I wanted to add to my existing German medium bomber fleet, so along with the Austers, I ordered an He-111 from BPM.
It is a pretty crude model, very similar to the APL Ju 88 I bought last year. I wasn't about to spend 16 quid(!) on a resin one, so got the cheaper one and boy does it show. The entire model is very grainy, and as with the Ju 88, comes with the fuselage in two halves and the engines in two halves.
Once assembled it is a gigantic lump of solid plastic, with some fairly unsightly mould lines, gaps etc.
However, some filling and a large amount of sanding turned it into something far more pleasing. Being plastic, it is fairly easy to sand and I got it much smoother and eliminated the gaps with filler.
While I was at it, I added the dorsal, forward and waist MGs out of 0.5mm brass, which give it a bit more texture. Curiously the canopy has hardly any support struts moulded on (unlike the BPM Ju 88 and Stuka) - maybe this is an older model? The windows look a bit plain anyway, so I'll have to paint those carefully.
The other annoying thing that the dorsal MG position is actually open at the rear irl, but for some odd reason it is moulded as having a perspex cover over it. I would have been simple enough to mould it as open and I'm not about to start filing it down. I just stuck the MG barrel through the perspex.
The underside is still a bit crude, I didn't do a very good job filling around the engines, but I don't worry too much about the undersides anyway. I did add one MG to the gondola, which unlike the main cabin has quite nice little windows moulded into it.
When it is all painted up it doesn't look too bad though. I just did it in standard splinter with sky blue undersides. It is based on a real plane, but I can't recall the squadron now.
I painted on all the missing canopy struts by hand, which was a bit fiddly but worth the effort. The asymmetrical cockpit didn't make it any easier. Once the canopy struts were dry I edged them in black with a 0.1mm micron pen to give them some contrast and depth.
Eagle eyed readers will notice that between photos the number '3' on the fuselage has mysteriously disappeared!
I had a few decal disasters with this one. The original (Zvezda) balkan crosses disintegrated as I put them on, and the number 3s (also Zvezda) fell off overnight! The decals must have got too old to use or maybe they didn't like the remaining graininess of the surface. The yellow 'D' are Zvezda though and stuck on OK, the rest are Doms Decals.
My other decal disaster was that I usually varnish the decals to make them matt, but I think my varnish must be off or maybe I didn't shake it enough, as it left white streaks everywhere and made the decal surrounds stand out even more than usual. I'm going to have to paint around them with the base colours again. Argh!
I re-did the blacklining on the cockpit struts too and they stand out better now.
Despite being such a rough model, it came out fine and it is a smart looking plane. Those huge wings give it a very sinister aspect, and of course they were stars of the show in the 1967 "Battle of Britain" film. It can join the Ju 88s and Dornier in my 'bomber box'.
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