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Tupolev Tu-2S Bat - FINISHED


zebra

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I'm joining in this GB with the Xuntong 1/48 Tupolev Tu-2S. Starting with the traditional open box shot:

Tu-2S about to start

 

I had been on the lookout for one of these for a while - they seemed to have become as rare as the proverbial rocking horse poo for a while, and I saw a couple at exorbitant prices on a certain auction site - but  Luckymodel seems to have recently got it back in stock so I snapped it up, and at quite a reasonable price. 

 

First impression is of quite a nice kit. The plastic is a little thick and some of the panel lines look a little deep, but not too bad. There are decals for 8 aircraft - 3 Soviet aircraft from the Great Patriotic War (seems more appropriate to call it that than WWII for this aircraft), and postwar options for Soviet, Polish, Bulgarian, North Korean and Chinese options. I'll be using the kit decals as there don't seem to be any aftermarket options, but not decided which yet - but leaning towards a postwar option, possibly North Korean.

 

The box lid has a big yellow triangle proclaiming it to be a 'modified version'. Looking at reviews from when it was first released, I think it's been retooled. Two faults in the original release were a curved nose profile where it should be straight, and unrealistic fabric texture on the tailplanes and rudders, which looked like deep gouges in photos. The nose profile seems to have been fixed, and the fabric texture is nothing like as bad as I've seen in earlier sprue photos. So the two things I was planning on fixing have been fixed already!

 

Sadly they didn't take the opportunity to translate the instructions into English - everything is in Chinese - but I think I can work everything out. There are a few different options - different canopies and a choice of three or four bladed props for example - and the instructions don't say anything about which go with which version (in English anyway) but I think I can work out which to use.

 

I'm not going to use a lot of aftermarket, but have ordered some resin wheels and props and Eduard masks.

 

Cracking on with it this afternoon - starting by preparing and airbrushing all the parts that will be in the interior colour. More photos later.

Edited by zebra
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This is cool, I didn't know about modified moulds. I have all the three boxings of this kit but in the original version... Other than the two areas you mentioned, one thing that might need a bit of TLC is the wheel wells as they're really bare, and the wheel themselves (the tyre protrudes from the rim). Both issues are fixable with some work, also some more or less scarce resin set exists somewhere.

On the whole it's a nice model. Take your time snipping the engine parts and exhaust collectors from the sprues, they're really fragile. A 4.5V hot wire foamcutter might do the trick.

Edited by Bonehammer
Bloody autocorrect
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Thanks for the advice Bonehammer. I think I'm going to leave the wheel wells as is - I have a bit more time than usual this weekend, but I don't think I'll have time to do much detailing on this if I'm going to finish by the end of the GB.

 

I've ordered some resin wheels - I saw the resin nacelles online, then saw the price and decided I could live without them!

 

Yes getting the engine parts off the sprues will be tricky. There are quite a few small parts in this kit that are like that. And lots of very small parts - I battled with the left side control console yesterday, with separate parts for every lever - got it done but it was slow going. And the bombs - not sure I've ever seen an injection moulded bomb with 13 parts before!

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This looks like an interesting build! Although 1/48th scale is not my forte, I've seriously thought about buying this kit, as the Tu-2 featured WARNING: SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION! in a book I wrote, called Tupolev Tu-2: The Forgotten Medium Bomber. If you have any questions about the aeroplane, just let me know.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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10 hours ago, Learstang said:

This looks like an interesting build! Although 1/48th scale is not my forte, I've seriously thought about buying this kit, as the Tu-2 featured WARNING: SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION! in a book I wrote, called Tupolev Tu-2: The Forgotten Medium Bomber. If you have any questions about the aeroplane, just let me know.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

I bought your book the other day - it's an interesting read.

 

Forgotten is a good word for the Tu-2. All too often we seem to focus - naturally enough - on the US/British/Commonwealth perspective of WWII, not so much on the Soviet side of things, despite their huge contribution to the outcome of the war. So the contribution of aircraft such as the Tu-2 tends to be overlooked, which is also reflected in its (lack of) popularity as a modelling subject. 

 

 

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It is unfortunate. The Tu-2 was an excellent aeroplane, and in its later form as good as anything put out by any side during the war. I think of it as the Soviet equivalent to the B-26/A-26 Invader in terms of general ability and longevity (the Chinese may not have retired their last Tu-2 until the 1980s). With my books I'm trying to correct this dearth of information in English on Soviet subjects because of their huge contribution to the war in Europe. Thank you very much for buying my book; I do hope it helps you in your build!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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So far I've got the fuselage together and started work on other subassemblies. It's been fairly slow going but that's due to outside factors, not the kit. 

 

There are a lot of very fiddly, very delicate parts in this kit, some of which have turned out to be difficult to get off the sprues in one piece. There have only been a couple of casualties so far though. For all the delicate parts, it's not a particularly detailed kit - there are a lot of places where it's crying out for more detail - but I'm not going to add any, as I don't have a lot of free time at the moment - this is going to be a more or less out of the box build.

