Three Lagg 3 1/72: Roden, Eastern Express, Emhar. White distemper. 3 GiAP Winter '42 Lake Ladoga.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The Roden Blitzes are great kits and the box art is just surreal.....The tracks in their Maultier variants are just a little short and can cause real problems with the fragile suspension. If you contact Roden they will send you an extra track length free of charge.

Roden Maultier.....The great railway in the sky!

[TonyTiger66]

Is this the White 64 you're needing decals for?

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/lagg3/3gviap/3gviap64.html

Offhand I don't know of any decals for it or with that particular style/size of numerals; I was hopeful that the Authentic Decals LaGG-3 sheet (now out of print) would include it, but it doesn't!

John

Hi John, many thanks for looking I had a closer look at that Authentic Decals sheet and it does have the very characterful numbers for one of these three planes: Red 59. I've been Googling but nowhere seems to have it.

I think I'll try printing my own decals; a first for me! For the white one I guess I'll have to try to print a faint outline matching the ( mainly black) of the aircraft on white decal paper.

Otherwise I had thought of making my own mask from Tamiya tape. All good fun really

Best regards

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

The Roden Blitzes are great kits and the box art is just surreal.....The tracks in their Maultier variants are just a little short and can cause real problems with the fragile suspension. If you contact Roden they will send you an extra track length free of charge.

Roden Maultier.....The great railway in the sky!

It's good to know they're good kits Sarge. I'll definitely get one or three ordered

The Maultier box art looks like a 1970's heavy rock album cover! It really is something else! Their artist is superb, I think that day he must have been smoking teabags !

Best regards

Tony

[Sgt.Squarehead]

If you ever want to scope out the potential of a Braille kit, the Henk of Holland site is always a good place to start and you can often find more detail (often including fixes for potential pitfalls) here: http://www.onthewaymodels.com/

[TonyTiger66]

If you ever want to scope out the potential of a Braille kit, the Henk of Holland site is always a good place to start and you can often find more detail (often including fixes for potential pitfalls) here: http://www.onthewaymodels.com/

Thanks Sarge; its a thoroughly absorbing website. The way I feel about vehicles (it may change) is that they (and aircraft) are far better in a diorama or vignette. I know it's not always practical for reasons of space; but when we can combine vehicles with e.g. ships or aircraft, that's when the really stunning stuff happens. Flying boats are great because they can be in a busy port

Thanks for pointing me towards some really great websites sarge, has made this year look a lot more interesting!

Righto fellow modellers, in my next post; time to build some LaGGs!

[TonyTiger66]

Well it's time, after the diversion into vehicle land via Roden, the subject of 'Columbine' aka white 64.

The last time I wrote I had just received the Eastern Express Type 35 kit. Lets have a look at that rather splendid box art again:



The art shows one of the versions possible from the decal sheet, but neither the box nor instructions give ant further information on the origins/history of this aircraft. It is quite like a subtle Eastern European puzzle, but if one wonders about the other decals - a tiny picture on the side of the box lid provides at least a partial answer!



I apologise for the blurred photograph. I wasn't using my usual camera (it was still covered in gloop) and I didn't really know how to use my wife's camera at this stage, although I soon caught hold of the differences. Both are tiny Panasonic cameras. Mine is a 14 MPxl Lumix DMC-FP3. It was a very good little camera in its day and it seems the smartphone manufacturers have only recently caught up. My wife's is a Panasonic DMC-FH4. What we both like about these is that they have Leica lenses, connect seamlessly to both PC and Mac and (with me as the exception ) are pretty foolproof. I must add I don't work for Panasonic!! My previous digital camera was a Kodak and given that I bought it on the year 2000, it was quite an amazing little device - it met all my needs until 2012.

I hope its ok to share experiences of cameras here on BM, after all, it's a very important aspect of what we do, especially if we enjoy contributing. I'm no photographer, but a helpful little camera makes life much easier. I do have an iPhone 6, but I'm afraid last year I dropped it in a bowl of salad dressing and the Proximity sensor suffered; now it doesn't know near from far. The display screen at the back is also somewhat psychedelic, but next month I will finally pay the $168 to have it repaired Probably just in time for the iPhone 7 to be issued!

