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1/72 Eduard La-7 Profipack (OOB but not really build)


Squibby

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Time for another micro update.

 

After some relaxing easy masking I laid down a base coat of RAF Ocean Gr... Ahem... I mean AMT-11 :whistle: on top.

No seriously after wasting an hour or 2 yesterday night trying out all sorts of mixes I just whipped out a jar of XF-82 sitting unassumingly in the back and it seemed to roughly match the blue grey colour of AMT-11 with a minimum of fuss. Probably not green enough or grey enough or whatever but I'm actually sick of VVS colour research now.... so I won't tell if you won't...looks pretty Soviet coloured to me ;)

 

20161212_231143_HDR_zpstxjonyqf.jpg

 

I'll do some shading using one of the multitude of greys I've amassed once the base coat is nice and dry.

 

 

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Done some shading, using H317 (just a grey of some kind) and H417 (RLM76) as per my usual paint sequence. Then it's impatiently off with the masks to see my handiwork. I think I'm getting quite good at this masking malarkey ^_^, only a tiny touch up required on the white tail to straighten the edge a bit.

 

20161213_203646_HDR_zpsoxcuasgg.jpg

 

It's now sitting all glossed up ready for decals.

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Got all the decals on, not too many on this build and I've now got a ton of spare Soviet decals left over.

 

They were thinner than I was used to and were quite annoying to position, but I managed to get them all on without any damage.

The tail decals lined up reasonably well. I would have preferred to paint the stripes but all the miscellaneous other markings come with the decal stripes. They overlapped over the ridge of the tail a bit and I had to carefully spray some touchups (avoiding masking tape or anything sticky over the decal).

 

It seems the painted and decal reds don't match too well but that may just be due to the white tail background throwing off hue perception. The tail prong bit is painted the same colour as the nose and blends quite well with the adjacent red so it must be all in the mind.

 

20161214_232013_HDR_zpsuei0gnos.jpg

 

If I do say so myself it looks quite spiffing with it's vivid striped tail and red nose ^_^.

I'm going to lightly run over the decals with some thinned paint and blend them in a bit once they've dried completely.

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Well... a small disaster has struck.

 

I'd applied a point washes around the few panel lines on the plane, and flat coated the whole thing with no dramas.

I then decided to unmask the exhaust panels I'd meticulously painted beforehand and found they were horribly marred by the tape...:rant: . Done in by gloss paints again, I ignored my new rule of always gloss coating glossy paint finishes before masking and paid the price here...

 

So off they had to come. I managed to carefully scrape the paint off and thankfully the aqua gloss coated surroundings were quite hardy and didn't get damaged in the process. Unfortunately though I did add a few additional scratches  which I tried to gingerly sand out but didn't really manage to sort out. Thankfully when all was said and done they blended in well enough to not be too noticeable.

 

Here it is after the paint had been scraped off...

 

20161216_220723_HDR_zpsleze2mj7.jpg

 

And masked up. Again luckily there were no decals in the immediate area such that I could relatively easily mask it off.

 

Another gloss black coat goes on.

20161216_224301_HDR_zpshyot9qqs.jpg

 

and all done after a blast of VMC Dark Aluminum and some Exhaust Manifold. I skipped the other steps this time around

 

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Not too bad overall so a decent recovery so far.

 

I unmasked and sprayed the exhaust stains on again with Flat black, this time overflowing off the metal panel. Once these were dry I painted on some heavily thinned AK Engine Oil with a flat brush to create a more oily look to the exhaust stain. I then added some pigments to the mix using some dust coloured pigments to add some lead staining. Overall it looks pretty decent.

 

Oh and in the process of touching the plane with pigments on my hands and overflow of oils etc I managed to get the plane appropriately grubby. I'll call that hands on weathering :D

 

Now that the airframe is pretty much done I also unmasked the glazing. No issues here as expected with precut masks. They were a bit sticky and hard to remove though in the process I managed to pop off the rear section. I glued it back on without any dramas.

