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ZTS Mikro 72 1/72 Yak-1b - ГОТОВО! Finished!


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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:

P1010032_1.jpg

The brown thing is what used to be a tube of glue included in the kit; it's long ago gone dry.

The sprues:

P1010039.jpgP1010040.jpg

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:

P1010052.jpg

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

Edited by John Thompson
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I've got a variety of Yaks from several manufacturers (including a couple of Amodel Yak-1s) and I almost always build wheels up.....Happy to send you some legs & wheels if I won't need them for my own build. :coolio:

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Hi Sarge - thank you very much for your kind offer. I'll get back to you if I need those parts.

I didn't mention which particular Yak-1b I was going to finish this model as, because I still haven't decided. It'll probably be one of the Yak-1b's (options 7 to 13) from this Authentic Decals sheet:

Site_Instruction_Yak_1_15a.jpg :undecided:Site_Instruction_Yak_1_15b.jpg

I'm partial to options 11 and 13 at the moment, because I like the late-war AMT-11/AMT-12 camouflage scheme, and each of these two aircraft has relatively simple markings which shows off this scheme to good advantage. But that could change...

John

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Have to say I really like the red nosed bird with the camo on the first page.....Now that's gonna be a striking model! :coolio:

Thanks, Sarge; I was avoiding that one because it's been done already on Britmodeller by a much better modelbuilder than me:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234988291-172-yakovlev-yak-1b-armory/

Enjoy!

John

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A small update to sneak my thread back onto page 1! Here's a "before" look at the inner surfaces of the upper and lower wing sections:

P1010035.jpg

...and "after", as in after making a beginning at enclosing and detailing the wheel wells, that is:

P1010036.jpg

There is a bit of a problem, although I was just going to ignore it. Comparison with the excellent drawings I've been using (by Zbigniew Luranc in Skrzydla w Miniaturze 1991/02) shows that the ZTS wing is about 2mm too wide in chord near the roots, with the extra width apparently at the trailing edges. Correcting this would require removing a wedge of plastic of 0mm width at the outer end of the ailerons, increasing to 2mm at the base, then thinning down the trailing edges. Hardly worth the trouble; however, it got me thinking about adapting the wings from the Amodel Yak-1. This looks doable, and I could use other parts as well. Ignoring a couple of in-progress ones which may never be reactivated, I've still got 4 more of these gems untouched in reserve. Normally I wouldn't be so flippant about cannibalizing model kits, but I'm convinced that the soon-to-be-released Brengun 1/72 Yak-1 will be easier to build and more cleanly molded than the Amodel version, as well as being very accurate. Assuming it's reasonably priced, it will probably make the Amodel kit obsolete. So, future Yak-1 needs will probably be satisfied by Brengun, making it feasible to risk butchering one of my current Amodel stockpile! Hmmmm - I do love a good kitbash...

John

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Thanks (I think!) for the encouragement, Cliff! After a bit of measurin' and cipherin', I determined that it would be possible to cut the outer wings off of the ZTS upper wing section to a required centresection width across the wing roots of about 16.5mm in order to adapt the Amodel wings to the ZTS fuselage. As it happens, there are very faint panel lines which define the edges of the ZTS wing roots, and these are very close to the required dimension with a little bit of fat included for final sanding to the exact size on assembly. So, having lost all will to resist, out came the Dymo tape, the P-Cutter, and the razor saw, and here's the result, taped together for picture-taking:

P1010033_2.jpg

As you can see, there's a slight chord-length mismatch at the trailing edge (that 2mm again), but this will be relatively easy to correct by reshaping . This might actually work... ;)

John

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I am currently building the Armory kit, so your build will be an interesting comparison and your kit bashing looks interesting.

It is amazing that the ZTS kit is the only game in town since 1977 for a 1/72 Yak-1b with the exception of the recent Armory resin kit! And Brengun have only announced the Yak-1 so far.

Cheers, Peter

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Thanks (I think!) for the encouragement, Cliff! After a bit of measurin' and cipherin', I determined that it would be possible to cut the outer wings off of the ZTS upper wing section to a required centresection width across the wing roots of about 16.5mm in order to adapt the Amodel wings to the ZTS fuselage. As it happens, there are very faint panel lines which define the edges of the ZTS wing roots, and these are very close to the required dimension with a little bit of fat included for final sanding to the exact size on assembly. So, having lost all will to resist, out came the Dymo tape, the P-Cutter, and the razor saw, and here's the result, taped together for picture-taking:

P1010033_2.jpg

As you can see, there's a slight chord-length mismatch at the trailing edge (that 2mm again), but this will be relatively easy to correct by reshaping . This might actually work... ;)

John

Hi John,

I'm just wondering wouldn't it be easier to cut down Amodel razorback, change the intake and liquid cooler among detail changes?

