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Teutonic Minotaur – Bullish German from Crete!


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Here is my contribution courtesy of the Italeri 1/72 offering:

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I do like desert camos but I do prefer Stukas in their more familiar green schemes, so am opting for the traditional green camo with the distinctive yellow nose:

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Obligatory sprue shots:

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Decals and canopy. Really looking forward to masking up the greenhouse canopy not!

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No idea as to the fit and accuracy. Quality of moulding, plastic and lack of flash on first sight appears a lot better than the Italeri Harrier I built for the NATO V Warsaw Pact GB recently, but we’ll see. I don’t have any aftermarket, so I’ll probably add a few bit n’ bobs from scratch. Nice chill out build, what could possibly go wrong...

Made a start on the cockpit, and while I shouldn’t be too ungrateful regarding moulded on details in 1/72, some of this stuff will have to go, or at least be modded. The IP and bulkhead aren’t too bad, but the gunner’s seat and joystick (which is wrong), are gonna have to go. Also the spent cartridge bin looks like a large concrete utilitarian bin/flower bed found in shopping precincts; and the radio box come Morse code (whatever it is) looks like a Christmas present minus a large bow. It’s also in the wrong place, so it’ll go too.

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Made a start on the bread basket seat. Thin rod, glued, bent and cut to shape. A bit tedious…

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Not perfect but better than the kit offering. Okay that's a starter for now, but more soon.

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Thanks gents. I have the eyestrain to prove it.

I got to work on the rest of the seat using thin plastic strip and approximations. After much eyewatery cussing and fiddling around here is the seat base.

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A comparison with the kit offering which somewhat resembles a commode!

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The finished job. Again Aires and Eduard have little to fear but I’m pleased to have improved the kit offering.

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As I said above, aside from the IP and bulkhead, the cockpit is pretty bare. Now I’m no Luftwaffe expert, but the Stuka pit is quite busy, and a fair amount is visible. So I got to grips on the foot rests which resemble large cheese wedges. Also evident are the injection pins. I have to say on closer inspection the kit is infested with them like some sort of virus. Rather more aggravating is the fact they are in quite visible spots.

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I knocked up some replacements from take-away tin foil:

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It is reasonably good stuff to work with being soft, and is easily cut using a straight edge and a scalpel. Finished off by a small rod of Albion Alloy. They’ll look a little less rough after a lick of paint. Here they are dry fitted. I also cut out the bomb aiming sight which will receive a sheet of acetate later.

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On then to the joystick which scaled up resembles a scaffold pole. I bent up a piece of rod. Thin slithers of Tamiya tape for the rings.

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Then top and tailed it with the kit bits. Again not fantastic but an improvement and looks a little more like the real thing…yeh okay only a little. Cripes these macros don’t cut you any slack do they. Hopefully paint will hide a multitude of sins!

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Here is the spent cartridge bucket for the rear gunner compare to the shopping precinct concrete flower box kit offering:

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With these fiddly little bits out the way I began on the cockpit sidewalls which as I remarked are bare. First up I started making some stiffeners. I cut some thin strips from beer can foil. Then rigged up a little jig using my punch set. This will allow me to punch out the oval lightning holes and keep ‘em level…well sort of.

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This is what I mean.

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As you can see quite a lot to do as there is quite a lot going on in a Stuka pit (not a euphemism for anything). I won’t bore you with endless piccies of bits of plastic and aluminium; but hope to give you an insight into my modus operandi, so I’ll get a lot more done for next time. Bye for now.

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  • 2 months later...

At long last I am back at the bench and have got the cockpit to a point where I can actually paint it!

So this is what I’ve managed to get done. First up was to get the side walls finished. Bits of plastic, lead wire, punched discs and take-away tin foil did the job. For example to make the oxygen canister housings I punched out a load of holes and wrapped it around a drill.

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Here it is in place and the one side done. Not 100% in scale but better the complete absence of any detail the original kit offered.

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In between working on the other side I decide to give the seat a bit of a lift. Apart from the moulding stub it aint too bad to be fair, but I’m not fond of moulded on belts, and the seat walls themselves are a little thick plus I don’t think there was a cushion on the bottom – pity the pilot’s piles!

 

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I ground off the cushions like thus.

