Christian Bruer
Mark I's nice Beaufighter kit in RAF colours of No. 227 Sqd. Luqa Airfield Malta in August 1942. I plan to build the kit most out of box, I'll just add a few interior details.
Start this one today. I cleaned up the fuselage halves and fit and glue the cockpit floor into the right half. I just add a minimum of cockpit detail, boxes, stringers etc. I guess you will se not much of it but I know it is there🙂 Rest will be more or less out of box, because the kit is nicely done. There is less detail inside of the wheel wells. I will see what to do there?!

Cheers, Christian

Ricardo Gonzalez Ramos
Fine! I'm in.

Wayne Zammit
Looking good... and it's a 'Maltese' subject 🙂

Christian Bruer
Thank you all🙂

Choppa Nutta
Oh my !!
Scratch built internals on a 1/144 !!

Show off !!😉 😄

Christian Bruer
Looking to some references I found some more things to add in the cockpit🙂 Guess I cross out - out off box - for all interiors.
You're welcome Choppa 😎

Cheers, Christian

Bart Goesaert
nice work so far...

Christian Bruer
Thank you Bart🙂
I add some more details and a new instrument panel. Some of this will be visible through the canopy😄

Christian Bruer
Thx Guido, yes but fun 😄

Bart Goesaert
when it itches you need to scratch (build) 😉

Choppa Nutta
👍 just gets better and better 🙂

Christian Bruer
Thank you Choppa, I much appreciate your very kind comment(s) 🙂
Building this tiny bird reminds me building Tamiyas Beaufighter for 12 years ago:
modellversium.de/gal..ufighter-tamiya.html

Choppa Nutta
now you really are showing off !! 😄
lovely work Christian

Christian Bruer
Well, what should I say, it is so hard to stay in business 😄
Thank you mate🙂

Christian Bruer
Can't wait to cut our and build the crew boarding ladder. To cut out the access into the fuselage halve with the cockpit floor still in place was a bit tricky but it worked at the end. The main access is a thin box frame which I placed inside of the opening.

The access door with the ladder will be build and placed later.

Next step is, painting the interior. I will use a green but have to take a look which one.

Cheers, Christian

Mike Grant
I will definitely be referring to this when I do mine, Christian: awesome work 👍

Torben Ke
Wow! Stunning progress and very fine work. 👍

Christian Bruer
Thank you Mike and Torben. I much appreciate your very kind comments🙂
I correct a mistake with the access hatch. The boarding ladder, a part of the lower fuselage, was hinged at the underside of the fuselage and worked like a rocker. When closed the hatch was embedded and the mounting was visible when the hatch was open. Compare photo no. 11 and photo no. 14 to know what I mean. It was quite easy to do, but next time it is better to make all the cuouts first before installing the interior.
Cheers, Christian

Gareth Windsor
I'm chasing bits of 1:48 PE across the floor and you're putting working access panels in a 1:144! Impressive as usual Christian.

Choppa Nutta
this is getting silly now Christian, you're just rubbing it in now😉
cutting things out by hand that small and that accurately, impressive !
as Vader would say.. 😄

Mike Grant
"I plan to build the kit most out of box, I'll just add a few interior details.'😎 Riiiight...

Christian Bruer
Thank you very much for your kind comments mates!

Well Miek, I guess my out of box plan does not work 😄 But this is what makes modelmaking an interesting hobby - and, you never know what you're gonna get😉

Guess I will add some more extra details, flaps, some wheel well details etc. The kit has a lot of room although the exterior details are quite nice for the scale.

Cheers, Christian

Choppa Nutta
a lot of room ?????? :|

Christian Bruer
Choppa, that depends on the size you normaly work😉
For me, as a scale 1/350 ship model builder, scale 1/144 is huge😄

Cheers, Christian

Christian Bruer
The Interior is painted by airbrush, I use Vallejo Model Air No. 71.126 for the Interior Green. All the small parts are hand painted with different shades of brown and gray.

The interior need some final drying time before the next step – washing and highlighting the surfaces and details.

Cheers, Christian

Christian Bruer
Once the wash completely dry I add a coat of basic paint brightened with some white to highlight the surface and set lights to the details. I try to hold the balance between dark and bright areas not to overdo the effect. So far I'm really confident with the final result.

Next step is to assemble the fuselage halves and the wing section.

Cheers, Christian

Spanjaard
wow, beautiful in so tiny scale. i am in.

Christian Bruer
Thank you Spanjaard🙂

Christian Bruer
Another one is back on the bench. I restart the scale 144 Beaufighter reworking the whole wing section.
I add a wheel well to the emptiness that was comming with the kit. The modification was not according to any references but rather to fill the empty space.

I also cut out the flaps and made new ones from 0,2mm styrene. I guess it will look ok once finished.

Mhh, one wing is finished, but the second one still wait. Well another afternon is to plan.

