Luftwaffe RECCE aircraft.......

[popeye]

Junkers Ju 388 L, 1/72 Special Hobby




When sometime before the millennium Special Hobby issued kits of the 388 there was much rejoicing in the modelling media but finished models seem few and far between.

The 388 K/L kit comprises 2 sprues of nicely detailed injection parts with recessed panel lines, 2 sets of vacu-formed clear parts, some resin detail, a small PE fret and decals for two versions.

It is a typical early representative of short run kits without assembly lugs and looking good in the box.

On closer inspection and first dry runs several challenges are evident – certainly no shake and bake kit.

I have started a photo-build on the German “Flugzeugforum.de” some weeks ago after asking for and getting some pertinent data on engine details from Peter A. followed by more hints and advice in parallel with the build – many thanks to all concerned!


Two main problems were evident from inspecting the contents and comparing with parts from the Hasegawa Ju 88 – size and outline of the gear bays and wing incidence.

I cannot show complete sprues – lets start with the smaller parts:




gear bays, handed but not marked



cockpit inserts



and detail parts.

[popeye]

Two sets of clear parts are provided - not to Falcon standards but clear enough after a dip in Future.
The rather thick clear plastic will be an asset when it comes to join the upper & lower glazing I hope.





Transfers seem ok save for a fictious factory marking - the other subject being an unfinished 388 seized by the Americans before first flight.




Antennaes and small parts are provided on a small PE fret.

[popeye]

Italeri and AMT Ju 88’s suffer from much to slender gear bays –
Special Hobby’s 388 on the contrary from to fat and square bays.

Fortunately we can use the realistic Hasegawa 88 series gear bays as a reference today.




First step was to increase the thickness of the walls of the SH gear bays by lining them on the inside with Plasticard cut and bent to shape and glued in place with “plastic goo”, made from plastic shavings diluted in liquid polystyrene cement.





The wing profile is also very slender - I added strips of plasticard of 0.5 mm to the mating surfaces of the nose of the wing halves to increase the thickness.

[popeye]

After sufficient drying time of the reinforcement of the gear bay insides,
profile and volume of the bays can be tentatively filed down already.




The resin inserts for the gear bays are handed. There are no supports or lugs in the wing halves.
Special Hobby leaves the modeller a bit on his own here. The idea shown in the instructions would have you insert the “firewall” provided into the rear of the engine gondolas.
The whole unit could then somehow be fitted to the wing halves while glueing them together.

This would call for problems with aligning the engine gondolas later and make for a lot of fiddling and adapting the gear bay “roof” in between the wing halves, not to speak of how to glue the resin part into the wing.





As I was not keen on alignment problems with engine gondolas and landing gear later on I decided to discard the Resin inserts and use leftover landing gear parts from an AMT Ju 88 instead





I glued a base plate to the top wing insides, angled according to the opposite angle of the wing dihedral.

[popeye]

The engine gondolas have heavy ejector pins inside. Glued together you have engines with oval and out of center intakes.

[popeye]

At the same time it becomes evident that the fans included in the kit are much to big in diameter and cannot be fitted without cropping.

[popeye]

The Resin parts provided for the “engine faces” don’t fit and are completely fictious for a BMW radial.

[popeye]

From the data provided by Reter A. the intake opening is 960 mm and the OD of the fan 940 mm while the OD of the engine measures 1307 mm.

To correct the out of center of the intake opening I inserted a Evergreen plastic tube of 1/2in inside diameter. This is some 0.7 mm smaller than the 960 mm converted to 72nd scale but seems acceptable as the outside dia of the kit engines is also some 1.0 mm too small in scale.

[The Hooded Claw]

Aug 15, 2009 19:12:35 GMT popeye said:

The Resin parts provided for the “engine faces” don’t fit and are completely fictious for a BMW radial.

I think those are left over from their kit with the projected Jumo engines in it.

H

[popeye]

[/quote]

I think those are left over from their kit with the projected Jumo engines in it.

H[/quote]

that may well be, but those were included and even illustrated in the instructions of the 388 K/L kit ....

[popeye]

A BMW radial from another 88 kit might be fitted in place of the resin part which also has no positive location whatsoever.
As any detail is practically invisible behind the cooling fan I used Evergreen tubing instead. This has the added advantage of providing a centred “bearing” for a “propshaft” also from tubing.

[The Hooded Claw]

Aug 15, 2009 20:42:05 GMT popeye said:

Aug 15, 2009 20:29:45 GMT The Hooded Claw said:

Aug 15, 2009 19:12:35 GMT popeye said:

The Resin parts provided for the “engine faces” don’t fit and are completely fictious for a BMW radial.

I think those are left over from their kit with the projected Jumo engines in it.

H

that may well be, but those were included and even illustrated in the instructions of the 388 K/L kit ....

Am I remembering that the 388 had some form of annular oil cooler affair inside the cowl opening behind that forced induction fan?

I no longer have my references for the type, There was a really good article on the 388 series in Prop and Jet a German mag about 15 years ago that covered most bases.

H

[popeye]

H and anybody interested -

do not want to post coyrighted material but >

just google "BMW 801 TJ > pictures" for clarification.

Oil coolers were behind annular front ring,
The intercoolers were behind the engine.

Rolf

[popeye]

This “engine” will not be fitted in the gondolas until later - you will soon see why.

The engines also need some rescribing of panel lines according to drawings, deepening and/or opening the lower outlet behind the cowl flaps and rescribing the cowl flaps.
Depending on internal or external air intakes the cowl flaps are slightly different.





Without the resin inserts for the landing gear bay the mating surfaces between engines and wing are minimal and will have to be reinforced from the inside.
Offering the engines to the wing shows clearly the deficient fit with the unmodified gear bay.





The resin part for the external intake needs to be modified.





The rear has to resemble a ships bow somehow - built up with some 2K putty and shown here before final rubbing down.

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Rolf,

Lovely work as per usual........

I keep following it, as a few others are I see by the viewing figures......

Colin