1/72 MPM Heinkel He100 D

by Davide Truccolo 

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After spending the last months browsing through ARC's galleries and forums, I decided it was about time to submit an article.  First of all, I'd like to thank Steve Bamford for keeping this wonderful website up and running, and all the ARC community for sharing their boundless knowledge about scale modeling.

I've always had a thing for "the fighter that never was", mostly due to its sleek, clean lines, which make it definitely look like a race plane in war camouflage.

This kit is MPM's  He100 D model, which has been recently replaced by a new mold.  The overall quality is very good, with accurately engraved panel lines and a generally good fit.  Maybe the trailing edges are a bit on the thick side, but this does not affect the look of the finished model.  I believe some previous experience with modeling is required, since the fuselage and wings have no alignment pins.  At first I was a rather puzzled by the amount of flash on every single part, but it turned out to be rather easy to clean up, the fuselage requiring only minor touchups with putty and CA glue in order to obtain a perfect fit.

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The photoetched parts are extremely detailed, even though they provide very little detail for the cockpit (just the trim wheel and rudder pedals).  I had to improve the detail of the cockpit walls using styrene sheet and stretched sprue, relying on a couple of He112 photos as a reference, since I was unable to find any He100 cockpit shots. The control stick was rebuilt from scratch, the one provided with the kit looked oversized.

The decals are very good, well detailed and thin, and represent one of the designs used by the "Propaganda Staffeln" equipped with the He100. They were applied after the model had been given a light coat of Tamiya X22 gloss clear, wit the help of Humbrol Decal Cote 1 & 2. Regardless of my efforts to make them set down perfectly, some still managed to silver along the edges. The model was eventually sealed with a coat of Tamiya gloss clear  with added X21 flat base. The colors used for this build are Humbrol 91 enamel (RLM 70) for the upper surfaces, and Tamiya acrylics XF23 + XF2 (RLM 65, light blue) and XF63 + XF2 (RLM 02, grey) for the lower surfaces and interior.

Davide

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Photos and text © by Davide Truccolo