Starting on the HPH IL-62 1/72

[Alex1978]

While waiting for the first coates of white to dry on my VEB TU-114 for a few days and some other models are on hold due to some ordered but still missing decals,I thought I will start with what will likely to be my biggest build this year.

HPH's IL-62 in 1/72 scale.

And my...this bird IS huge !

And also because the owner of my model shop of choice always asks me if I had already started the kit and if I could bring it to be shown in the shops window...

Parts are made of fiber (Wings) and resin (fuselage,engines,landing gear and other stuff) and all are molded very nicely with lots of detail.

The manufacturer also made a smart move by strengthen the landing gear with some wires.The finished model will be quite heavy and I doubt the resin gear could manage the weight of it alone.

Some preparation is needed before main assambly can begin.You need to cut out the landing gear doors on the fuselage and wings if you want the model to stand on its gear.

The main gear bays are to be installed separately into the wings.

Sawing out these parts is not an easy task and I wasted my modelling saw completely during the process...

You have the option to include the cockpit (a clear part for it is included and also a nice imitation of the cockpit.)As the clear part is not very well done or fitting,I opt for a closed cockpit with window decals.But to instal the front gear bay you need to cut of the cockpit roof anyway.The fuselage halves are already glued together by the manufacturer.

The wings need some metal bars to hold securely on the fuselage and the engines and the tail need some wire to stay in place.Simply glueing the parts together is not an option as they are very heavy.

To make this reinforcements a lot of preparation work is needed,like drilling out the holes for the wing bars and the wires.The place where the drilling is required are made out clearly on the model itself and in the instruction sheet.

The decal set consist mainly of the Airline titels and some bits and parts.The most of the liveries need to be painted on.

And for that reason the manufacturer has included a large masking set.

The kit's airline options are either an Aeroflot or CSA livery.

My livery of choice will be Cubana in old C/S.

I used to see the Cubana IL-62's frequently at the Euro Airport in Basel ,Switzerland, (my home town) in the 90's.They made a weekly service,so you had seen me almost every sunday at the airport waiting for her to arrive.

Here some pics of the kit and of the ongoing progress.

The box...

A look inside...

A cookie provided by the manufacturer.I guess as a "goodie" should the modeller loosing his nerves during the build...

Engines and tail wings...

The not so good clear parts

Fuselage and wings... (I already cut out the cockpit section,just put back for the photo

Some detail shots from the wings and fuselage with the already drilled holes and the metal support inserted and the build in landing gear bays...

The cut out cockpit section to instal the landing gear bay...

The decal and masking set that comes with the kit and the instructions...

And my decal set for the Cubana version by F-Decal...

It seems to be going to be an interesting build as this is also a new experience for me.This is my first multimedia kit,normally I am into the usual plastic molded kits.

So I pray that I will be up to the task that lies ahead and hope that this cookie will be enough during the build...

[Alex1978]

Some recently made progress on the IL-62 has been made.

The fuselage was already glued and filled by the manufacturer.The seams had to be sanded to get a smooth surface.The filler that had been used is very hard and it needed quite some sanding to get it smooth.

After sanding all the areas it was time to give some coates of Tamyia primer to check for some flaws.

Everything looked fine and so the white and grey could be applied on the fuselage and the wings.

A lot of colour was needed to get a nice result.The model is very large,but I managed to get it done

The landing gear as well as the engines are almost completed.The resin landing gear is strengthened by thin copper wire but its very delicate to handle.The resin easily breaks off.I hope it can handle the weight of the model once its completed...

Here are some pics of the current stage of the build...Its not so easy to take some decent pictures because of its size.It almost consumes all of my work bench.

Fuselage and wing connections needed lots of filler to get nice joints.Here after applying the filler...The darker grey line on the center of the fuselage is the filler used by the manufacturer and it goes all around the fuselage.Very tough to sand it smooth.

Here the fuselage after the paint job and treatment with Tamyia compounds to get a shiny surface.

Landing gear,tail fin and engines...The engines are not yet completed.The silver outline on the inlet needs to be painted on as well as some details on the fanblades.

Left engine upper side ,right one lower side

In the next days I will start with the decals after doing some research.

The decal set offers the complete wing rivets pattern but on the instructions its not shown where exactly they should be placed on the wings...

Maybe some of you might have some pictures that shows the pattern on the wings ? I haven't found anything useful yet...

I would be happy if someone could help me on that matter.??

[kev67]

Nice VC10...........LOL, very impressed what you have done, the only thing that puts me off with these kits is, they have no open passenger windows, only decals.

[Alex1978]

Thank you.Its my first multi media kit as well.Never done such a huge airliner before.