 

20161217_013149_HDR_zpsomramobr.jpg

 

20161217_013327_HDR_zpsfxm9bj62.jpg

 

I've still got to add the aluminum tape strips to the cowling but I think I've done enough for today.

 

Cheers for viewing.

 

 

 

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Time I updated this.

 

With a lot more time to work on this now that work's wrapped up for the year I made a start on the undercarriage. The instructions did not fill me with confidence. The kit has no locating pins for aligning the main gear legs and there are some piston / struts that need to be butt jointed on at an angle. I'm not looking forwards to this...

 

First up I cut out the multitude of bits and fitted the bits of PE that form the torsion links. The incredibly helpful folding instructions :confused: didn't reveal much and I mis folded one of the links inadvertently breaking it trying to correct it :doh:. I still managed to get two seperate links fitted and aligned well enough though. I didn't make the same mistake with the second leg thankfully. 

 

20161222_190704_HDR_zps5s0gxgqx.jpg

 

The kit comes with a bit of PE to form the brake lines but I decided to use lead wire instead. I drilled a hole in the end of the strut to fix the wire and bent it around the legs.

20161222_200746_HDR_zpsxtfuafqw.jpg

 

After a lot of painting I ended up with this collection of bits. The legs were just painted in my AMT-7 mix as I'd already painted the wheel bay interior this colour. I'm not sure it's particularly accurate in this case.

I picked out the oleo struts in VMC Chrome using a brush and gave the whole lot a dark brown point wash. I also added some hydraulic oil around the top and bottom of the oleo strut using some AK engine oil. Not sure if it's particularity visible in this photo though.

 

20161223_135958_HDR_zpsur9cmu1a.jpg

 

You'll also note I fixed the inner gear bay doors to the PE retracting linkages. I carefully test fitted and bent these to the right angle that seemed to fit beforehand. The instructions were a bit vague here, and apparently not quite correct... chalk up another inaccuracy to the list. They look good enough to really warrant repainting / fiddling with the PE again.

 

20161223_162058_HDR_zps11cwlzox.jpg

 

Got the gear legs assembled with the cover plates. Note the horrible butt joint required to fix the piston bit to the tail wheel. The whole thing will apparently be fixed into the plane by a small peg (visible on the front) :hmmm: Something tells me this won't be a very sturdy install.

 

And that's where I'm at. I'll need to wait till the glue dries out completely before steeling my nerves for the install.

 

 

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Success!! but not without some drama.

 

The legs actually fitted in reasonably well and after some carefully nudging around as they dried I got them nicely aligned. I had to look up a 3 view for the gear deflection since the instructions don't give you this info (one thing Airfix does really well).

 

The tail wheel also went on surprisingly well despite seeming a bit fragile as expected. I flooded a tiny bit of cement into the cavity to fix the perpendicular strut in place somewhere inside for some added strength.

 

I then tackled the little piston struts on the main gear. While test fitting one I dropped it into the gear bay and watched in horror as it slide into the interior of the wing :frantic:....Bugger.

 

I carefully shook and tapped the wing to try and get it out to no avail...My thoughts turned to scratching a replacement.

I gave it the plane one last shake for luck and miraculously out popped the part!....:phew:

 

Disaster averted I quickly got some cement on there and fitted both struts without any further drama. They didn't fit perfectly and the connection to the main gear leg is a bit rough, good enough at this scale though.

The inner gear bay doors went on without any issue and now she's standing on her own 2 feet... err ... nubs... I still need to paint up and fit the wheels, but I think the worst of this kit is behind me now.

 

20161223_215704_HDR_zps1ylzecte.jpg

 

20161223_225333_HDR_zpsxl79u5jm.jpg

 

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Final episode...the finishing touches.

 

I started out by spraying wheel hubs in VMC dark aluminum (over gloss black) and the wheels and prop blades in tire black. I also painted the spinner but didn't white base it so the actual colour is ever so slightly darker than the cowling, not too noticeable though.

 

It may be obvious at this point ^_^ but I opted to use the separate wheel hubs for ease of painting.

