Troublesome but loveable!

[KingOvClag]

My first build of an AModel kit. One of my favourite types of aircraft, and I was looking forwards to a nice quick build. I could not have been further from the truth! Started this in November, and only now at a point where I'm ready to put decals on her. Anyhow, I would like to share with you all how much trouble this lovable little aircraft has been!

 

I don't know how many of you have had experience of AModel kits before, but I'll say this - don't bother unless you have a lot of patience, filler, sanding strips,films etc, and a desire to create something that no other manufacturers do. The main issue is the fit of quite a number of the major pieces. The tail was warped, and didn't sit flush with the fuselage, even with some careful sanding to re-profile, I was left with a considerable gap to be filled on either side of the vertical fin. The horizontal stabilizer needed quite a bit of reaming out on the inside to enable it to fit onto the top iof the vertical fin. Oh yes - before that though, I had to use that good old hot water method to bend out the offending warp in the fin.

 

Wings: Well, the upper and lower surfaces did fit together quite nicely - just a little filler needed along the gap at rear edge where the flaps would be. It was far to big to be written off s the flap itself! Fitting the assembled wings to the fuselage was, going off a dry fit, need considerable work to be done to the area where they fit atop.

 

Fuselage: There is an interior cargo section as well as the cockpit. both very lightly detailed, which came as no surprise for a kit this size - It's hardly going to be seen. The purpose of the main cargo bay then, seems to be to provide some rigidity and form to the fuselage. Well it would had the bulkheads not been way oversize. Cue lots of gentle sanding until they conformed to the inner diameters. Got that glued into place, then dry fitted the other half of the fuselage to check for fit. Not bad - a little gap, that would need filling, but it would also be hidden by the landing gear belly area which fits to the fuselage underside. The cockpit floor fitted perfectly, but I didn't bother adding the exceedingly basic seats and panel, as they won't be seen once the fuselage is together, and the windshield is in place. I did make sure they were painted in that nice Russian cockpit interior blue/green  though!.

Back to this landing gear/belly part. Oh Dear. huge gaps on the front and rear edges. Not only that, but it was about half a mm too wide on both sides, which doesn't sound much. but on 1/144 its like a cellar step! - This would need sanding flush, but wouldn't be too bad as not much in the way of panel detail here. The other gaps needed a hefty amount of filler, and some judicious but careful sanding to make them conform to the fuselage.

 

Rear Ramp: Oh god no..... Well, I decided to do this as a nice clean version, with the ramp up as if it's ready to taxi out. The rear ramp and rear under tail area is in two pieces. the ramp itself, and the fuselage piece. Rear fuselage part was, like the belly, too wide, and would need sanding flush, as well as some filler being used. The ramp was a good 1mm too long at the front and back, and was also the completely wrong shape to fit to the fixing area of the fuselage, which necessitated a fair bit of shaving, filing, and sanding. Once in place, there were a coupe of very small but unavoidable gaps that would need a bit of filler.

 

Wing attachment: The wings should sit into a recess on top of the completed fuselage, that is way too small for the chord of the wings. Once again I had to do some careful shaving and sanding at both front and rear edges to allow the wings to fit. This still left a gap, but was easily filled. To the wings then needed to go the engine nacelles. These looked to dry fit well together, but once the fan assemblies were made up and sat in place, it became clear that the fan diameter is way too big for the nacelle interior. Cue files and sanding stuff again! One part had to be removed altogether, as it seemed to serve no purpose other than to hinder the assembly. I ended up with as good a fit as I dared to sand down any further with, so once again out came the filler!

 

No, its all together! She's been primed, and had her paint put on. Gloss coat is on too, and I'm leaving her overnight now and will deal with the decals over the weekend! Now, I do have a load of photos I have taken of this build - can anyone tell me how I can show these to y'all?!!

Edited January 11, 2019 by KingOvClag
Tried to add pictures

[clive_t]

Hi Mr KingOvClag, you'll first need to choose a photo hosting site. Flickr will allow you to host up to 1000 pics for free, these days I use Imgur, but there are others. Once you've uploaded the pics, you should be able to share them using the BBCode text, e.g. IMG{picture URL}/IMG - note that the IMG references would be enclosed by square brackets!

 

I hope that helps, looking forward to seeing the results!

[825]

You might find this thread helpful

 

 

In the same section (FAQs) there's threads on using Flickr and Village Photos