nasosrr

The Eduard reboxing addresses many of the KP-issues. I've downloaded the instructions from eduard and have seen that they offer many PE parts that replace the rougher plastic bits of the kit, adding plenty of fine detail. But I thought that Edward's kit was a bit too expensive for me at this particular moment, so I went for the cheaper KP instead. I might give Eduard a try next year. For the time being I've bought all the models and accessories that my budget justifies for 2020. I hope I'll be able to get some bench time tonight and prime the cockpit, so that I can show some progress before my holidays. Thank you all for your interest in my build.

Welcome back to the hobby and what a comeback you're making here!!! Your thoroughness is remarkable, I wish I had your patience and obviously the skill you have in your hands. You've done a brilliant job so far. P-47 is a favourite machine for me, so I'll be following this build if you don't mind.

Thank you so much. It's a build that will challenge my patience. Not difficult or very demanding, but needs patience to get it right. And lower expectations, compared to what one has with a tamiya kit. I'm enjoying it so far, we'll see how it turns out in the end.

Good evening. I am starting a new thread to present my latest build. It's a Su-25K in 1/48th from Kovozávody Prostějov. There is going to be a blog post about that very build on my blog, which means that most of the text and photos in this thread will be the same as in the blog. Any discussions, questions and answers will obviously only be available here, I will not copy them to the blog. Usually before I buy a kit, I look for reviews and builds online, to get an idea about what I should be expecting. This time, however, I wasn't able to find much information about this particular kit, so I decided to do a build review instead of just a build. So, the kit is this one (click on the image to go to Scalemates where they present the kit) It comprises 5 sprues in grey plastic with decent surface detail on the wings and fuselage, one tree with clear parts, a fret of photo-etched metal and decals. At the moment I have no clue about how the several parts go together, we’ll figure that out further down the way. Right now I can only say that the smaller parts (ejection seat, cockpit tub etc) aren’t very rich in detail. I apologise by the way for posting pictures of some parts already off their sprues, but I decided to write this review only after I began building the kit. I recon that the instructions leaflet isn't very widely available on the net, which is why I scanned it. You can download it here: KPM4805_Su-25K_Frogfoot. The construction begins with the seat. KP’s representation of the NPP Zvezda K-36 ejection seat is very… conceptual, to say the least. Sure, they’ve made an effort, including photo-etched parts, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. At first I thought about giving it a shot but my patience is limited, so I opted for a resin replacement instead. Leaving it aside, I moved on to the cockpit itself. It is built up by a total of 10 parts (if I count correctly): One for the floor, one for the back, two for the side consoles and the floor walls, two for the insides of the fuselage walls with some switches and other controls, the main instrument panel in PE, the stick column and the pedals. Quite an impressive break-down of parts, in theory. In practice, very few parts fit well together and to make matters worse, the shape of the parts differs a lot between the drawing and the actual plastic. The floor has etched outlines marking where the seat and the cockpit walls should go. If you glue these carefully, they almost match the outlines. Then you’d assume that the back panel would be a simple fit. But you’d be mistaken. There’s a slope on the right side that almost follows the same angle as the back should have. But the left side is totally perpendicular to the floor, leaving a trapezoid gap between itself, the floor and the back. Now, I haven’t exactly checked my references on Su-25 (I have none), but I am guessing that it shouldn’t look like this. Then again, it can be so in the real plane as well. Might be an opening for the cat to go out and play, for example, just like some suburban houses have small openings at the lower panel of the backdoor to the garden. What do I know? But this kit’s irony doesn’t end there. Try to glue the instrument side walls and you’ll notice that there is only one way to do it: Glue them on the detail of the side consoles. And if that isn’t enough, the right wall doesn’t even fit. Not even close. So, at this point I simply gave up and ordered a resin cockpit. This is why I wrote that I thought that the kit was inexpensive. But if you add the cost for the aftermarket parts, which in a way are necessary, if you want to build a decent model, then the price tab is a bit higher. But it still costs less than ⅓ of a Tamiya F-14 in same scale. While waiting for the resin parts, I decide to tackle the rest of the steps that I could, without closing the fuselage halves. There’s still a lot of work to do, most of which is preparations, since the parts comprising the model are few. But all of them require careful removing from the sprue trees, cleaning and filing and at times removing the flash. I joined the wing halves, vertical stabiliser, nose gear strut (yes, it comes also in two parts, unknown why) and prepared the fuselage halves and the engine pods. A dry fit shows that the parts go together quite well. It’s true though that the recessed panel lines don’t exactly align when the fuselage halves come together. And that can be a pain to fix. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I also prepared the main landing gear. Filling and sanding was required there too. Each strut of the main gear consists of 6 parts and gluing them together is a really exciting challenge, because there are no location guides whatsoever and the instructions are a bit… liberal, to say the least. I did my best there, we’ll see how it will go when it’s time to glue them in place. The landing gear was painted in Tamiya XF-19 Sky grey, which is most probably the wrong colour, but I couldn’t be bothered more. In the meantime I was also working on the “engines”, which consist of 5 parts each. There’s not much to be said here really, apart from the fact that the green paint (Tamiya XF-58 Olive green) which I used for the cones is also wrong. It’s the same colour that I used to paint the wheel rims. I also decided to add a bit of detail on the landing gear bay doors. This didn't exactly turned out the way I had hoped it would, but who cares, really? :) In the mean time, the resin parts arrived: It was a complete cockpit set from Pavla Models (PAVC48002) and the control column and pedals from QuickBoost (QB48722) Because Pavla's is totally horrible, worse than the kit's. Generally I have to say that Pavla's set left me with a mixed impression. The cockpit back is clearly much better than the kit's but the side consoles and the cockpit walls aren't really better. I decided to use the kit's cockpit walls and photo-etched instrument panel and everything else from Pavla. Last but not least, the armament. KP's weapons aren't very elegant in their representation. But I had kept the weapon sprues from KittyHawk's Su-17 and I think I will use them instead: This is it for tonight. Thank you all for your interest. I will try to continue posting detailed (and possibly boring) messages here, to make a thorough presentation. I hope I won't bore you too much. Until the next post, take care of yourselves!