 

20161226_134238_HDR_zpsqqka7tu3.jpg

 

and with the hubs assembled. You may also notice I've added some wear to the prop blades by dry brushing some grey. I went heavy on the back side (as seen on the rightmost blade) and the front side leading edge and tips. I didn't add any visible paint chipping though.

 

20161227_141359_HDR_zpsnzdjijib.jpg

 

I then assembled the prop blades with the hubs... unfortunately I don't think I got the alignment perfect. I must say I much rather prefer having a combined propeller piece with all the blades evenly aligned than this individual blade do it your self approach.

 

20161227_230716_HDR_zpstduytg2u.jpg

 

The wheels were weathered with some oils and pigments and fitted onto the legs. The mounting nubs were a bit large and the holes in the wheel hub halves were a bit shallow. I had to cut down the nubs slightly and open up the hub holes for it to fit properly.

 

I then turned my attention to the glazing. I first cleaned and polished all the glazing bits with some Meguiars Plast-X and gave them a good buffing with the rotary tool. I find I get a nice clear shiney outcome this way without all the hassle and mess of dipping them. The Plast-X does nothing to the painted frames.

 

Unfortunately all my work to thin the canopy was for nothing as it's still far too thick to fit over the rails. It'll just have to perch up on top of the step but at least it's not sitting on the rear glazing. I used a sparing amount of PVA to stick it in place.

 

20161229_010850_HDR_zps4lcvitvv.jpg

 

Finally it was time for the rigging. I used tiny bits of brass tube (that actually had to be drilled out with a #80 bit to be usable) as tensioner / turnbuckles. The wire is made from ultra fine mono-filament thread (got it from a fly fishing shop)

The antenna line is looped through a small hole in the main mast via a brass turnbuckle. The two ends run back to the tail post  and are secured via two more turnbuckles. Of course as I was half way through with the bottom wire fixed and tensioned the main post came off :doh:. I had to carefully glue it back on and maintain tension on it until the CA glue set which drove up my blood pressure somewhat...:rant:

 

To finish off the fly lead was attached into a hole in the fuselage and secured via a blob of CA to the antenna line.

 

20161230_235845_HDR_zpsfdpysykl.jpg

 

And we're finally finished.

 

20161230_235903_HDR_zpsqbfjjfvs.jpg

 

Closing thoughts... Looks like a La-7 to me, nice fine detail and all but overall it really didn't live up to my initial high expectations :mellow:. It may have been unfair to judge it against their excellent Hellcat kit though.

Compared to the Hellcat or some of the recent Airfix kits it just felt a lot less user friendly to assemble.

 

My main complaints would be the transparent bits were far too thick, the undercarriage install was tricky and a bit flimsy and the wing to fuselage join was problematic. Also if you got the non-PE included 'weekend edition' the cockpit molded detail would be pretty lacking. I think it could also do with a radio shelf and molded supercharger intake ducts to 'box' out the undercarriage bay.

 

Despite all that and not being one of my best builds it's still my first Soviet fighter and a colorful little bugger at that :D

 

Right then... shows over... *chases off hobos, puts out fires and puts tumblweeds back into box* 

 

Cheers for viewing :D

 

 

Edited by Squibby
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Well done indeed, Squibby. Clearly you're a man on the make, a fella to follow. Wait, that sounds weird. Anyway, the La-7 looks good, doubly so when you consider that you had to rescue the exhausts.

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Cheers all, didn't know some of you were still lurking around in the back there :D

 

Glad my insights were of help. I'm sure most of you with a modicum of modelling gumption will find this kit is fantastic so don't be put off. I came into this build with way too high expectations. Though now I'm a bit more appreciative of the new Airfix kits for what they do really well.

 

I'll grab some RFI photos when summer once again returns to our Southern land.

 

I really do like the lines of this plane, I wonder if I might reproduce it in 1:48 when my shelving limits are more relaxed in future.

 

Cheers all again for following :thumbsup:

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