Back to the Eastern Express Lagg 3 Type 35.

Here is the main sprue, decal sheet and transparency sprue:



It is all ver y neat and well organised. I like how the canopy is separated into the natural components; small car view windows, main canopy and wind screen. This would enable the model to be created (if the main canopy transparency is this enough) exactly like the main box art; with the main canopy slid open. I have purchased an after market Vac-Form canopy by Rob Taurus, of which more later - looking at these transparencies I'm not sure how much I need them now?

It is possible to see that there is slight flash around the rear horizontal stabilisers, individual propeller blades and undercarriage pneumatic components. There is also a substantial moulding tab on the air intake (bottom left). None of this is difficult to deal with. In all honesty, a personal niggle for me (I don't know why) was the 'cut' in the seat back. It was something I found a little tricky to rectify, but again, it's nothing. That's more to do with my lack of modelling skills and need to learn more techniques. In retrospect I think thick CA and talc would be an extremely easy fix

Overall this is a very nicely moulded kit with pleasant plastic texture and very clearly defined detail. I like it, a lot!

Here is the second sprue. I know now this is quite an old mould; yet it is in rather superb condition. Only a little light flash around the fuselage. Notable and easy to miss is the very prominent sink mark in the centre of the one piece lower wing. This is eminently easy to deal with. Worthy of note are the very helpful locating tabs for the horizontal stabiliser, no need for a cowling to join (it is a dedicated Type 35), no need for a water cooler outlet join, it is integral. Simply lovely mouldings.



It is interesting to compare the Roden transparencies (upper) and Eastern Express (lower:



I'm not going to criticise the Roden for not having a separate main canopy because I actually feel their main cockpit transparencies are more detailed and nicely framed than the Eastern Express. The Frog is extremely basic - I apologise for not having a photograph here, but one will follow later. I have purchased a Falcon Crystal Clear (they really are) vac-form canopy (In a supremely reasonably priced set of soviet canopies) for the Frog kit.

I do not mind individual propeller blades, due to a tool I will show later. I have commented on the very minor flash - here it is, it can be cleaned up with a few careful passes of a medium to fine sanding stick:



Here is the 'slot' in the side of the seat back that (irrationally) frustrated me a little:



Not 100% accurate, and not as detailed as the Roden kit, but extremely good all the same (there is none at all on the Frog kit): here is the cockpit sidewall detail. It's enough for 1/72 and saves us time and not much need for after market (it is available from PART) unless the canopy will be off or open and one is going for competition standard.



Very concise but sufficient instruction sheet. I was quite disappointed by the fact that there is no overall aircraft camouflage painting guide at all:



I am left to the very comprehensive Roden instruction sheet to obtain this. I must say that although this Eastern Express kit looks like (and proves to be) a much easier build, already I was starting to see that, for all the extra work involved, the Roden kit is in all honesty, a little superior.

Others may disagree, but it simply looks more 'real', has had some real thought put into how to get all the myriad versions out of one tooling. In that respect both kits are the products of second world economies trying to satisfy home and overseas demand.

Both have tried in different ways. The Frog has tried in a completely different way; cheap, cheerful, generic and fast to build. What is wrong with that for the majority of modellers? As long as it looks like a LaGG 3 on the shelf and builds nicely - its fun. As we'll see later, the Frog certainly beats the others into submission in those terms.

The wheels in the Eastern Express kit are separated into two halves. I build Special Hobby kits and I'm used to this (Airfix used to be culprits too) . I wish they were one piece. Regardless of this they are very nice wheels. Aftermarket are available from SteelWorks in Germany and I have some on there way; I feel they will be used for the Frog kit as although not 100% accurate, I like the Roden ones too.

