Never Underestimate the Power of the Pawn – Zvezda's Pe-2

[Gorby]

Where has the joy of kits gone?

 

Because of a little bout of mojoitis I decided to try and go back to basics. Less pre-assembly painting, scratch-building and stressing about unnecessaries, and more just sticking bits of plastic together.

It didn't quite work out exactly as planed, mainly because this kit is nothing like the Airfix of my youth. The kit has a couple of relatively minor fit problems, but on the whole it's remarkable, although without doubt the most complex and challenging kit I have ever built.

I got a little bogged down after a couple of months, but after a self imposed slap around the chops, I pulled myself together and got it done – for better or for worse.

 

I added an Eduard etch, which makes a big difference to the cockpit area, but irritatingly, even though I dipped the clear parts in Pledge, when the masks were removed there was a milky haze on most of them. No idea why. 

 

I would like to thank @Julien for his help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be doing simpler kits for a while.

 

Thanks for taking the time too look and comments (either or 🤮) are, as always welcome (but if it's the later you'll need to clean it up yourself). 

 

  Gorby

[TonyW]

A very good looking build. The weathering looks spot on to me.

 

It's obvious you have modelled the plane as it sat on a Russian airfield, on an early winters morning. The slight frosting of the glass areas looks very authentic indeed. 😉

 

Tony.

[Vinnie]

Despite your trials and tribs, you've turned out a cracker. Well done that man.

[dogsbody]

Very nice! Good going on that engine. I do wonder about the yellow prop tips, though. I don't think the Soviets did that.

 

 

Chris

[Julien]

Looks good. It's gets cold in Russia so canopies mist up, problem sorted!

[JWM]

Very nice result - I think Zvezda has the same as italeri plastic?

Cheers

J-W

[wekusta]

Definitely not 🤮 very much 👍.

Lovely job sir!

[stevej60]

Superb finish,alway's thought the PE-2 a great looking aircraft.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

5 hours ago, Gorby said:

, even though I dipped the clear parts in Pledge, when the masks were removed there was a milky haze on most of them. No idea why. 

Great work on the Pe-2 Gorby 👍 ... The milky haze thing. I get that sometime from my pledge when the temperature drops while its drying. It seems to be a layer of not quite dry pledge inside the dry hardened pledge. I usually use hot water and strip the pledge back and redo the canopy over. If you have a warm area with low humidity place the canopy there to dry. I use a plastic tub to keep dust off them while drying. 

 

Dennis

[Twentecable]

Nice build and great paintjob and weathering. I hope you got a little mojo back with her.

 

Greetings Twentecable

[Gorby]

Many thanks @TonyW @Vinnie @dogsbody  @Julien @JWM @wekusta   @stevej60  @Corsairfoxfouruncle  @Twentecable

and everyone who has 'liked'.

 

I'll try to keep my Oscar acceptance speech under two hours… sorry wrong dream.

 

14 hours ago, TonyW said:

The weathering looks spot on to me.

Thanks Tony. Originally I tried a reasonably factory fresh finish, but it didn't look right, so I slopped on a load of muck to dirty her up a bit.

 

14 hours ago, TonyW said:

It's obvious you have modelled the plane as it sat on a Russian airfield, on an early winters morning. The slight frosting of the glass areas looks very authentic indeed. 😉

Of course, yes…. That was obviously what I was doing with the glazing (very skilfully I might add).

 

13 hours ago, dogsbody said:

I do wonder about the yellow prop tips, though. I don't think the Soviets did that.

Thanks Chris. I also wondered about the yellow tips so I Googleised it. The surviving ones do have yellow tips, but these could have been added at a later date of course; on most contemporary photos it's difficult to tell, I found some that don't but I did find one photo which did have yellow tips; the clincher was that it calls for the in the instructions and I thought that Zvezda had made such a good job on the rest of the kit, that I'd go along with it. At the end of the day, I'm not that fussed about totally accuracy. Interesting point though and thanks for bringing it up.

 

13 hours ago, Julien said:

It's gets cold in Russia so canopies mist up, problem sorted!