Cheers, Christian

Moritz Fentzahn
Not my scale, but a fine piece of craftmanship. Congrats mate

Thomas Bischoff
as Mike mentioned - your build is not from a purist view OOB 🙂 , but very well done!

Christian Bruer
Thx Moritz and Thomas🙂

Well Thomas, that was the original plan, but I changed it a little bit😉

Cheers, Christian

Choppa Nutta
This definitely the way to "OOB" 😄
It's amazing what one can do with a few strips and squares precisely placed,
especially impressive at this scale though, although I find myself wondering about how this are the windows😉 😄

Martin Oostrom
@Choppa My OOB's look just the same 😉 without al the white plastic that is.
I wonder what Christian considers 'with extra's' 😮

Great build as usual Christian!

Christian Bruer
Many thx mates 🙂 And yes, hehehe, I should call it now - WIP formerly known as OOB😄

Well, today we had the first day without rain and bad weather since the beginning of the week, so a tour with the bike was the programm for today.
But there was enough time to finish the second wing. Without thinking how and what to do to make it fit it went one much faster than with the first one. I add some in progress photos. Now all flaps and the wings are finished🙂
I cleaned up some parts and broke the legs of one of the struts. I replaced them using brass wire. To get a stiff and proper fit I drilled a hole inside of the suspension and insert the brass rod. Some adjusting and trimming was necessary to get a proper fit.

Hopefully the filler I add on the nose section dries soon, to go on with the model.

Cheers, Christian

Bart Goesaert
very nice work... wonder what you will make of the engines...

Choppa Nutta
Perhaps you could rename it as a "Modified OOB",
MOOB's for short😉 😄

Bart Goesaert
OOB with a slight touch of AMS 😉 (advanced modelers syndrome)

Christian Bruer
🙂

Thx Bart for your kind comment.

Mhhh, Bart, you mentioned something what I thought about while working on the wings. The Bristol Hercules engines does not look bad for the scale. I thought about to open the upper engine cover of one engine to allow a view inside of the nacelles?!

Cheers, Christian

Christian Bruer
Also with the Beaufighter was a bad fit and no flushness between the nose and the canopy.
After a first layer of filler and some sanding work a second layer of filler was necessary. Now I have to wait untill it dries completely to sand an rescribe the nose section.

By the way, I checked to modify the engine nacelles to show one engine open, but with 1,0mm material thickness the parts are much to thick. The overall diameter is just 9,0mm. Not impossible but to much work because of some other project on the bench, so I will leave this conversion.

Cheers, Christian

Bart Goesaert
that's a bummer, but understandable...

Stephan Ryll
That's kind of a nose job with the canopy Christian 😉
May you can display a serviced engine next to the plane, as a nice little dio...

Christian Bruer
Mhh, I'm not sure at the moment how to display the Beaufighter, but time will tell😉

Thx for your encouraging words🙂

Martien Lourens
👍👍👍

Christian Bruer
Thx Martien 🙂

Christian Bruer
There was an inaccuracy between the canopy and the fuselage. I correct this using a 0,2mm styrene sheet. It need some patience to get the sheet in shape, but it worked well so far with a sheet at the backside and on the starbord side the fit is good now.

Wings are attached and gaps filled with superglue. More progress soon.

Cheers, Christian

Choppa Nutta
your precision is excellent ! 🙂

Christian Bruer
Choppa, I try to do my very best😉
Many thanks and your very kind comment is much appreciated🙂

Christian Bruer
The weather was very nice over the long weekend so I spent more time with some gardening and a good barbecue instead of modelmaking. But I mananged to make small progress on my Beaufighter. Wings and teilend are installed and filled and sanded now. I also filled ejector pin marks inside of the engine nacelles before I can paint them.
There is also some filling and sanding along the filters next to the engine nacelles required. In comparison to the Ta 152 you need much more time to fill and sand nearly any gap, but anyhow, this is a quite nice little kit which is it worth.

I guess I'm on the home stretch with this one. Just some little work to do before I can start paint the bird.

Cheers, Christian

Bart Goesaert
looks very good...

Alec K
Looking very good Christian. That interior is just insane (..ly great 🙂 ) I am amazed you have time to spare to barbecue and hang outside. That is sehr gut 👍

Bart Goesaert
Retrokit made some engine cowlings for this beauty. They were announced on FB.

Markus Kutsch The Plastic Bench
Pic7
Your thumb is a great indicator how small all the Details are.
Insane ,Mate!!👍

Christian Bruer
Thank you very much Bart, Alec and Markus.

Mhh, Bart about the cowling, do you have a link etc. or a timeline for a release?

Cheers, Christian

Bart Goesaert
retrokitonline.net/p..ter-engine-cowlings/

Christian Bruer
Thx Bart🙂

Christian Bruer
A small update at my Beaufighter. Canopy is painted interior green and glued in place. Although I carefully filled and sand the nose section there is still something to correct 🙁
The hercules engine and the engine nacelles are finished. But before I can glue the parts in place I have to go back to the nose section to fill and sand the gap mentioned above.
Cheers, Christian

David Thor
Wow, that´s tiny!