Here is comparison of the Eastern Express (upper) and Roden (lower) lower main wing component. I don't yet have detailed plans. It is surely a matter of personal opinion as to which one prefers. Certainly the ailerons have slightly more exaggerated fabric detail on the Roden model. Why therefore, doI feel the detailing, even the (complete pig to fit) wheel wells on the Roden look superior? I don't know. It is almost as if the Dako/Eastern Express is an equivalent 'Airfix', with all the good things that go with that, to a Roden/Toko an 'older Eduard' with everything that used to go with that!



I've just noticed that this update is quite long. I'm just about show some construction so this seems a natural point for a little break. Back soon.
Thanks for reading
Best regards
Tony

Edited for spelling and to insert missing photograph. And again for missing instruction sheet photograph.

[TonyTiger66]

I do not unfortunately have a picture of the Roden kit cockpit interior sidewall detail prior to painting. I sprayed it with Vallejo Air RLM 01 Silber/Silver.

I actually sprayed all fuselage sidewalls of all three kits up to the i/p fore and seat back aft with this colour. All the references I have seen so far seem to suggest this as a very distinct possibility - not an RLM colour of course, but it seems hand brushed silver lacquer. It also seems grey or blue-grey may have been the colour aft of the seat back. The sanding dust is post - painting, so blew away after I saw it so clearly in this macro shot!

Please note that the Frog kit (lower) has absolutely no sidewall detail. Later I will show how I tried to rectify this a little. By the time this photograph was taken I have used a fine brush and Tamiya NATO black (acrylic) to add a little detail to the Roden sidewall. I have also painted the sidewall aft of the seat back location light blue grey (Lifecolor French Bluegrey UA 141/FS 36473).

A key to accurate (well, fairly) alignment of this whole Roden kit is, rather surprisingly, the wheel wells. I feel the original Toko engineer looked at plans and calculated everything correctly if surfaces were scale thickness, but unfortunately they aren't. Therefore, the wheel wells are a lovely shape and profile, but way too thick to fit where needed due to the also relative over-scale thickness of the wing skins. A dry fir of the upper to lower wings illustrates just how impossible it would be to fit the wheel well 'as-is' into this area:

May I just interject this stage and show what happens of one half of a Frog fuselage is joined to an Eastern Express half? Why not, it's fun!

Note the rudders are aligned. From there on, rather different, no?

Back to the Roden wheel wells. I filed down the upper wing with a semi round Tamiya file:

Giving this result - and I had to subsequently actually take more off:

The further filing was to the area extremely close to the leading edge by the wing root. I found it needed to be filed almost to a transparent finish. It is very important not just to think about top wing half fit here, but to dry fit the fuselage halves:

I again am sorry about the blurred photo, but I think it is clear that at the wing root the fuselage half is very high. It is because of the thickness of the wheel well cap. Both the fuselage bottom side and wheel well top have to be filed down.

Photo bucket simply will not show my pictures to me. Grrr. I am going to log off and try to come back via another browser (Opera) and see if it improves things

Hope to be back soon.

Thanks for reading

Tony

Edited for auto correct errors.

[TonyTiger66]

Righto, I'm back via the Opera browser. Chrome was driving me nuts. Nevertheless Opera has given me a little more informtion. It seems when simply transitioning from a library of photographs to a single photograph, then maybe back again, it is not three 'clicks' in reality. Photobucket put the whole manoeuvre through a number of third party advertising/analytics people, and that slows it splendidly in Chrome (well, for me anyway). I must work out if I can share photographs directly from my icloud account - that is free, has no ads and is seamless. Meanwhile CedB recommended Flikr - so I'll give that a try. Any other suggestions most welcome.

Back to the important bit: modelling. Here are the three different kit fuselage halves shown together for comparison. As you can see I have airbrushed the Eastern Express and Roden kits with Vallejo Silver RLM 01. Soon we will see why I held off for the Frog/Emhar kit. The Roden has also been detailed with a 5/0 brush and red and blue paint, it is just impressionistic, nothing accurate:

It is hard to sees from the pictures above, but Learstang and I more or less agreed that the Frog kit is a vague representation of somewhere around a type 35. If one looks closely at the water cooler outlet and cowl shape, it becomes more apparent. In this view the Frog and eastern Express kits have a lot more in common with each other than the Roden kit. Is that a good thing ?