Anyway I agree that kit-bashing is fun!

Cheers,

AaCee

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Hi John,

I'm just wondering wouldn't it be easier to cut down Amodel razorback, change the intake and liquid cooler among detail changes?

Anyway I agree that kit-bashing is fun!

Cheers,

AaCee

You're probably right - in fact I actually started doing exactly that a couple of years ago - even had a replacement for the cut-off spine all ready, but then lost interest. There's more than one way to build a 1/72 Yak-1b (I know - I've tried 3 or 4 of them) - maybe this time I'll finally get it right! :lol:

John

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A small update - I started working on the cockpit last night. This consisted of painting everything the Russian colour A-14, for which I used an old but still good bottle of Aeromaster Warbird Colors Neutral Gray, with some kind-of 4BO Green for the radio housing behind the pilot's seat. Most of the parts (seat, joystick, instrument panel) can be added after the fuselage halves are joined; my main objective in order to do this was to prepare the exhaust stacks by attaching narrow strips of styrene sheet with cyanoacrylate. This allows me to solvent-glue these assemblies into place from the inside more securely and with less risk of glue seeping to the outside than if I just epoxied or CA'd them directly to the interior. After they're located and the glue is hardened, I can then plaster them with epoxy in the hope of making them super-solid, so they don't fall out into the interior after the model is finished. I hope all that makes sense! Here's an image of the exhausts, before and after:

P1010039_1.jpg

To be honest, these Rexx metal exhausts are a bit of a waste in some cases, especially in 1/72 scale - they're so tiny that the outlets are scarcely visible after they're installed. They're kind of "bling for modelbuilders", for which we have this very useful emoticon:

:bling:

John

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Here's an image showing the Rexx exhaust in place and also the hypodermic tubing machine gun barrel I installed in the drilled-out gun trough on the port side of the cowling:

P1010040_1.jpg

I've also started filling the rib and fabric detail on the rudder and fuselage with Mr Surfacer in order to reduce it somewhat. As you can see, the fuselage halves are assembled - still plenty of work ahead!

John

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Well, this is becoming embarrassing - I think I went too far by cutting away the kit's "chin" to adapt those Toko LaGG-3 pieces, but it's too late to turn back now :wall::

P1030040.jpg

Here's a not-very-detailed look at the fabric area filling-in that's in progress:

P1030041.jpg

This is probably my fifth attempt at creating a decent Yak-1b. What keeps me going is that, to my eye, the Yak-1b is just such a good-looking aircraft. Whether I succeed or fail (again), we really need a new, accurate, injection-molded styrene Yak-1b even more than the Yak-9 I keep moaning about. I'm hopeful that Brengun might tackle it if their impending Yak-1 is successful - I know I'll be doing my part to encourage them by bankrolling the project with Yak-1 profits! A new fuselage and canopy would cover at least 90% of the difference; they did it with their Typhoon, so there's hope!

John

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More progress; at least, I think I'm moving in the right direction:

This image shows how the ZTS centre section that I created by sawing off the wings has been modified in order to clear the Amodel radiator housing (the rectangular hole that wasn't there before) and also to clear the Amodel wheel well walls (the hatched area, which has been Dremelled very severely):

P1040040.jpg

Here's the beginning of the oil cooler housing, made from those intake parts from the Toko LaGG-3:

P1040041.jpg

That's it for today!

John

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Thank you, everyone, for all the "likes" and kind comments. No visuals today, I'm afraid - anything I've done in the past 24 hours has been mostly dry-fitting and sanding, so there's nothing much to look at. As well, despite being retired, there are other priorities to take care of! But who knows - maybe I'll accomplish something amazing and photo-worthy after dinner! :whistle:

Off-topic, but only slightly - when, oh when, will Brengun finally release that 1/72 Yak-1? I keep going to the Czech Modelforum site to drool over the sprue images there, but it's not like having the real plastic in front of you!!!

http://modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=103591#p1883770

John

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