Stephan Ryll
so tiny .-) would be lost in my hands ... great work Christian 👍

Christian Bruer
Thx David and Stephan🙂

Hehe, Stephan, you should think it is a part of a Quarter Scale kit😉

Bart Goesaert
Are those the kit nacelles or the retrokit ones? Nice work on a square mm

Christian Bruer
Thx Bart! These are the kit engine nacelles. I first thought to buy the aftermarket parts to represent an open engine, but I don't want this to be a never ending story to finish😉

Christian Bruer
Unfortunatley there is an edge between the starboard canopy fram and the fuselage halve. First I thought to leave it like it is, but I put that much work into this kit so I sand the fuselage halve down to get a propper fit. The gap in front of the canopy is filled now and a clear part for the landing light was glued into the wing.

Cheers, Christian

Thomas Bischoff
glad you fixed it - the step between canopy and fuselage would have annoyed you for years! Very serious work you do here!

Choppa Nutta
Relentless Excellence !!

Choppa Nutta
🙂

Christian Bruer
Not only for year Thomas, but for the whole lifetime.

Thx Thomas and Choppa, glad you like it 🙂

Cheers, Christian

Christian Bruer
Well this one comes out of the back and got lately it's paint. Using pre cuttedt masks, still a lot of additional masking was required to safe paintedt areas. To paint a three tone camouflage scheme on a tiny scale 144 kit is indeed a challange, but it turned out quite nice.

Happy Modelling, Christian

Alexander Grivonev
This is some lovely detailing for this scale👍

Norbert Steffens
Wow this i'll call perserverance, to resume a project after more than 3 years....... Again really great work

Christian Bruer
Thank you Alexander and Norbert 🙂

Bart Goesaert
Splendid paintwork...

Christian Bruer
Thank you Bart 🙂

Christian Bruer
Detail painting and weathering with oils is done. I also built one of the Brengun start carts as an accesorie for the later display.
Happy Modelling, Christian

Alec K
This turned out amazing Christian. And I thought that doing this kind of detailing was hard in 72nd scale... here you go proving me wrong 😄. Excellent indeed 👍

Christian Bruer
Thank you Alec. Na, it was just a lil bit scratch buliding and detailing, anyhow what scale 😉

James C
That's impressive work in such a small scale Christian 👍

Daniel Klink
I must stop following Christians stuff 🙁
The start cart... Crazy...fantastic, impressive...nonono crazy....impossible to do if you aren't an ant or something....insane.. on the other hand it would save you a lot of space,hm.. nonono i can't do this... better go on just watching Chris doing that fantastic beautiful and crazy stuff...

Alex Rodionov
I don't believe my eyes. 1/144? Excelent again. ?

Christian Bruer
Thank you Gentlemen for your very kind comments 🙂

Let me say something about small scale! It is not that Voodoo thing. IMHO it is easier to built, paint and weather a small scale model than a big scale model, because you do not have to have the close eye to larger details.
On small scale model the eye atracts on the basic overview and not the finest detail, as for example on a Quarterscale model. So you have to have much more focus on details when builiding a larger scale model to bring it all to life. There is just one challange, deal with tiny parts, but this is just practice.

Well give small scale a chance, just build it 👍

Happy Modelling, Christian

Spanjaard
no, doing 1/144 is not Voodoo, i agree with you fully ... But getting the results you achive, that is a different story, my dear Christian 😉

Christian Bruer
Nah Spanjaard, I am just a slow builder and take the time I need 😉

But thank you my friend 🙂

Matthew A
Fantastic

Christian Bruer
Thank you Matthew 🙂

Christian Bruer
Not completely finished but nearly there. I built a base, added all small parts and made a first teaser photo. So it need a gloss coat and decals and a final finish.

Happy Modelling, Christian

Christian Bruer
I call this done 🙂

Happy Modelling
Christian

Spanjaard
i call it really well done! amazing little dio Christian!

Christian Bruer
Thank you my friend. I hope to share it with you, next to some others, in October this year in Veldhoven 🙂

James C
Superb looking dio Christian, and especially so in that scale. Most impressive! 👍

Spanjaard
I hope so too Christian!

Mark
Simply gorgeous. Exquisite. ❤️️

Robert Podkoński
You are simply the best, Christian! (At least in the 1/144th scale models 😉)

Neuling
Wonderful diorama!

Christian Bruer
Thank you all for your kind comments 🙂

Well Robert I think not, but I always try to do my very best 😄

Happy Modelling, Christian

Rui S
Incredible as always 👍

Christian Bruer
Thank you Rui 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Thought it's the new Airfix at first. Hats off our Maestro of watchmaking! 😉

Guy Rump
Beautiful build and dio 👍

Dave Flitton
Wow!

Lode Schildermans
Christian, this is what modeling is about. Very nice diorama

Christian Bruer
Hey there, thank you very much for all your kind comments 🙂