I'm a 60's born 70's child and old solutions still exist in my psyche. I have no plastic rod or strip at the moment, so I decided to make my own to detail the sidewall of the Frog kit. It would be improvisational and impressionist, but at least an improvement on nothing. I decided, for the first time since I had black toxic floating particles in the air of the home lounge, at age 11, to give stretching sprue a go. Some excess sprue from an AModel DH 60 was used, my reasoning being that this stuff is very soft to start with. Out with the Ikea 2 cents Tealight candle and the sprue:

Oh dear :

Oh ballbearings!!!:

Oooh, mum, mum, come and have a look, I've done one! Hang on . Oh dear, yes, oh no, no, I'm 40 years older! When did that happen?? Where is my SRN6 kit and my waxy DUKW? Where is my Action Man with Eagle Eyes??!!!, my Commando books and Victor comics???

Oops. Sorry folks - internal syntax error.

Oh well I got one right, although a bit thick:

I compared my stretched sprue, intended to be inner wall ribs (for the Frog/Emhar), to the Roden kit detail and decided: 'Too thick':

Once again, i apologise for the blurred photograph (and my multi coloured thumb - that is due to I-16's...) but I feel it demonstrates what is neccessary, I managed much finer stretched sprue. It's all a matter of practice and basically, there's nothing to lose, it's only waste sprue/runners/sprunners:

The stretched sprue used to detail the Frog kit interior a little:

I know it's very crude and inaccurate, but I'm not really that good at this kind of thing yet; I hope it makes it look a bit better :

So, with the Frog brought up to (well not really, but nearly) the interior level of the other two, once again attention turned to the Roden wheel wells. Basically, much more filing:

By now we have the upper wings filed away, and the actual wheel wells filed away. Time to fit them and join the wings. That all finally goes ok, but more filing will be needed:

Quite nice and tidy :

Even more tidyness:

Essential clothes peg clamp in view. Notice what I've started on the starboard well? More filing. Why? Because the fuselage simply won't fit without it.

This is the crux of the Roden kit people. The wheel wells ( and to a lesser extent narrowing the cockpit floor). Sort out these wheel wells and one has a really nice model

The village of 'Much Filing' in Herefordshire was visited:

I wish to return to this photograph:

Look at the area for the water cooler outlet to the rear (the right hand side of this photograph) of the lower wing component. I hope you can see that I have filed down the sides of this? The lower wing will not fit (at all) into the fuselage halves unless one does this.

Also note that at the extreme aft of the lower side of the fuselage I have filed the side higher, just prior to the outlet. The fuselage will fit too high at the wing root unless this is done.

Now, In Roden land, we are at this stage. Please look just how much I have narrowed/filed the water cooler outlet inner to the aft of the lower wing: it must be done:

Now, we're moving on to a new issue with the Roden kit here. Exquisitely moulded cowl and wing detail. Superb cockpit and wall detail. Lovely undercarriage (although too thick doors). Overall sublimely nice profile. But no wing root intakes!!!!??? . What?? Yes folks, no intakes at all. I'm sorry this is again a blurred photograph, but I hope it shows:

1: How the fuselage is high over the wheel wells.

2: How there are no wing root intakes.

In my next update; easy remedies to this and we close up the fuselage.

Thank you for reading and watching

Happy modelling and have a nice weekend

Tony

Edited to insert missing photograph (the final photo).

[JOCKNEY]

Hi Tony

I would like to apologise for the.mix up in kits.

You appear to have got some of the shockers that live in my stash. I can only apologise, I don't know how they managed to escape, but I am completely behind you in trying to get them to make them look remotely similar to the picture on the box.

Should you manage to achieve this (and I'm right behind you by the way), then you are a better man than I !

May the force be with you

Cheers Pat

[CliffB]

This is a seriously informative thread Tony - keep up the good work!

Cliff

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It certainly is informative.....I shall be taking notes.

[PlaStix]

Excellent progress Tony! Like the others say - a very informative thread!