 

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I thinned down the sides, made some milliput cushions, and some harnesses from take-away tin foil. This is the finished result, dry fitted (one things are a bit askew).

 

 

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Here are the harnesses for the gunner’s seat pus some buckles from fuse wire. It will be fun assembling this lot together, not!

 

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With that done I decided to make up some extra cartridges. The kit only gives you one for the gun, but in almost all reference phots I’ve seen there is a reasonable surplus. I glued a couple of plasticard sheets together and punched out some discs.

 

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I then glued them onto some strip:

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While the glue dried I made the handles out of little strips of foil pressed over a strip of plastic.

 

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Here they are completed next to the kit offering and the gun.

 

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I cleaned up the kit offering, adding the extra details. Then I replaced the gun barrel with some Albion Alloys tubing. Not perfect but at least it has a bit more definition now.

 

 

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Now with all the extra cockpit details I least want to show a bit of it off. Well the canopy is well clunky. It's not’accurate, and the thickness scaled up is akin to an RSG. The hole for the aerial is in the wrong place, and whole sections of it are frosted as if they should be completely painted. Suffice to say it resembles less a birdcage/greenhouse, but more a garden shed:

 

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To be honest it would benefit from a vac-form replacement, but the dimensions and fit are good, so I decided to make do. First was to cut the rear section in two to open the gunner’s section:

 

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Then it was sand, sand, micromesh, micromesh, micromesh etc. A dip in Klear and here we have the finished result:

 

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Not looking forward to the masking mind. Anyroad here is the finished interior prior to paint:

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Some stuff is just dry-fitted for now to give you some idea as to how it will look. Well at long last I can get some paint on and get the fuselage zipped up. A return to proper modelling at long last.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Right then, post Telford SMW and a purchase of an Airfix Dambuster Lanc, WWI Handley Page 0/400 and Tamiya B Mk.IV Mossie, I finally got the cockpit painted and finished. Here is the pilot’s seat. It was a bit fiddly getting the belts and buckles in place, and I suppose they are a little over scale. However, as one poster remarked on his thread, they are what they are, and I’m satisfied.

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Next was the bin and some spent cartridges curtesy of some chopped copper plug wire. These were glued in the bin, not that you can see them much, but I know they’re there.

 

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I used Humbrol 120 pale green for the interior which was the best match for RLM thingy of FS summat. I made the gunsight on the IP out of take-away foil and a little piece of acetate. Again not fantastic but better than the lump of blobby plastic the kit offered.

The belts draped nicely over the gunner’s seat, but sadly you can’t see much of draped effect or buckles when the fuselage sides are in place.

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Here’s everything ready for zipping up:

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The backrest harness for the gunner was too large so I’ve ended up leaving it to hang down on the floor. Oh well, better the bland two-dimensional kit offering. Can at last get this thing zipped up and wingy things stuck on. Thanks for looking.

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That's a very nice job you have done! A huge improvement, and I love the spent cartridges, nice touch!

 

strange though this may be I think I saw you at Telford from you list of perchases? Were you there Saturday and telling someone that one was for your dad? If so I was in that group and should have said hello! If not then I look weird now....

 

Rob

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Thanks guys.

 

16 hours ago, rob85 said:

That's a very nice job you have done! A huge improvement, and I love the spent cartridges, nice touch!

 

strange though this may be I think I saw you at Telford from you list of perchases? Were you there Saturday and telling someone that one was for your dad? If so I was in that group and should have said hello! If not then I look weird now....

 

Rob

 

You're right Rob that was me (dad chose the Lanc for the next build). A belated hello and pleased to have met you in a sort of round a bout way..;)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got the fuselage glued up at last.

 

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The fit is very good, although not all the panel lines line up. Here is a close-up:

 

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Wouldn’t be so bad, if it was underneath and at the tail end, but right on the nose it sticks out like a saw thumb. Bit like a doing a bit of dodgy wallpapering around a light switch, it’s the first thing everyone will notice.

 

So I filled in the offending lines with gloop, sanded, and then re-scribed. Had to make a template out of dymo tape using the arc of an old penny (date 1967, would have been a nice touch if it was the same date of the aircraft).

 

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Anyroad that was sanded and finished off. There is the odd wobble but it was better than leaving it the way it was, plus primer and matt green serves to hide a multitude of sins.

