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Showing results for tags 'Mikro 72'.
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Okay, I'm tossing my ushanka into the ring; I'll be attempting to improve and complete the ancient but not completely horrible ZTS Mikro 72 1/72 Yak-1b. This was reboxed more recently by Mastercraft. Here's the box and what it contains: The brown thing is what used to be a tube of glue included in the kit; it's long ago gone dry. The sprues: Here are some parts from the spares box and elsewhere, intended to dress the thing up a bit. I balked at using the Part photoetch set I've got - maybe next time... http://www.postimg.cc/image/6svezk9iz/ Clockwise from top right are: - Rexx Yak-1/Yak-7 (early) metal exhausts - Parts 29 and 30 from the Toko 1/72 LaGG-3 to be used in reshaping the underside of the cowling - Tailplanes from a Dakoplast Yak-7 - the ZTS ones are not correctly shaped. I'd post a scan of a drawing, but I'm still working on how to make my printer speak to my PC. The PC makes advances, but so far the printer won't reply. - Prop and spinner from Toko LaGG-3 - that kit is a great source of spares! - Pavla vacuformed Yak-9 canopy, all trimmed and ready to go. I'm thinking that I might have to cannibalize the landing gear from an Amodel Yak-1; the ZTS parts are pretty crude. We'll see... Now a progress photo: This is intended to show several things, within the limitations of my ability to take useful photos: (1) The fin needs a bit of reshaping at the tip to give it that classic Yakovlev outline. Actually the rudder hinge line slopes very slightly too far forward, but I decided not to correct that, since reshaping the fin makes it less obvious, and I didn't want to attempt reworking it by (for example) stealing a rudder from elsewhere. Although if I do use the Amodel Yak-1 landing gear, I could also use the rudder - hmmm... (2) The stabilizer roots on the ZTS kit are part of the stabilizers, not the fuselage. In order to adapt the more accurate Dakoplast Yak-7 stabilizers, I had to cut the roots away from the ZTS parts and glue them to the fuselage halves. (3) Not really visible here, but I removed the gun breech bulge and gun barrel trough from the right fuselage half. The Yak-1b had only the left-hand machine gun in the cowling decking; the Yak-1 had guns on both left and right sides. The kit was designed to be built as either the "razorback" Yak-1 (using a clear part meant to be glued to the fuselage spine to deepen the fuselage - see the box contents image, above) or as the Yak-1b (subject of the current thread, obviously). (4) Even though the molded exhaust stacks on the fuselage halves are not all that bad, I elected to cut them out in preparation for the Rexx parts. I also added the shrouds above and below the resulting slots with very thin styrene sheet from the packaging of a chocolate Easter bunny! I think that's all for now... John