[Ozzy]

Looking good Tony, you have had a productive day.

[TonyTiger66]

Hi Tony

I would like to apologise for the.mix up in kits.

You appear to have got some of the shockers that live in my stash. I can only apologise, I don't know how they managed to escape, but I am completely behind you in trying to get them to make them look remotely similar to the picture on the box.

Should you manage to achieve this (and I'm right behind you by the way), then you are a better man than I !

May the force be with you

Cheers Pat

Well Pat, so it's all your fault ! I had wondered where they came from. Well, don't worry, the farce is with me and it is strong

This is a seriously informative thread Tony - keep up the good work!

Cliff

Thank you Cliff, very kind I hope it will be of some use to others that would like to model these in 1/72. I t would have been nice to bring in the KPM kit and the other Eastern Express one(s) but I hope my blunders here can help to allay fears a bit.

It certainly is informative.....I shall be taking notes.

Oh dear Sarge, taking notes from me could surely lead to the small Island of "Much Blundering' just off the Outer Hebrides?? .

Seriously, I do hope it's a bit of use, thanks Sarge

Excellent progress Tony! Like the others say - a very informative thread!

Many thanks Stix, I hope I'm not boring you all senseless. I hope it isn't too much like what we actually do sometimes: watch paint dry! Well I do anyway, airbrush at the ready for the next coat! Good to have you along Stix and thanks for all the good and helpful advice here and in vignette land.

Looking good Tony, you have had a productive day.

Thanks Ozzy I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it but you're right, it was productive. I'm really enjoying building these and it's nothing like work - this is the kind of productive day we all deserve

Thanks to everyone for having a look in, it is good to have a bit of support and feedback whilst wrestling these little kites. Time for another update....

Best regards and happy modelling

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

Hello modellers, I hope you are having a nice weekend

Righty-ho, straight into it. I have commented on how the wheel wells are a major influence on getting the Roden kit to line up/build nicely. I thought it would be good to look at how this is tackled in the Eastern Express kit:

As we can see, the wheel wells are moulded in, they are much more shallow than the Roden wells, and rather nicely, three are also wing root intakes moulded in too. This all looks like it is going to be far easier than the Roden model.

Now, look at the strange raised circle aft of the wheel wells - it has a corresponding sink mark (large) on the other side of the lower wing piece. It is easy to overlook and think it is a real part of a LaGG 3, it isn't, it's a sink mark!

By now I have glued the wing halves on the Roden kit, and we see here, there aren't many other parts:

In fact here are the Roden detail parts in close up/macro, I rather like the quality, they seem like they are nicely detailed:

The exhaust stacks in particular are very nice, especially compared to the Frog 'bumps'. With the exception of the KPM vac-form I built many years ago, this is the only 1/72 kit I have seen with these early single type exhaust stacks. I have not yet seen the early/prototype Apex kit, I would imagine this has them? Mental note: I must get that kit.

I've chosen the more pointy spinner as I'm making White 64, a type 3 or 4. I must paste the text here on how and why I name this aircraft 'Columbine' here and in my Vignette GB. This quote is from Massimo Tessitori's superb web resource :

The plane is known to have been flown by Georgy Kostylev, that wrote:

At the beginning of the war, I got the type of plane LaGG-3 . On the lists of the regiment, she was listed just under the number " 64" , but I gave to her a different name . I called my plane "Columbine" . For beauty. And after I shot my 10th enemy plane on her, I renamed her the "Tale". On "Columbine - Tale" I fought the entire first year.

At this point I decided to file down the fore vertical surfaces of the wing root join in the Roden LaGG 3, to enable them to sit at the right height respective to the wing. A cutaway already exists, but it needs deepening to the maximum permissible by the wing root height. Again, I apologise for the blurred photograph, I was still learning:

By this time my filing away mojo was wearing a little thin so I decided it was time for a change. I decided to chop the head off the Frog pilot :

Reference back to the picture of "Columbine' will show the pilot is looking sideways. Not for columbine, but for the Frog kit, he will also be doing this, hence the decapitation!

