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Unicraft YO-3A 1/72


hsr

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You would think that after punishing myself building the Unicraft Bird of Prey I would stay away from their kits, but when it is the only game in town what can you do. I have always thought that any kit is buildable but this one is stretching my conviction. Anyway as much to test out migrating to Village.Photos from Photobucket, here are some pictures;

 

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I am not sure that these pictures fully show the crudeness of the parts. Anyway we will see how far I get.

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I don't know. Part of the problem trying to figure it out is that there are no instruction, just a 3 view drawing. No parts list, no exploded diagram, no steps. At least with the Bird of Prey there was an exploded diagram. That way you can match up parts with the blobs of resin

Edited by hsr
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These Unicraft kits are a bit of fun aren't they?

I've got their Trent Meteor conversion somewhere on the shelves, which was bought in a moment of weakness*, insanity*, euphoria*, delirium*(*delete where applicable). That was certainly not one of my proudest moments and ranks alongside my purchase of the Andy Pack Beechcraft Super King Air vacform (now that was a giggle). 

Best of luck with this one.

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So today I separated the fuselage halves from their flash and glued them together. The rest of the day was spent filling seams, filling holes and general cleaning them up. They still need work, but getting there

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I added a divider and firewall to the cockpit

 qq9x1XZU_o.jpg

 

More work tomorrow

 

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Struth 

 

It looks like they mixed the resin with a whisk so they could get as many bubbles in as possible.

Or it's isn't actually resin at all, but actually Angel Delight that has had hardener added to it !

 

I have some of the Unicraft Luft 46 aircraft which I have been too chicken to start, would you mind it I followed this to learn all your secrets :winkgrin:

 

cheers Pat

 

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Hmmmmm, it isn't a lot like the photos on their website is it, though the built two tone blue one is quite attractive in a come hither & build me sort of way. Is that what you're aiming for? Its a promising start you've made anyway. :thumbsup:

Steve.

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2 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

I have some of the Unicraft Luft 46 aircraft which I have been too chicken to start, would you mind it I followed this to learn all your secrets 

Oh the pressure :) Please do, I just hope I don't disapoint.

 

2 hours ago, stevehnz said:

though the built two tone blue one is quite attractive in a come hither & build me sort of way. Is that what you're aiming for

Yes, I am just not sure what the colors are. Most pictures I have seen seem to use a dark green and a blue-gray, but their color quality isn't the best so it is hard to tell and I can't find any references. If I get that far I will have to guess. 

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Last couple of days I have been working on the cockpit. I added some seats and Eduards bits from the spares bin.

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Then I worked on the canopy. The kit included a vacuformed canopy and while it was nice I hate vacuformed canopies. I can never cut them out right and it is so hard to make minor adjustments. And they only had 1 so only 1 chance to get it close. Once I had it cut as best I could I masked and added it to the fuselage

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Then blended it in and primed

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Next will be the really hard part of cleaning up  the wings and getting them on straight

Edited by hsr
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The wings are just s Swiss cheese of pin holes and bubbles. My technique, if it can be dignified with such a term, for dealing with pin holes is to

 

  * First give it a light sanding to smooth out the worst of the roughness

  * Then place a drop of thin super glue, in my case Zap CA, and spread it around the whole surface and let it dry. This serves several purposes; it gives it a shiny surface which will show the pin holes better, it fills in the low spots and some of the pin holes, and it adds some material that can be sanded without blowing though into the sub-surface bubbles

 

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  * I'll then sand this smooth until most the shine is gone

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  * Then repeat as needed until there are no shiny patches left. I have to be really careful here because all of the mottling you see as sub-surface bubbles waiting to be exposed

 

  * Then I will just polish until smooth

 

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Once that was done I cut out the overhead view from the 3 view drawing, taped it down to my work surface, whipped up a batch of epoxy and attached them with, hopefully the right amount of dihedral

 

 

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Tomorrow I will work on filling the joint

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It actually took 3 tries until I got the left wing the way I wanted it, but now I have that blended in and the tail surfaces attached. Tomorrow I'll work on the landing gear

 

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I had hoped to get the first color of paint on today, but instead I spent time in pin-hole-hell. But I did blend in the tail feathers and get the landing gear on and, hopefully a final coat of primer.

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We will see what tomorrow brings 

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OMG

You did great, turning a poor piece of rotted cheese into an Aircraft !!!

Congratulations, I really enjoy your workmanship and tenacity :partytime:

Can't wait to see her finished !:analintruder:

Sincerely.

Corsaircorp

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So I got the first paint color on. Not much to show since it doesn't look that much different from when it just had primer.

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I am a little worried of breaking parts off, the tail primarily, when I mask and unmask for the second color. But we will see how it goes tomorrow. 

 

Also concerned about the wheels and prop. The wheels don't look too bad;

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and I don't have anything in my spares box that matches, so I will probably just clean them up and use them. But the prop parts are not so good

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While the blades can probably be cleaned up I am thinking the spinner might be a total loss. I will have to go through the spares again.

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