Tupolev Tu-160 - finished

[Will Vale]

Hi all,

Our local model shop had their birthday sale recently and many of us were there hoovering up bargains. Amongst other things I picked up Trumpeter's 1/144 scale Tu-160 for the equivalent of ten quid. I like Russian stuff but have never attempted to build any of it, although I do have a Forger and a Flanker in the stash.

I had a poke around in the box when I got home, verified that the fuselage halves fit together nicely, and couldn't resist clipping out the wings to see what it looked like. And one thing led to another and it's now halfway done.

I've just finished gluing and clothes-pinning the fuselage, and my camera battery has run out, but I do have some pictures of the interior bits I painted today.

There's a really nice flight deck with maybe 16 parts, which is going to be almost entirely invisible.

The layout is roughly right although I think the seats are a bit underscale. The IP has dials, which I filled in with AK engine oil to get some gloss, though I don't think we'll be able to see it through the windows.

I even painted the dear little crew toilet (and opened the boarding hatch since the plane is going to be on the ground)

The other bits I've done are the insides of the U/C doors, and the faces of the bays. The colours are based on a walkaround of the main gear and main gear bay on scalemodels.ru, although it's a bit hard to piece together so I'm not claiming everything is in the right place.

My read on the insides of the bays is that they're mostly bare metal, with brown and white discolouration on the lower parts and doors, which makes me think maybe aluminium?. There are plenty of painted (avionics?) boxes on one side of each bay though. I sprayed everything with Alclad II Dull Aluminium and oversprayed with both Pale Burnt Metal and a little flat light grey. The details are brush painted with Games Workshop paints, and I used some Cold and Brown MIG washes plus sponged paint to discolour things.

Next job is either the sanding and filling (probably almost none) on the airframe. I also need to detail the slightly soggy nose gear strut, and add some pivots for the tailplane and rudder (which I sawed off already).

So far this is one of the nicest plane kits I've attempted to build. Everything fits! It appears to be reasonably accurate as well, although I haven't checked it against plans or anything...

Cheers,

Will

Edited November 2, 2013 by Will Vale

[Flankerman]

Great progress so far

My build of Trumpeter's 1/72 scale version is here - together with some 'walkround' shots of the real thing - including nose and main wheel bays.

They might be helpful.......(if its not too late ?)

Ken

[stevej60]

This looks very interesting Will,watching closely good start so far!

[Rickpadwick1801]

I love this and will be following it closely....I love Russian hardware...

[Will Vale]

Very helpful, thanks Ken. In fact I'd read it through already but had forgotten that your nosegear pics are some of the most useful I've seen. Thanks for the reminder! I don't think I'll drill out the web on the front leg, but I can add some strip to suggest it a bit better.

I chickened out of painting the intake lips since I want to have it on the ground, which means baggy cloth FOD covers. Huzzah!

I can also use your picture to fill in the plywood (?) panel in the main gear door, which I assume is to protect the skin from the tyre?

Will

[Will Vale]

I had my big filling and sanding session this evening, working my way around the fuselage. Most of it came out quite well, but I had a couple of steps of about a quarter-mil on the fuselage sides below the cockpit, a similar one on one wing leading edge, and two very slightly deeper ones on the rear fuselage and one of the engine nacelles. I've sanded all that back and cleaned up the joints so that I can't feel them, but they'll need primer to see if that actually means "done" or "more work required".

There's quite a big rescribing job waiting on the wing leading edges, and a smaller one on the nacelles and the nose sides, but I think I'll wait until it's primed and I can see what I'm doing properly. Some of the panel lines on the main fuselage were a bit deep anyway, so if I've made them shallower without eliminating them that may be to the good. There are some tricky shapes involved at the wing roots and I may need to buy a curve template to do them properly!

I had to rebuild the tip of the nose from CA - one of the fuselage halves was slightly blunt, and it didn't all line up perfectly there. I added some blobs, set them with accelerant, and trimmed and sanded it to shape being very careful not to damage the raised strakes. I thought it was pretty good until I felt some flats so I did a bit more work to round it off - again, needs primer to confirm. But it is nice and pointy now and hopefully the CA will be a bit more robust than the plastic would have been. Plus I felt like a big boy modeller doing serious stuff

I also test-fitted the undercarriage to see what I need to do there. The main gear locates beautifully with solid accurate tabs, or it would have done if I'd assembled it into the bay as instructed Trying it after the fact, one of the boxes on the outer sidewall fouled the tops of the legs. It turned out to be an easy fix - trim back the side of the leg to the tab (which won't be noticeable) to get clearance for a push fit. I realigned the drag links at the same time since I had them in line with the main bogies and they should be splayed out a few degrees.

The nosegear needs a modification to fit solidly into the bay. It's supposed to be trapped during assembly, but it's so fragile that I didn't dare. The rear brace has a tab which fits nicely into a socket, and the front should be OK to just sit on a plastic block on the inside of the front wall. It would ordinarily be supported by pins but I removed those so I could slide it in at the end of the build.