Next it was time to construct cockpit interiors. The Roden is very nice, beautiful details. I painted the interior with the Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey, simply because it felt intuitively right:

I then cracked out an ancient (new but not opened in 13 years) pot of Revell 84 enamel 'leather' for the seat back:

The pigment (or whatever it is) had settled as a solid blob to the bottom of the tinlet. I hadn't yet received the nice stirrers (Tamiya) I had ordered from BNA ModelWorld, so a bit of sprue came to the rescue:

It may look like horrible paint, but I think the finished result is rather nice:

I'm not entirely sure what this pack is behind the pilot. I fear it may be a radio, and I have painted it 'leather' . Never mind, I doubt it can be seen:

I had also painted the seat base and rudder pedals with some old Humbrol acrylic 'free' silver' from a starter set. I always save these starter paints; it isn't the only time (so far) one is used in this build.

I had purchased, from the big 'H' in the UK, two 'Modell Hobby' brand instrument panels:

I chose them rather than the black Yahu 'Late LaGG 3/early La-5' ones as they are unpainted and all photographs I had seen of early i/p's on Lagg 3's show them to be grey:

In that shot one can also see the silver painted cockpit side walls. Here is another i/p:

The Modell Hobby photo-etch i/p's give us freedom of choice - so it was a no brainer. The Roden kit kindly provides decals for (two) later versions, but nothing in grey, so I decided to use this photo-etch piece. I have extremely little experience with photo-etch. For the benefit of those like me, for whom this is a new area, I hope you don't mind me sharing the process.

I had watched YouTube videos on the subject and it seemed that to use the Small Shop Photo Etch Cut Out Kit was the way to go, with a curved blade. I managed to get one from Model Hobbies down here:

I haven't got a strong curved blade to hand yet, so simply used one of my Swann Morton scalpel blades in my retractable (suggested by CedB - and a 'finger-saver') handle:

Again, apologies for the blurred picture. this is on quite high macro on a camera I wasn't used to and my hands naturally have always wobbled a bit.

The technique is to use the little clear 'holder' thingie, pressed against the glossy black tiles, with the photo-etch piece trapped along the cut line. The curved blade is then 'rocked' over the cutline. The piece does not fly off. Nice

Apart from the fact I had it the wrong way around The piece should be under the holder, with the excess happy to fly off! . Anyway, it worked out well, this photograph shows the *right* way to do it:

The resulting i/p simply needed the edges smoothing with a Tamiya rat tailed diamond file, a little blurred - but it is rather microscopic:

Modell Hobby provide a nice clear film back to be laminated to the photo-etch i/p, the method shown here:

I forgot to mention that I had pre-painted the i/p in grey. Here is the unpainted i/p foil next to it, I painted the back of this film this in simple Tamiya white:

And painting:

Looks ok

I decided white glue was the way to go to glue these 'laminates' to the Roden plastic i/p panel. The only white glue I had was ''Formula 560' Canopy Glue' bought around 12 years ago in the UK and having laid dormant here in Australia ever since:

Does anyone know anything about this product? It claims to be the 'World's Best Canopy Glue'! No wonder I brought it 10,600 miles!

I was interested to see what 12 years or so of storage had done to it:

Oh dear.

Well there we go :

It was nothing that couldn't be rectified with a stout quarter inch nail and I was rather impressed that the glue had lasted this long; I have others that have set in the bottle to a clear mass in only a year.

It has gone a little yellow, but I don't think this matters as it dries clear. Here we are with a glob applied to the rear of the i/p:

Film first, photo-etch next:

I don't have a good photograph of all three layers together, but I hope this will give a general impression:

Next I decided to dry fit the cockpit floor to the fuselage halves and found that the 'cut-out' slot for mounting is way too small. Out with a knife:

This wasn't the last of it; the cockpit floor needs at least 1mm filing off of each side to enable the fuselage halves to fit together.

