the diorama.

Finally time for an update on this, the time is starting to run out and I still have quite a bit to do. The plane is almost done, have clear coated over the decals, added a Ultimate dark dirt wash and then flat coated it using the MR Paints flat, really like it. There is still a little bit of weathering left to do, but I'll wait with that until the diorama is done.



For the diorama base I'm using a A3 sized picture frame, I added some styrofoam to build a bank on one side. I then covered everything with a thin layer of DAS, this was then painted in random brown colors.







The sea bottom where then covered in fine railroad talus in a couple of colors and the land bank with pigments, and some talus. I then added static grass, leaving some of the "earth" showing through. Also started building a small wharf and a fence from balsa wood.







Next was to add some more vegetation, small bushes and fern.





Now I just need to add the water.



For the small row boat I printed the drawing to scale, then used tape to transfer the boards to plastic and then added is to the 3D printed frame. It's not perfect and there are some small gaps that I have sealed using pva glue. Still need to add the benches.

Execellent work Jon, i know how challenging these kits can be so top work mate, loving the 3d printed cow too haha

That is a superb piece of work. That kit has certainly thrown your few challenges
The dio is great would like to see the cow running when they start up those two engines

Thanks guys! Yea the it has some problems, but it's a nice feeling when you manage to get something together that has pushed your skills a bit.

A little bit more progress on this, started off by staining all the wood using Ultimate earth wash.



Then I started to add the water, I'm using a clear epoxy resin that's normally used for carbon fiber work. It has a low viscosity and will not yellow in sunlight, but it is a bit expensive if you have to buy it. The thing is I've used about 2 kg on this diorama and buying any modeling water product in that quantity would have cost a fair bit as well. But I had this lying around in the garage to use if I needed to make parts for the race car, but it's been around for so long it has expired. There is probably nothing wrong with it, but when it comes to my safety in the car I don't want to take any chances. So instead of throwing it away I might as well use it to make water. I've done three layers, the first one just on the base, for the second one I added the plane and the third one the boat. And to give the illusion that it's deeper then it is I added a small amount of Tamiya clear blue and a drop of clear green to the epoxy for the first two layers, the last one was done all clear.






After the first layer. I will add some texture gel when the final layer has set to make some small waves.

The boat has also been finished. Started with painting it in AK Varnished wood, then it was dry brushed with wood base, given a coat of AK Streaking grime and finally closs coated. The gloss was added before the streaking grime was fully dry, this way it added a bit of fine wood grain.









As I managed to find a really nice resin cow I'll be using it instead of the 3D printed one. The printed one would have worked, but it looked a little bit too static. Still have some detail painting left to do, now it's just sprayed in NATO black and one coat of white brush painted on.

Time for a final update. Added the boat and the final layer of water, it's a bit too calm and needs some waves.





So I used an old brush to dab Deluxe Materials Making waves in a random pattern over the whole surface.



I also picked up a small oak tree from the rail road shop, it could be a little bit bigger but it works. The trunk was a bit boring so I dry brushed it with a few brown colors and added a Ultimate earth wash to it.



When that was done I placed all the things, figures and cow to the base, added the antenna wire and calling it done.



Final reveal thread http://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?f=505&t=19927