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Tupolev TB-3


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How on earth did I manage to miss this build until now?!

What a fantastic looking machine, & some really good modelling going into what looks like a pretty difficult looking kit there Steve!

As Chairman Walrus says, don't rush it, it would be a real shame to spoil her now!

Looking forward to seeing the finished article - whenever that is!

Keef

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Well, didn't get there in the end (guess I'm bound for Sibera now!), despite doing little else this weekend.

A few things badly held me up - the masking took an eternity, fit issues with the wheel bogies took a few more hours and the rigging made me lose all hope.

There's a whopping 20 lines to place and I was trying a new material for the 1st time - 0.1mm wire, which is lovely and thin but horrible to handle. Broke both my ultra-thin drill bits and left a mess of CA blogs all over... but the lines are in, even if not all that tensioned up (I never can achieve a nice straight line).

Luckily it's all at the rear...

Photos are few but I did take some:

tb3mask.jpg

Must have spent an easy few nights just fighting tape & paper...

I wanted a slightly soft edge so used blu-tack, which stuck to everything *but* the model... and it took so long that I had to leave the spraying until the next afternoon... so you guessed it, oily blu tack stains into the paint :angrysoapbox.sml:

They were just random enough that I hope they 'disappear' into the general aged and faded look I'm trying for.

The bogies took a bit of fussing:

tb3bogies.jpg

Not the neatest of joins but this was something that had to be made from pre-painted parts. The wheels aren't ruler straight - that would have meant adding the etch hubs and frames to a precision beyond my ken.

I forgot to test fit these to the struts beforehand... the holes needed widening out a decent amount, that wasn't much fun...

The struts also had issues... test fitting the bogies gave things a horrible flex and creaking...

tb3leg.jpg

Checking ref drawings & photos showed the support to be far too long, the wheels should line up right next to the vertical shocks. Trimming the end as marked there, and reducing down the diameter of the wider section ate up another hour or so...

The props were much easier to handle... these were natural wood so over a neutral brown base I've brushed some water based oils (burnt umber). I've not tried to do wood grain before and I thought I might need to employ all sorts of trickery but no... gentle strokes gave an effect I'm happy with. Not very refined but good enough for 1/72.

tb3prop.jpg

I haven't been able to 'varnish' them yet as they're not quite dry, I forgot to take the long curing of oils into account.

How things stand atm:

tb3sun.jpg

Still to do: decals, weathering, aerials (might have issues here, nothing to drill out the wire holes with now), a bit of tidying to the rigging, finishing the props and adding the bombs and the 5 machine gun stations (with a little gunmetal tickling, they're too fragile for drybrushing).

Phew...

Edited by Stebos
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This is gonna look just tremendous when finished. Well done done on your bloody-minded determination to get you this far!

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After a few more fussy moments (I wiped clear the props and re-did them, I hadn't thought to get the grain direction going the right way) I've fiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiished!

Well actually I finished on wed, but didn't have any daylight for photos until today.

:elephant:

Thanks very much for your comments, they've helped keep me motivated in the darker moments...

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Wow, just seen the final pics in the gallery, what a fantastic job you've done on her :thumbsup::clap2:

Edited by Seamus
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Superb job,Steve! I think that's the first one of those I've seen finished, so kudos for perseverance, and even more

kudos for finishing to that standard!

(Think I'll switch hobbies to Kit Collecting!)

:coat:

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I've only just seen this myself for the first time, and it looks like it's been quite a struggle to get where you are today... looking good though - especially those etched spokes. Not far now ;)

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Just noticed the finished beasty in the gallery. What an absolute stunner, which would have had my vote if it had been in before the deadline. There are loads of other superb builds in this GB, but all things considered yours is the tops!

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