Wow, simply wow. I can't believe I didn't see this build sooner. Brilliant modelling and great presentation. Keep up the fantastic work that you do, I look forward to seeing it complete. Nasos

A lovely bird you have there Christer. And your work looks clean and methodical. I'm pulling up a chair and following this one, if you don't mind.

Can't believe I had missed that one, for almost a month and a half! Fantastic work Werner!!! I've commended you before, during the WIP, but another positive comment is in order, just because I know how much work you've put into this one! She turned out to be very beautiful and I'm sure she's worth every minute of work you put on her!!! Simply SU-PER-B!!!

One step before the finish line. As I wrote before, Aires' seats were a bit too HUGE to fit in the cockpit tube. I literally had to butcher them. If we trust Tamiya to have scaled down the model properly, then I'd say Aires' seats are closer to 1/45 than 1/48. But they did fit in the end and they look quite nice. Next post about this model will be in the Ready for Inspection section of the forum. Thank you all.

Greetings to everyone. Now that I am two helmets away from finishing with the Tomcat, I've started thinking of something a bit more ambitious, which will keep me busy for a while, but will be completed, or at least attempted, in stages. My (way too) ambitious idea is to build as many as I can of the DAAFAR (Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Force) aircraft in 1/48. Note here that this "as many as I can" can also mean just one... We will see. At the moment I am flirting with the idea of beginning with a Mig-17F Fresco C. I have found this decal sheet at Hannants, which covers this subject just nicely. But given the range of the a/c that it covers (just one), compared to the number that I am hoping to being able to build (at least 4 or 5, maybe more if I build a couple of helicopters too), it looks like a waste of money. This set, however, is much better, because it includes 4 different aircraft. The problem is that I can't seem to find it anywhere. I've looked at e-bay, hannants, aztec and luckymodel. Nada. Nothing. Only part 2 is available, part one is sold out. I've written to Aztec and asked if they are going to re-issue it. Would you happen to know any place where I can buy it from, preferably from Europe somewhere? And then there's another question. According to this website, Cuban Mig-17s were AS and F. Would you say that this kit is a good choice? Thank you very much in advance for your help. It's much appreciated.

My first Persian cat is completed. Except for one little detail. Anyhow, this is just a teaser. I will take better pictures tomorrow, under daylight, and post a RIF. A very big THANK YOU to each and everyone of you who contributed with your comments and knowledge to this build. I'll try to mention you all in the RFI-post. For now, good night.