Thanks again Julien Apparently I'm such a stupendously fabulous modeller that I can now produce an effect subconsciously. You can barely see the cockpit now, damn my modelling genius.

LOOK – a flying pig!

 

9 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

The milky haze thing. I get that sometime from my pledge when the temperature drops while its drying. It seems to be a layer of not quite dry pledge inside the dry hardened pledge. I usually use hot water and strip the pledge back and redo the canopy over. If you have a warm area with low humidity place the canopy there to dry.

Thanks for the info Dennis. The thing is, they looked great when I fitted the masks and the glue I used was the same as I normally use (G-S Hypo Cement). It's unlikely to be because of a temperature drop – at the time we were experiencing (what passes for in Britain) a heat wave. Most days it got to OVER 20c (68f)! 

 

1 hour ago, Twentecable said:

I hope you got a little mojo back with her.

Yes I did thanks. I found it in the box of the next kit I opened.

[Bullbasket]

Nice looking Pe-2 Gorby. I'm just picturing it in the sights of the AA guns in one of my "targets".

 

John.

[Gorby]

7 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Nice looking Pe-2 Gorby.

Thanks John.

 

8 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

I'm just picturing it in the sights of the AA guns in one of my "targets"

You had to spoil it didn't you. 

Not a chance – dream on. Any 'right-thinking'* person knows that wings trump tracks any time. 

 

 

* If you don't agree with me, you aren't 'right-thinking' and therefore can be safely ignored.

[Vince1159]

What a fantastic job Gorby ....

[russ c]

Really nice result on the Pe-2 Gorby, funnily enough, I lost the will to live part way through building mine and my transparencies weren`t all that clear even after several dips in Klear.

The engines look great too

[Roman Schilhart]

Great representation of this pretty cool lookin' Soviet bomber.

I wish Zvezda would scale this kit down to 72!

Paintwork is excellent, you captured the shades well.

Pity about the frosted clear parts, something I know all too well from my own builds.

I often ended up with dust and sanding particles on the insides, so a fellow modeler recommended to dip clear parts in Gloss Cote before fixing them.

This is supposed to cover the surface and make it more difficult for dust to settle.

Problem is, not all clear parts react in the same way - it sometimes works beautifully, and sometimes I'm left with stains and 'frosted' looks.

Zvezda's clear parts are very special in their own way as they do not take on polishing (as I learned on my build of their Pe-8).

Greetings from Vienna!

 

[Gorby]

3 hours ago, Vince1159 said:

What a fantastic job Gorby ....

Thanks Vince, glad you like it.

 

2 hours ago, russ c said:

funnily enough, I lost the will to live part way through building mine

Thanks Russ, it's a remarkable kit, but in some ways, certainly for me, it was too involved and too complex. 

 

1 hour ago, Roman Schilhart said:

Problem is, not all clear parts react in the same way - it sometimes works beautifully, and sometimes I'm left with stains and 'frosted' looks.

Zvezda's clear parts are very special in their own way as they do not take on polishing (as I learned on my build of their Pe-8).

Thanks Roman, I was informed on Scalemates that the green is too light, but I told them that I'm of the 'oh, that looks nice, I think I'll use it' school of modelling – not a stickler for accuracy.

As the frosting thing hasn't happened to me before, I was wondering if it was something to do with the plastic Zvezda uses. It is very evident on the glazing under the cockpit that the plastic is different to other manufactures, as it is very bendy, which made it more than a little awkward cutting the 0.5mm off the sides to get it to fit.

 

[Unfinished project]

Absolutely stunning love the engine detail and the weathering is top notch 

[Gorby]

4 minutes ago, Unfinished project said:

Absolutely stunning love the engine detail and the weathering is top notch 

Thanks very much. Virtually all the detail is from the kit, I only did a tiny bit of scratch building on this build. 

[Unfinished project]

9 minutes ago, Gorby said:

Thanks very much. Virtually all the detail is from the kit, I only did a tiny bit of scratch building on this build. 

It’s all how it’s put together and presented  it’ll be a few more years before I can hope to be able to work to this standard 🤞

Edited June 9, 2018 by Unfinished project
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