 

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I since sanded back all the other seams and any steps in the join due to my over-anxious clamping. Had to reinstate a couple of panel lines, mainly because they didn’t quite match up. The one whinge I have about the Italeri kits is that the panel lines tend to be a bit inconsistent. For example they may not line up properly when you join the fuselage together, or the panel lines are not symmetrical or don’t tally with any plans or reference sources. Any road they were straight lines which weren’t much trouble.

 

Then I got the wings glued on. Again nice tight fit but as you can see there is a step which will need sorting out.

 

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That has since been glooped up, and will be duly sanded back after it’s had time to cure. Not saying I’ll get a perfect finish, but better than leaving it the way it was.

 

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While that’s drying I started on the nose. The vents and ducts are opened up, but were a bit flashy so I cleaned these up. I also knocked up and air / oil? cooler. You can’t see much of it, but you can catch a glimpse of it. I scribed a piece of plasticard (which you can’t see in the piccie) and glued some pieces of wire lengths. This will be painted black and dry brushed silver. Also replace the solid kit supplied grill with a bit of pipe screen gauze.

 

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I’ll start sorting out the bombs, tail and undercarriage next. Managed to bust off the moulded on tail wheel – it was only a matter of time. Until the next time.

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Thanks bbudde. First up was to sort out that horrid wing root step. Sand sand sand. Then I rescribed like thus.

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And here is the finished result (ouch these close-ups show all the flaws! Thank goodness for matt paint).

 

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I now realise that my rescribed wing root doesn’t quite match those on the real machine, but they are much better than had I left them as they were.

So now on to the wheels. As you know they are quite distinctive on the Stuka, looking quite boot-like. This is the kit offering:

 

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Fine really, but they are engineered so that you fix everything together, including the wheels. This is a bit of a pain to mask afterwards, and also it would mean sanding and cleaning up the wing faring boots with the painted wheels in place. Given my cack-handedness it is a procedure I wish to avoid.

 

First up was to get the wheels tidies up. The kit offering had faint treads mouled into them as per the original. However, they are not very well defined, taking on the appearance of dodgy re-moulds. I cleaned them up and gave em a retread erm I mean rescribe. Before and after:

 

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I also cut out the top half of the locating pin so I could slot the wheels in after I’d fixed the boots together:

 

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I got the boots zipped up erm laced up (couldn’t resist that). Quick sand and then I rescribed a fine seams to represent the two halves of the real Stuka boots.

 

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I can just pull out the wheels and clip them back in, making painting and masking much easier.

 

Now if you recall previously I’d managed to bust off the tail wheel. I could either glue it back on now, but would likely get bust off again. Also the wheel is moulded into the yoke. Understandable in this scale, but still a pain for the likes of me to paint up neatly.

 

Given I’m looking for every excuse possible to defer masking up that damned canopy, I thought I’d have a crack out scratch building a replacement. First up I punched out disc approximately the same size.

 

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Then I drilled and filed out the centre to make a donut Ich bin ein Berliner style (okay I know that technically means a jam donut but couldn’t resist another sad joke). I inserted a thinner disc in the centre, then I bent up a bit of beer can foil, made up a couple of collars from plasticard, threaded through a couple of pieces of brass rod, and here is the finished result:

 

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This is how it will look in place and in comparison with the original.

 

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I also had to make a new actuator for the rudder below because the original kit version, being moulded as part of a fuselage half stops short of the gap. Anyroad not perfect and if the truth be known perhaps a tad overscale. Though it all comes apart so will be easier to mask and look neater when painted – well that’s my theoretical cunning plan!

 

Now the final episode in this update was sorting out the bomb cradle. With the bomb glued together, this is how it looks dry-fitted.

 

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As you can see by my little black scribbles, Italeri, for some reason known only to themselves have seen fit to represent the bomb cradle hinges and release mechanism by…erm raised detail, which to me serves no purpose what so ever, other than creating work by way of having to sand them off.

 

So I decided to cut out little apertures and knock up some little hinges from rod and strip. These can be glued in place and the cradle attached as thus.

 

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Again not entirely accurate, but I think it gives a little more depth to what is quite a distinctive part of the stuka. Right that’s it for now. Next up is finishing off the nose, gluing the tail on…oh and masking that damned canopy! Thanks for looking.

 

 

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