Yakovlev Yak-1b 1/72

[Flying Badger]

Started this over the xmas break:






The kit is a mess!
The sprues aren't all the same plastic and vary in softness (so scribing is going to be fun!), there is more flash than a paparatzi scrum at the oscars, the decals are rather poor and then instructions are terrible!
The instruction sheet looks like it's a photocopy of a photocopy so its hard to tell which bit of the painting guide on the last page is shaded to represent which colour!

I've bought the Authentic Decals set of aftermarket decals to help a bit:


The plan is to build it mostly OOB (although I may do the odd bit of scratch building or detailing).
I plan to do it in the summer scheme to represent Lydia Litvyak's YAK-1 that she was flying during the battle of Stalingrad during the GPW)

I've started by starting to clean the flash from the major parts - there is a lot of warping in some of them.

More as I have it.
TFB

 

Edit:

 

The Mastercraft model arrived:

it's not exactly great - see further below.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Flying Badger

[Roman Schilhart]

Use great caution with Authentic Decals.

I had some serious trouble with decals virtually desintegrating when you try to slip them from the paper.

Maybe, a coat of clear gloss may help to stabilize them.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Roman Schilhart

[Flying Badger]

Thanks for the heads up!

Decaling is a bit of a way of yet but i'll bare it in mind.

[Radleigh]

Subscribing.

[Flying Badger]

OK I made a stupid mistake!

Lydia Litvyak flew the Yak-1 but it was the later variant with the bubble canopy and that variant is unofficially refered to as the Yak-1b

I managed to find a Mastercraft 1:72 Yak-1b (rare as rocking horse S**t!) and its in the post to me now...

So instead of this being a single build I'll do both side by side as a comparison.

I'll post some pics as soon as it arrives.

TFB

[CliffB]

No idea about Mastercraft, but I have some experience of old school Amodel - good luck!

Seriously though, the satisfaction of pulling it all together will be great.

Cheers

Cliff

[John Thompson]

Now you'll see why I keep begging for new kits of VVS aircraft - the Amodel Yak-1 is about as good as it currently gets if you want a 1/72 model of any WWII Yak at all, ignoring the Yak-3, which has been well treated.

Re the Mastercraft Yak-1b, enjoy it and don't be put off by how it looks in the box. It's a quite old kit that originated with ZTS/Mikro72 in Poland and it's pretty simplistic compared to the Amodel Yak-1, but it's the only 1/72 Yak-1b available straight from the box, without doing some kind of kit-bash or reworking the Amodel one. Despite what might sound like negativity on my part, it looks reasonable when finished!

Don't give up - the world needs more builders of 1/72 Russian WWII fighters! Welcome to the club!

John

[John Thompson]

This article might be helpful with the Amodel Yak-1:

http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Modeling/Yakovlev/Yak-1/Amodel/FullBuild/Grinberg/index.php

John

[Flying Badger]

The Mastercraft model has arrived and it's er.... interesting!

 

I thought that the AModel one was a bit poor in the molding department... the Mastercraft is just as bad in some respects and much worse in others!

 

The instructions look very much like Hasegawa ones - with the light blue and black text. They even have a colour conversion chart with which paints to use to match each FS number...... but not all the FS numbers quoted in the drawings are on the conversion chart!

 

The plastic is thick black stuff and the molding is rather basic - some of the parts come out as mere blobs that vaguely represent the parts on the plans (some parts noted on the plans don't seem to appear on the sprues!)

 

Still I'm starting to enjoy scratch building.....

 

I'm going to detail the cockpit myself and perhaps create some PE parts to go in there (the IP and side control panels would be ideal for this. So whilst I design that I thought I'd have a look at the wing assembly:

 

First off on a dry fit I noticed the alerons don't match the lower part of the wing.... I'll be cutting them out and scratch building or PE building those then!

Then I looked in the wheel wells:

 

Oh dear! Clumsy great attachment points for the gear and no detail at all.

So the first job was to remove those.... the plastic is fairly soft so a chisel blade on my scalpel and some sanding soon had them sorted:

 

Then I looked at the AModel Yak-1 kit for how they had done the wheel well details. Now I know I said the AModel wasn't very good but they actually have a great method of creating the depth for the wheel wells:

The piece in the top left of the above shot fits on the right wheel well opening and provides the well walls (a small additional piece fits over the two locating pin holes) and the floor detail is on the underside of the upper wing half.

 

The effect is quite good:

 

So how to copy this for the Mastercraft Yak-1b? I started by creating the aft wall of the wells (easy with plasticard) using the AModel Yak-1 piece as a template:

 

Then I took a piece of thicker plasticard and a lighter, and then crash molded it round the metal handle of a craft knife that was close to the right size. A bit of trimming and bending and I have a suitable curved section (I left the end long to be trimmed down later to fit):

Having glued it all in place I have a reasonable starting point:

 

After a bit of sanding and dry fitting the upper wing, then sanding a bit more etc. I had a fitting wheel well:

 

Having repeated the process for the other well I had a go at the framing detail in the bottom of the wells.

First attempt I pit the two lateral running frames in and then tried to cut the (more numerous) longitudinal frames to fit round them (all out of 0.2mm square section plasticard) but that didn't work all that well and I ended up removing it all and resolving to just make a PE piece to fit...... Having slept on it I realised I was being a muppet and tried again.

This time I CA glued the longitudinal frames in place, then when the glue was set I used the chisel head scalpel blade to cut a small section out of all the frames where the lateral frames needed to go.

The following pic shows the left side done but the right side having been cut but waiting for the lateral frames to be put into place:

 

And with both lateral frames glued into place:

 

A quick brush with liquid poly to ensure it was all glued down and I could mate the two wing halves together:

 

 

mmmmmm! Clamps!

 

Once it was dry I tookit out and then rescribed the major panel lines (before sanding off those terrible raised panel lines!)

More pics when they are ready...

[Flying Badger]

The air intake on the left wing root was non-existent so I scratch built one:

 

Oh and I cut off the ailerons as they were...er... crap!

 

I'm slowly putting together the PE parts - IP, side panels, rudder pedals, intake grills, gear doors etc.

 

More soon

[Josip]

I sincerely admire your courage!

Keep on the good work.

[Flying Badger]

Found a vacform canopy in a set from hannants so that saves me trying to scratch build a mold to DIY vacform.

Also after looking at the wheels and realising that one half of the mold was not perfectly aligned with the other half of the mold when this particular kit was made, means that the wheels look awful - then I found a Ukrainian (Northstar) company that makes a set of resin wheels for Yak1/3 models and these come with tyres and hubs molded seperately - This is a style I love since I really really hate trying to paint tyres without getting paint on the nicely painted hubs (as I'm crap at it).

They were only £4.50 a pop so I ordered 2 sets.

The PE design is going OK. - tempted to do some extra panels in .001" brass (almost foil) and then glue these onto the surface - they are thin enough that you won't be able to tell and they'll allow me to add fine surface detail to the odd panel here and there - its an idea I have been considering for a while so this might be the opportunity to give it a go.

More soon.