Lavochkin La-7 ; 72nd scale eduard kit .

[Basuroy]

Hello everyone , I built this kit as part of the "From Russia with Love GB" . The kit goes together without any trouble whatsoever and is up to usual eduard standards . A mistake is the cowling red doesn't quite matches the decal though in my defence , they did when the decal was on the sheet .  Weathered the model by post shading various shades of base colour and oil ; the wing root chipping was done by salt masking while the chipping along panel lines were done by a fine paint brush .  











Regards , 
Basu Roy 

[Gerrardandrews]

Really nice looking model, and like the weathering, fun to do, but very hard to master 😊

[Kuro Nezumi]

Incredible paintwork and weathering! Well done!

[doozer1974]

Really nicely done with the faded and chipped paint job - a lovely job.

[Gorby]

1/72! Looks at least 1/48! Amazing job.

[JWM]

Great! Dirty enough for Eastern front

Cheers

J-W

Edited May 16, 2017 by JWM

[russ c]

Excellent build and paint job, looks great

[Basuroy]

Thanks everyone for your kind words

[Martin Ford]

Very nice work. As many have said above, love the weathering.

Martin.

[Shelliecool]

It looks stonking! I'm just about to finish the profipack version of the La-7 and love the level of weathering you have gone to. Any tips are greatly appreciated! 

Michelle. 

[Valkyrie]

Magnificent

[WildeSau75]

Wow - really great model.

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Basuroy]

21 hours ago, Shelliecool said:

It looks stonking! I'm just about to finish the profipack version of the La-7 and love the level of weathering you have gone to. Any tips are greatly appreciated! 

Michelle. 

Thanks  , I will jot down the steps followed during painting and weathering -
1.  Painted and masked the NMF panel behind exhaust as well as sprayed the wing roots with the same paint . Masked around the wing roots using salt masking technique .
2. Sprayed the base colours .
3.  I mixed lighter shades of the dark grey and sprayed it inside the panels without following any pattern . 
4. I used oil - mainly white and to a lesser extent , sepia , to further break down the surface uniformity . I did this by applying tiny(really tiny - pinhead size) dots of oil along the leading edge of the wing and then drawing them along the wind flow using a brush . The underside blue was weathered in similar fashion .
5. The small paint chips along panel lines were painted  on using a fine brush . 
6. The exhaust streaks were airbrushed using a mix of black and hull red . I personally feel I overdid the streaks and they are one thing I wish I could tone down . 

[Shelliecool]

1 hour ago, Basuroy said:

Thanks  , I will jot down the steps followed during painting and weathering -
1.  Painted and masked the NMF panel behind exhaust as well as sprayed the wing roots with the same paint . Masked around the wing roots using salt masking technique .
2. Sprayed the base colours .
3.  I mixed lighter shades of the dark grey and sprayed it inside the panels without following any pattern . 
4. I used oil - mainly white and to a lesser extent , sepia , to further break down the surface uniformity . I did this by applying tiny(really tiny - pinhead size) dots of oil along the leading edge of the wing and then drawing them along the wind flow using a brush . The underside blue was weathered in similar fashion .
5. The small paint chips along panel lines were painted  on using a fine brush . 
6. The exhaust streaks were airbrushed using a mix of black and hull red . I personally feel I overdid the streaks and they are one thing I wish I could tone down . 

Thanks that's great.....can I ask about salt masking? Not tried this!

Thanks Michelle. 

[MDriskill]

Very nice! Excellent weathering and well-selected markings. The closely-spaced stripes are a striking touch.

[jeaton01]

Well done.

[Basuroy]

9 hours ago, Shelliecool said:

Thanks that's great.....can I ask about salt masking? Not tried this!

Thanks Michelle. 

Salt masking steps -
1. Spray the paint you wish to expose via chipping - in this case , metal aluminium .
2. Wet the surface slightly . It should NOT be dripping wet , just moist . 
3. Sprinkle table salt over the wet surface - what happens is some of salt get stuck on the surface as hard crystals after getting moistened in a hapazhard pattern that closely mimics paint chipping .
4. Spray the top colour . This should be done at a low pressure to not blow away the salt crystals . Keep in mind that around a third of the salt is blow away during airbrushing so overmask initially . 

The process is very easy but there is one negative - some paints , especially tamiya acrylic , develope a milky complexion near the salt crystals and this looks extremely ugly  .  I however read that on application of clear coat , the milky layer vanishes . I can confirm that was the case with this model . Make sure the paint is dry when it hits the surface ; the milky complexion perhpas happen because a wet layer of paint slightly disolves the salt crystal . 

I will suggest that you refer to this youtube video as well -

 

[stevej60]

Outstanding work

[Roman Schilhart]

Fantastic rendition of this classic Russian airplane, beautiful paintjob and weathering.

The only thing that irritates me is the difference of shade between the red theeth on the nose (decal, I suppose?) and the areas painted red.

That, of course, is just a very tiny irritation ... !

[Basuroy]

3 hours ago, Roman Schilhart said:

Fantastic rendition of this classic Russian airplane, beautiful paintjob and weathering.

The only thing that irritates me is the difference of shade between the red theeth on the nose (decal, I suppose?) and the areas painted red.

That, of course, is just a very tiny irritation ... !

Thanks and yes you are correct , the decals are different shade from the painted nose. I did the mistake of comparing the shades when the decals were on the sheet but on application , I found they went a shade lighter . 

[Learstang]

Brilliant La-7! The weathering looks very convincing, and if you're worried about the engine exhaust stains being too heavy, I wouldn't. The ASh-82 engine put out quite a bit of exhaust. I have one of these in the stash, which I shall return too, perhaps sooner than later seeing what great results can be achieved with the kit (mine won't look anywhere nearly as good as yours, though).

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[Roman Schilhart]

On ‎19‎.‎05‎.‎2017 at 6:56 PM, Basuroy said:

Thanks and yes you are correct , the decals are different shade from the painted nose. I did the mistake of comparing the shades when the decals were on the sheet but on application , I found they went a shade lighter . 

 

I know this problem very well, has happened to me, too!

Top quality build, however.