As I prefer mostly window decals,its ok for me that no windows are on the kit.If you would use the decals of the kit then you would need to paint the windows on be yourself with the provided masks wich makes it of course a lot more difficult...

[kap64]

Nice work, I've been thinking of getting one of those too.

[Alex1978]

Since last week some more work was done on the IL-62.

The decals were put on...and there some major problems occured.

For some reason the decals do not exactly fit on the model.The window stripes are in fact too short for about 2,5 cm.

When I checked the model kit that was taken as the base for the decals (The Zvezda kit),I figured that its maybe not the decals that are too short...

After careful research I came to the conclusion that the model itself is too long.Nothing wrong with the decals.

Luckily I made a spare copy of the window stripes,so the extensions could be made with cut out sections of them.A little difference in the colour tone,the copies are slightly darker,but I will ignore that part as its not so serious on the model.

There are also some errors in the shape of the HPH kit.The cabin windows look a little low compared to the cockpit windows,but the decals are placed in the correct place.But the stripes are a tad lower than they should actually be compared to the original.I tried to find ways to correct it but if I would have pushed the stripes higher,they wouldn't match anymore and the whole thing would look out of shape.So I decided to let it be.Its not a serious matter when you look at it once all the decals and other parts are on.

After long research on the net I finally found a picture that showed the positions of the rivets pattern on the wings.

I am satisfied on the overall outcome despite the mentioned problems.

The last few days were spent on clear coat the model.I first used flat clear to seal in the decals and hide the decalfilm.After drying for about two days it was time to spray on the gloss clear.After 4 coats it looked good enough.Let it dry another day and then came the hard work.Polishing her up with Tamyia polishing compounds.After 2 hours of polishing and waxing it has a nice shiny surface.

The anti-glare panel will be painted on later,as it should be,of course,flat.

Here the actual stage the IL-62 is in...

Here and there some patching up is needed and then I will focus on the landing gear montage before the tail fin and the engines are going to be put on.

Some more pics of the ongoing process will be uploaded in the next days.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Alex1978

[Alex1978]

The IL-62 is completed.

The landing gear was a tricky thing to get it in the wings and fuselage.

Some corrections were needed to fit the main gear into the gear wells.The front gear door had to be trimmed a little and the opening had to be extended to get the gear in its correct position.

Some of the small resin parts were very brittle and had to be handled very carefully.

The supporting wheel was the most inaccurate part.I had to shorten it for about 1cm so that it would fit and the plane stands on its main gear.

I don't know if that was only an issue on my kit or if thats with all HPH IL-62s.

Also some other inaccuracies are on the main gear and the instructions.The main gear doors should be glued straight on the gear leg according to the instructions but its actually angled outward as it can be seen on photos of the original IL-62.

If you would follow that step in the instructions the door would not fit anyway.

The main assembly is actually pretty straight forward after all the drilling and fitting the metal supports and most of the parts fit well without a lot of filling and sanding.

One thing I wondered was what kind of filler the manufacturer used to fill the seams on the fuselage halves.

The fuselage is already assembled by the manufacturer.

It was so hard and I had to use the most coarse sanding paper I could find to get it as smooth as possible.During the sanding process more than once I came to the idea that he maybe used concrete as filler...

But all the problems aside the HPH IL-62 is very impressive when finished.Its size is amazing.

I did not made any progress pics on final assambly as the parts were already shown in the above updates.

But here are some close ups of the gear after montage and assambly before the final touching up was made.

The finished product can be seen now on the "Ready for inspection" page.

The main gear doors had to be glued on in an outward angle.To hold it in its position I cut out a 0.5cm piece of an unused resin part to create a small strut.Right above the wheel.

The supporting wheel leg had to be shortened by approx. 1cm to fit the length and the top had to be thinned out to fit in the hole.Be very careful there as the gear well may fall into the fuselage if not properly glued in,wich is in fact very tricky to do...lesson learned on that step... Note...the wheels here were taken from a 1/144 Boeing 747 as the original ones were not useable,at least on my kit.

The main doors had to be sanded back a little to fit as well as the opening so that the gear will stand straight and not being angled forward.Just a little dry fit needed.No big issue.

Patching up done,she stands also properly on her gear.Nice n' shiny too.Ready for the photo shoot...

for watching...

Edited March 25, 2015 by Alex1978

[spiton]

Impressive !!!

[Alan P]

What a monster! Amazing uniform shiny finish on such a huge model.

 

I suspect the 'filler' is actually the two-part epoxy HpH recommend to build their resin kits. Did you use CA glue for your build?

 

Anyway, great work on the build, it looks superb (and huge!)

 

Alan