I also feel this is not enough as even when they fit together, they don't fit within the upper wing half wing roots. Here is the basic cockpit interior module built up and painted (with the exception of the control column) and with the mounting slots widened:

I decided to join the fuselage halves *first* so that I could file the cockpit floor to fit. This approach, I can confirm, does work. Here I am using a Berna clamp. Much 'banana' is evident:

I have also fitted the correct chin intake pieces, but they were a little too wide so needed, again, sanding down. I feel I may have missed something here, I didn't like doing it, but never mind, next time:

The i/p frame has been fitted to give a structural framework and spacing for the fuselage, more clamps needed:

Once dry, after clamping, this is the kind of gap we get in the water cooler outlet area aft of the wing trailing edge. Oh well....

Big gap isn't it?

At this point one finds the cockpit floor sides really needs filing down a lot to fit, but eventually, will fit:

Action shot:

Get in you blogger!

But dry fitting to the wing shows that it needs filing down on the horizontal plane too, i'e' the floor needs thinning. Moreover, and this is scary to do, the area around the starboard wing root intake needs thinning; it is much thicker than on the port side. oh, and the fuselage roots will need filing down, or the wing won't fit at all. With absolutely zero sarcasm, i can say I'm still enjoying this, because this kit just 'looks' and 'feels; right . I know what I mean

I never did really 'defeat' this starboard side. I feel there was something I missed. Next time; but here is the essence of the problem:

I defeated it in terms of getting a 'right height' wing root join, but I ended up with a (how??) sightly skewed overall airframe. The wing, no matter what I do, will never be at the correct angles to the fuselage. I'm not too worried as its only a matter of a degree or so and won't show, but I know it's there, so next time, I want to eliminate it. It's something to do with the starboard side, i know that much. Anyhow, here's the fuselage and wing mated up. Old Columbine is starting to look nice now isn't she?

Oh mon derriere. At this point I noticed the seat was a little off centre! Never mind, I'm going to assume Georgy had one buttock larger than the other and adjusted the seat accordingly

I couldn't possibly get this far without being inspired to put the correct (god bless Roden, they provide three different ones) cowl top on. Nevertheless, exhaust stacks had to be first. I really dislike it when the 'root' of exhaust stacks isn't painted, so I decoded to give the stacks an initial colour just to get started. Again, a Humbrol starter set colour got me on my way, and it looks very nice. i don't know what it is yet, but it is number 171, and as you can see, by now, my nice Tamiya stirrer (to the right) has arrived

My wife's comment as I nthused about how these stacks looked was "They just look like metal" and they do. Thanks Humbrol!

I had been pre-warned about the top cowl cover, so I cut a length of sprue/sprunner/runner (which forever more on my builds will be called sprunner) to force the fuselage apart to enable a nice fit of the cowl top. That is clear in the photograph above. Why not fit and sand with no spacer? Because there is some lovely detail here and this way it isn't lost. The cowl top takes a lot of clamping, but it works after clamping and looks great, trust me:

After all this malarkey, I applied (my favourite and dependable) Humbrol filler to the wing roots and fuselage join.

Then with light masking of the exhaust stacks, gave the whole model a coat of Synylrez primer. I did that simply because I wanted to assess visually where I was. I was here:

Is it me, or is that starting to look like a series 3/4 LaGG 3?

Tomorrow; the Eastern Express catches up and we do some vac-form stuff.

Thank you for reading,

All best regards and happy modelling

Tony

Edited for auto-correct and photos corrected. Edited again for auto-correct. 5.7.16

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I do believe there is a LaGG trapped in there somewhere Tony.....Set it free!

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff Tony

I think you're right " May the Farse be will you" is much more appropriate.

I have to take my hat off to you mate, I would have built these OOTB, but this is epic, don't lose faith mate, you've got the buggers on the run !

Cheers Pat

[The Spadgent]

Blimey Tony, you have been busy. I only just caught up with this build, or should I say these builds. I do hope Mrs T is feeling better? Great work as always. Looking forward to more.

John.

Edited July 4, 2016 by The Spadgent

[TonyTiger66]

I do believe there is a LaGG trapped in there somewhere Tony.....Set it free!