 

So far I've had no real fit problems - everything fits fairly well although a little filler was needed on a few seams. There are a couple of access panels where the gap between the part and the fuselage was bigger than I'd have liked - I've used a bit of Mr Surfacer 500 to deal with that. It reminds me a lot of my experience of the Bobcat (i.e. Xuntong by another name) Yak-28 - a nice kit, but not quite as detailed as it could have been, and with some minor fit problems like these panels.

 

One dilemma has been how to deal with the guns and clear parts - I had been thinking about leaving the clear parts off until painting is complete, which would make dealing with the guns easier. It turns out the hole in the rear of the main canopy for the gun to go through isn't big enough, and the canopy will need a bit of blending in to the fuselage so fitting it after painting won't work, so the obvious answer is to cut the gun barrel off, fit the canopy, and put the gun barrel on after painting. The decision was made for me when the gun barrel snapped off whilst I was removing it from the sprue. So fitting some clear parts will be the next job.

 

Here's how it's looking tonight:

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

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2 hours ago, Davek72 said:

Looking very tidy so far Zebra.

 

Dave

Thanks Dave!

 

A bit more progress this weekend, although the main focus today has been on the BAe 146 I'm building in the Made In Britain GB so the Tu-2 hasn't moved on all that quickly. Some of the clear parts are on  - these are pretty nice and fit well. The tailplane is on - not a perfect fit, but not too bad - and I've assembled the nacelles and started on the wings. Going to have to tackle the engines next - these will take a while, there are something like 20 or so parts in each engine. 

 

Here's how it's looking tonight:

Tu-2 WIP

 

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Nice work on the Tu-2, zebra! I should have bought this kit - it would have helped me in building my 1/72nd scale Hobby Boss Tu-2. I basically had to build up the entire interior on that kit (it's an Easy Build kit, so cockpit detail is the main casualty of the "Easy' part). It's actually a nice kit in terms of the dimensions, fit, and moulding, but the interior is almost non-existent. The interior on your kit looks good!

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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No photos to post this week, there's been a little progress but not that much. Wings are assembled - this needed a little fettling. There are three main components to the underside of each wing - an inner wing part, the nacelle assembly, and the outer wing - each of them seem to be slightly too wide so the whole thing exceeds the span of the upper wing part. So a bit of plastic had to be removed to get the whole thing to align. Not a big deal. I've also made a start on the engines - not going to go overboard here as there won't be an awful lot that will be visible behind the large spinner on the prop. 

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Engines are assembled, painted and installed. I really needn't have bothered painting them as nothing will be visible, but this is the Radial Engines Rock GB so I couldn't leave them unpainted. But didn't go overboard.

 

So here's the first and last photo with the engines visible:

Tu-2 WIP

 

I've now got the cowlings on and started masking. The cowlings didn't fit around the engines - I had to remove some material from the engines with a sanding stick to get them on. I'm using Eduard masks - well worth the money, masking the clear parts would drive me mad otherwise. Should get some primer on this week, then I'm really going to have to decide which colour scheme I'm doing - I think it's going to be a postwar Polish aircraft.

 

Here's how it's looking tonight:

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

 

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A week of ups and downs - outside modelling, been off work with a virus for a couple of days, but finished masking, got it primed, pre-shaded and sprayed the blue on the underside. Should get the top painted tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile, feeling a bit worn out from the ongoing illness, I thought I'd just get one more thing done before packing it in for the day, so got the Quickboost props and spinners out to spray some primer on them. One of the spinners promptly decided to sacrifice itself to the carpet monster. After much searching I found I was standing on it (but it wasn't damaged). Picked it up, promptly dropped it in the bin. Put it down in the spray booth, promptly knocked it into the bin again, but it went deeper this time - had to empty the whole bin to find it. Sometimes you just need to call it a day...

 

Hopefully things will go more smoothly tomorrow!

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Public holiday today (the day-before-the-football-final public holiday!) so more modelling time than I'd usually get on a Friday. Decals on (didn't take long, there were only 8), Flory dark wash, matt coat and masks off. Getting there, on to the fiddly bits next - undercarriage, props, guns, radio aerials - I have a week off work next week so hopefully will get it done within the week.

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

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Now with wheels - in this case, resin ones from Armory. They're much nicer than the ones in the kit, but I had to drill out the locating holes as they were much smaller than the lugs on the kit undercarriage. Which isn't a problem, but if you're making resin wheels for the only kit of the type, wouldn't you make them to fit that kit? Still, they're on, and that's pretty much the definition of a first world problem!

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

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More progress - doesn't look like much, but lots of fiddly bits done. Two of the three guns are on, and the assembly for the third is built and painted. Quickboost props assembled (an improvement on the kit parts - the kit props look too wide) - these will go on last - and the bombs have been assembled and painted. Might get it finished tomorrow. 

 

Tu-2 WIP

 

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