It has to be said that the model looked very mean sitting on its landing gear temporarily, I'm sorry I don't have any photos but I've put the camera battery on to charge so I can likely remedy that tomorrow.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

Here are the pics - I've done some priming and initial bits of rescribing since then. I stupidly forgot my cunning plan to only use soft putty on the nose now that I had the "bones" right, and removed a small CA blister with more CA. Hopefully it'll come out alright when re-primed.

The bays look nice in their respective spots:

I also took a picture of the main gear, just for kicks because it looks nice. After priming I spotted a couple of seams which need touching up.

I'll see if I can finish off the various scribing jobs and then get the canopy on tonight.

Cheers,

Will

[Tomjw]

This is an impressive piece of work.

Cheers,

Tom

[yardbird78]

Nice start to an interesting model. I am very interested in Russian planes, although I rarely model them.

Darwin

[spruecutter96]

I am really looking forward to seeing this one finished.... Well done on getting it at such a bargain price (wish the model shops I go to would have some Birthday sales!!)

Thanks very much for sharing.

Chris.

[Will Vale]

Thanks folks, and I hope I didn't crow about the bargain too much It'd still be a nice kit for the original sale price I think, lots to like about it.

I did some more work on the nose and had to restore one of the strakes after being so careful not to damage them the first time around. I pared it back a bit further and cut it away to get a square break, then sliced off a tiny strip of 0.25mm styrene and glued this in place. Once dry I sanded it back a bit to try and get the two to match up.

I also installed the canopy with extra-thin and sanded back the fuselage around it to eliminate a small step which would have been visible under the primer. Then I rescribed the easier (straight!) parts of the hatch outlines. In the process of sanding I scratched the port front panel with 180 grit paper, but it sanded + polished out pretty cleanly as you can see:

I'm really pleased with the nose profile, it looks almost spot-on to the real thing. Nice work by Trumpeter.

With the canopy on I had to do the dreaded masking The main panels weren't too hard to mask in-place with a new scalpel blade (a la Mike) but the overhead and rear triangular panels were just too small, so the tape would pull around too much. I ended up cutting some masks off the model, and the results aren't great as you can see. I suspect some clean-up will be needed when they come off.

I'm afraid I gave up trying to fix the scribing around the wing leading edge. Most of what I did with the Tamiya scriber came out well (e.g. around the cockpit) but I have a hard time on the tighter bends. I have one of those moon-shaped etched saws, and sometimes I get it right, sometimes I seem to be out by one kerf from where I should be. I wasn't making things much better by fixing mistakes, so I think I'll live with it. The port wing is pretty good, the starboard wing is a bit of a dog's breakfast.

Anyway, with the masks on I was able to prime the airframe and tail parts. The first coat of primer went on really grainy (I had the pressure too high, I think, so I had paint bouncing back and then being drawn back onto the model by the spray booth?) so I sanded it right back with 1000 grit (and fixed some surface flaws I found in the process) and did it again. Much better this time, it still needs some love with 2000 grit paper once it's cured properly.

The moving tail is all loose at the moment, I didn't spot it had wobbled when I turned the plane around for the second pic

So not a bad day's progress. I need to sand the primer and run some PVA into the crack you can see at the rear of the tail in the second pic, otherwise I think I'm ready for the top coat. I'm not sure at the moment between:

1) Tamiya gloss white from a rattle can (maybe decanted)

2) Tamiya white primer

3) Tamiya gloss white acrylic, either as-is or cut with something to warm it up.

I suspect that I might get good results with 2, which will give me some head-room for highlights, but I remembered there's also an off-white "scale white" rattle can. Hmm. The real things seem to be a mix of white-white with brownish panels (dielectric?) and brown/grey grot, but they're close enough to white to make judging colours from internet pictures somewhat risky.

Cheers,

Will

[Val]

Amazing work so far

[Will Vale]

Thanks!

I've done the work to get the remaining bits primed today - most interestingly I added some simple details to the nose gear leg since the top half was rather bare and squidgy-looking. It doesn't really matter on the rear section which will be hidden by the gear doors, but the front part is very visible.

My additions are a bit rough but they do allow a bit of daylight in the vee at the top (which was solid) and make a better show of the heavy framing. The landing lights (just a blob before) are thin slices of stretched sprue to get the conical section.

Under primer it's a bit untidy, but I've sanded the edges down a bit now and I think that will help.

I also figured out how to fit it in place - I glued short pins of 1mm rod in the sockets in the bay which the leg was supposed to fit into, and filed down the top of the vee until it just sits on the pins. I think that should be enough, hopefully I won't break the diagonal link!

In position it looks pretty cool, I think:

I also went back on my "I'm not going to try and fix the wing" since I realised what I was doing wrong - dymo tape makes a good guide for the scriber but it also works as a rest for the etched saws, so I don't have to do the cuts totally freehand. The result is much better - not primed here but you can see the double-line around the panel clearly and that's much neater than it was.