I'll dig it out Sarge, with whatever tools are needed !

[TonyTiger66]

Great stuff Tony

I think you're right " May the Farse be will you" is much more appropriate.

I have to take my hat off to you mate, I would have built these OOTB, but this is epic, don't lose faith mate, you've got the buggers on the run !

Cheers Pat

Thanks Pat, you're very kind The daftest thing is, that the Roden, apart from the i/p, *is* OOB ! Looking back now, it has taken quite a bit to progress it along. I've kind of done them in reverse order of difficulty; with hardest first (Roden), then (far) easier Eastern Express) then just a piece of cake to build (Frog).

I'll be concentrating more on the Eastern Express now, so we can all relax a bit!

[TonyTiger66]

Blimey Tony, you have been busy. I only just caught up with this build, or should I say these builds. I do hope Mrs T is feeling better? Great work as always. Looking forward to more.

John.

Thanks John, very kind I'm busking it all the way. I forgot to write how I filled in that huge gap in the Roden kit lower fuselage, aft of the trailing edge. Well, you'll be familiar with this by now, the photo says it all:

yes I managed to blunder the talcum powder and slow drying CA again!

I never learn. Stil, it worked and it filled the gap. I need to perfect a 'no or only one hand/s' technique for applying that stuff. I'm starting to think along the lines of a small syringe

Here it is after it set looking quite a bit tidier:

I really will have to grow out of these 1970's Aurfix magazine techniques. I do love them though, great fun!

Before my update with work to bring the Eastern Express kit to the same stage (primer) as the Roden, another loose end:

I forgot to mention how I created wing root intakes for the Roden kit. CedB had recommended these RB productions 'Nano-saws' for cutting out tiny parts very carefully.

They're really tiny and made of photo-etch. I used the same technique I used on the i/p earlier and cut them out:

I used a number one craft knife handle with the strange shaped little saw to the top right, and simply sawed out wing root intakes from the solid mass that's there on the Roden. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of the intakes before I glued them together. One went ok, the other a bit messy.

I'll come back to it later with pictures. My next update will be the Eastern Express kit. I'm still waiting on bits from Germany to tart up the Frog, hence the construction order of the three kits, it's 'whichever I have all the stuff for' first..

Great to have you on board John, and everyone else

Thanks for reading

Tony

PS: Mrs. T has been cleared for pneumonia but has a nasty post-viral cough. Thanks for asking and I'll pass your well wishes on

[Basilisk]

Tony, Tony, what a talent - managing to spill the talcum powder a second time

Has it ever occurred to you to mix the talcum powder into the CA BEFORE you apply it to the model? I do it all the time and it is my preferred filler as you then can apply it like any other filler - and so much less of a mess That way you can also control the hardness of the CA. The more talcum powder you add the softer the mixture get and the easier it is to sand.

But I would think it is better to use styrene to fill larger gaps as it provides better strength.

Cheers, Peter

Edited July 7, 2016 by Basilisk

[TonyTiger66]

Hi Peter. I wasn't sure about adding the talc to the CA before applying it, I thought it might just set solid as soon as the talc was added. I'll try it next time, adding a little at a time

I usually splodge some CA out onto a piece of glass, so I'll add the CA to that blob, does that sound right? You're right about the styrene, this was a tricky concave area and I wasn't entirely sure of a best way

I've also heard that, e.g. For wing roots, two part epoxy glue can be used and any excess wiped away with a cotton bud with a bit of nail varnish remover on it, but that's a technique I have yet to try/experiment with.

Thanks for the advice on the talc; it will be used next time and as I have lots of Roden and Amodel in the stash, there *will* be a next time !

Best regards

Tony

[Basilisk]

I use ZAP CA glue. When using thin CA, you have to use it within 5-10 minutes and it will be ready for sanding in around 30-60 minutes.

But I use mostly medium CA. This can be applied over a longer time period - around 15 to 30 minutes, but it will take several hours to fully harden.

So the talcum powder actually extends the drying time.

Cheers, Peter

[Sgt.Squarehead]

How does accellerator effect it I wonder?