@bushande Good evening Alex. Wow, I don't know what to say!!! This is by far the most comprehensive answer I've ever gotten on a forum. And believe me, I've asked a lot of things!!! I really can't thank you enough! I should probably dedicate this build to you, simply because of all the info you just gave me! Surely my response to your answer can't do it justice, but unless I wasn't worried that I'd be banned from the forum for being annoying, I'd thank you like a 150 times! I'd thank you for your encouraging words, for the valuable information and for the wonderful photos, which, once again, make me extremely jealous!!! I can tell you one thing: The more I look at your photos, the more I want to build another Iranian cat, in this camo scheme. I have Tamiya's -D in my stash, but I am seriously considering finding someone here in the region to exchange it for the -A, buy a set of decals and build it. They would certainly be great together on the shelf, much better than an American and an Iranian would. Thank you sincerely, once again. I am very grateful to you for your contribution to this build and to my future plans! I'll go to the bench now and continue the build, so that you have something to look at next time you log in. Have a nice evening! Kind regards, Nasos

Good evening, dear Sirs. I hope everything is great and that you're having a lovely Friday night. I was planning on showing you the model when it was ready, but since I f......ed up again, I thought I should probably share this with you. So, I was looking at some YouTube films earlier today and got inspired by a really nice build of another Tomcat and thought.... well, why not? I can surely try this. Haha. That should certainly count as "famous last words"... It all started like this: Promising, no? Then it turned out that the lead on my pencil was way too soft (4B). But that wasn't the worst thing that happened tonight. Don't ask me how, because I still don't know what happened, but I actually managed to drop the model from my desk. Yes, that's right. I'm THAT clumsy!!! I dropped the model!!! I obviously panicked! There's nothing more I can do about the vertical stabiliser, it will remain like this, to remind me how STUPID I can be sometimes. But the little nozzle at the back (I think it's used to empty the fuel in case of emergency? ) was something that I actually could fix. So I took the dremel and cleared the damaged area: and using an ear-bud, I replaced the nozzle: It's a bit longer than it should be, but it will have to do. And this is what the model looks like now: I've also painted some missiles: And I am waiting for the two Sidewinders, they are travelling from England right now (the Meng-set). Once again, thank you all for looking. Take care of yourselves, keep yourselves and your families safe and healthy and your models steady on your desks. /Nasos

Wow, this is amazing. I'm so jealous. I find, by the way, that this camo fits the tomcat amazingly. I might build another one. I should probably try to exchange my D with a new A and paint it in this scheme. Yeap. I was planning on doing some research on the topic, I know there are some Swedish sites with very much information (maybe too much for me, I rarely have the patience to read through everything). I did a bit of googling before I placed the order and I found this page: https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder I'm linking the Swedish version because there is some info specifically about the use of the missile in Sweden. So, according to this: The Draken used only the Rb24B and J, which correspond to Bravo and Pappa-3, with the only difference between the P-3 and the Rb24J is that the latter's proximity fuze was developed in Sweden. But the Draken was also equipped with the AIM-4 Falcon, which also exists in Meng's kit. So, I'm going to have a party with lots of colourful missiles. Now, regarding the Fitter... it ended up in the trash. Not one of my proudest moments, I had used a stupid gloss varnish that refused to cure and when I touched it 2 or 3 days after I sprayed it and it was still sticky, I grabbed a hammer and smashed it into pieces. A few days later I opened the box and realised that the varnish actually had cured. But it was already too late, obviously. Like I said, not one of my proudest moments... I might buy the kit again and rebuild it some day... I hope you don't judge me from this incident. I usually have better control over my temper.

Cheers mate, you absolutely, totally don't need to apologise for something like that. It's not like you're required to answer to me. I appreciate that you take time to reply, no matter how fast. I went for the Meng set. AFV's F-1 is insanely expensive and Hasegawa's weapons set is.... well, it's Hasegawa, and I'm not doing them the favour of purchasing their weapon sets, considering that they never offer ordnance in their kits. For me this is disrespectful towards their customers. Meng's set will suit me perfectly, because I can use some of the other weapons to arm two SAAB J35 Draken that I have (one is built and the other is in its box). Here's a teaser: And because I'm a sucker, I ordered a Su-25 as well. Thanks again for all your answers.

Thanks mate. That clears things up a lot. Cool photo by the way. Have you seen these birds up close? @exdraken I found out that Meng has issued a weapons set (SPS-043) which includes 4 AIM-9Ps. Costs 20 £ though, so I'll think about it a bit more. I guess it can be helpful for my SAAB Draken as well, since this is also missing 2 missiles. We'll see. Thanks again for the info.