Also needing scribing were the engine nozzles. They had a seam all the way around about 1/5 of the way up, which is odd since I think they should just be plain cones. I sanded that off earlier but that meant all the petals needed to be separated again at that end:

They aren't all perfect, but I should have enough good bits on each engine that I can hide the other sides underneath

So everything's primed now, tiny bit of sanding to do and then I can paint it.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

I realised I hadn't made good the joint between the front of the fin and the fuselage, so there's some putty drying there now. In the meantime I've sprayed some basic colours on all the fiddly bits. Basically light blue for the gear legs, and rubber black for the wheels and engine interiors.

While I was at it I remembered to mask and spray the wooden-looking panels on the inside of the main gear doors.

Will

[Will Vale]

Having cleaned up the fin I decanted some Tamiya white primer and had a go at the fins. They looked OK, so I did the underside and eventually the entire airframe.

(click for bigger)

Note the blue paper denoting extreme professionalism

I sprayed a moderately tight mottle and then went along all the convex edges - the fuselage spine, wing leading edges etc. hoping to leave a bit of variation in the concave areas. It's more obvious on the bottom:

What I'd like to achieve is something like real life - from the distance you see a big gleaming white plane, and close-up you can see that there's all kinds of subtle variations. Although in real life these are more down to ripples in the skin than paint shades.

The primer went on fairly smooth but I did have a couple of patches of rough "dusting" on the surface. I'm not sure if this is a reaction with the underlying Alclad primer, or dry paint falling back onto the surface. I'm sure it'll sand out fine and I'll need to redo those spots.

Cheers,

Will

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Great job on a truly beautiful (and deadly) aircraft.

[Radleigh]

Such a lovely aircraft! Nicely built too

[Will Vale]

Thanks guys, not got much done over the last couple of days for one reason or another. I found some more images of the tail and I think I've cut the all-moving fin off slightly too high. Probably too difficult to fix (unless I re-attach it and fill all the gaps) but it's going to worry me.

Next job is masking and spraying the grey-painted panels which are apparently a radar-absorbent coating. I downloaded the Begemot decals instruction sheet for some help with exactly what goes where. I'm intending to use the kit decals on this one, but I have bought other things from Begemot so I think this is probably morally OK.

Cheers,

Will

[Flankerman]

Looking great with the white paint on Will

You can see why the Russians call it 'Biyelly Lebed' - ............White Swan......

Ken

[John_W]

Looking great with the white paint on Will

You can see why the Russians call it 'Biyelly Lebed' - ............White Swan......

Ken

Ooh!

Another "Splendid Bird"

[Will Vale]

Thanks chaps, I failed to extract my finger over the long weekend (fine weather meant that RC cars were calling) but I masked and painted the off-white bits last night and am just applying the gloss today. I managed to chip the primer on the nose while masking - not sure how - so I had to fill, sand and repaint a tiny panel. It's not perfect, but better than the dint that was there before.

Currently in between coats of Klear. If I'm lucky I might have time to get the decals on before club night tonight but I sort of doubt it.

Cheers,

Will

[Val]

cracking gloss work, this is already looking spectacular! Russia produced some stunning aircraft!

[Will Vale]

Didn't they just? It's very elegant for such a huge machine, both in the air and on the ground.

I discovered to my horror on Wednesday night that the club competition is this Sunday not next Sunday. Eep! I think I might actually get the Tupolev done in time, but I don't think I'll be able to finish off anything else (I really wanted to get my LCAC and Surcouf tidied up, and I also need to repair the canopy and airdata probe on my F-117, oh well).

Back to the matter at hand, I did various bits of touching up of the varnish - I had a couple of thick spots - and applied the decals today. They went on really nicely after I realised that it would be a good idea to cut the two rows of lettering so it wouldn't have to conform all at once.

On the starboard side I separated the rows entirely (as opposed to leaving a couple of letters together at the front) which allowed me to realign them slightly to better match photos. I was impressed that Trumpeter had different Cyrillic typefaces for Vasily Reshetnikov and Ilya Muromets!

I applied all the suggested stencils to the underside, but left some of them off the upper surface since I haven't seen them in photos.

As you can see there's some overspray to touch up in the UC bays - I don't mind since I was expecting this, and it won't take long. I'd rather have a solid white edge than a perfect interior in any case.

The fiddliest decals were the set of stencils/panels on the tail - are these chaff launchers? Getting them lined up was quite tricky.

The gloss looks really ugly (four coats of Klear now, two under and two over the decals) so I'll be glad once I've got the wash on and I can banish it forever

Oh, and I also painted the wheels. They were sprayed rubber black already, so I had to touch in the hubs with Boltgun Metal. Quite fiddly and there are 3 jeeps' worth (less one spare wheel). The mouldings are crisp so I brushed painted everything and then went back afterwards to touch up the black on the sidewall where necessary.

Washes and weathering next, of both the airframe and the gear.

BTW I hope the photos are OK. My laptop screen is dying (hardware fault) so I can't see the colours properly and am having to trust the histogram instead

Cheers,

Will

[F-32]

Lovely work, it'll be a cracker when finished

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Egads! It's a busy little thing isn't it!