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Time to stress myself out a little and go in a different direction, East.

This is going to push me a bit further along the line of learning as there are going to be a number of firsts here.

1) Something in Russian service

2) Something that has a lot of etch

3) Two kits at the same time

4) A first attempt at weathering

 

what is going to cause all this?

 

Bella

20190705_000132

 

I made a start by opening the box, deciding it was too much and putting it back in the cupboard.

 

I then made a second start by opening the box, unwrapping the sprues and washing everything.

 

So, what is in the box?

 

A glossy instruction sheet

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Some packets containing etch,

20190705_000246

 

A soddin' great decal sheet (the most hateful part for me)

20190705_000307

 

2 sprues for the wings

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2 for odds and sods

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2 fuselages

 

20190705_000406

 

2 clear sprues

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and some masks.

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quite a bit to get my hands on as they say.

 

As I have not made anything other than factory fresh finishes I will have to decide how to approach a war weary look.  A bit of time on you tube may be in order for this one.

 

Hopefully a start will happen this week, mainly with pre painting the cockpit bits before sticking things together.

 

 

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2 hours ago, clive_t said:

Looks a great kit, I shall follow along if I may. Is it 1:72?

Pull up a chair Clive, but you may need more than a tub of popcorn as I am not the fastest of builders. 

The kit itself is 1/48 so the bits should be big enough for my eyesight. 

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Interestingly, I was leafing through the July edition of Scale Aircraft Modelling at lunchtime today, and I noticed there was a build review of this kit. It certainly looks a good kit.

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Not much to say at the moment.  I have spent the last few hours going through a ton of primer and interior green to start me off.  All this has been done on the sprue to give me a starting point. Later today I will detail paint the cockpit parts before deciding on construction. I have decided on the final schemes which mean two different Mark's, therefore different cockpit layout,  so keeping track will be a challenge. Once bits start going together I will be adding more pics.

 

More to follow. 

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As promised,  some bits have been stuck together. I must say,  Eduard have not made this easy by having only butt joints and a bit of a vague location point for the cockpit parts.

 

20190709_210810

 

The base is a nice single moulding which appears to have responded to my poor attempts at weathering.  The keen eyed may also have noticed a couple of bits of etch which were suitably fiddly. At least the carpet monster was quiet tonight. 

 

I would like to say that knocking these bits together was easy, but lack of locating points an a serious lack of four arms meant that much concentration was needed to hold things square. At the end, though, I have the starting point of two cockpit with different layouts.

 

20190709_213401

 

Next up will be two different instrument panels being built.

All etch. 

 

Can't wait. 

 

Thanks for looking. 

 

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Gordon Bennett,  I really need a new set of eyes.  Tonight I have spent a good hour knocking together one of the two instrument panels that I need to make.

 

For the version built tonight I needed three small switches.  These are spray-painted affairs which need to be folded in half.

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My approach was to cut one side and fold and glue them to avoid losing them. After the glue had set I cut them off and added them to the IP. 

 

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So far, this has 6 pieces added.

 

Eventually,  after much eye strain I got the whole thing together.

 

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I have already developed a hatred for etch, and an admiration for you who seem to relish using the stuff.

 

Friday will be the next day I get to work on this, and I just know I will have to do this all again, but with different details. 

 

Thanks for looking. 

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I have had a bit of an issue over the last couple of days as My memory card decided to pack up.  This meant that I lost quite a few pics which is annoying, but could be worse.

 

Still, it has allowed me to progress the cockpit, but not with pics until today.

 

Building two kits at the same time is quite interesting, especially keeping track of where I am with each.  Eduard do take care with their research to the point of including a number of IPs on the etch fret.  This has taken eye strain to the limit for me but at least I have a couple of instrument panels finished now.

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And yes, I have noticed that one of the charging handles has slipped.  This will be corrected when the fuselage halves come together.

 

The cockpit tubs are coming together now.

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And the seat has been finished.

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The seat belts look the business.

 

One of the schemes I am building has had a couple of plates scabbed to the back to increase strength.  I am guessing that the pilot got a bit too enthusiastic in changing direction and the Russians either didn't have the option of throwing it away or thought the pilot didn't deserve a new airframe.

 

Anyway, this took quite a lot of work getting the plate on, shaped and in place.

 

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there is still a bit of work to do before closing up.

 

One question, though, is how much nose weight to add.  Eduard don't tell you, but do remind you to make sure it is in there.  Has anyone built one?  will 5g be enough?  Any help greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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39 minutes ago, depressed lemur said:

One of the schemes I am building has had a couple of plates scabbed to the back to increase strength.  I am guessing that the pilot got a bit too enthusiastic in changing direction and the Russians either didn't have the option of throwing it away or thought the pilot didn't deserve a new airframe.

 

No, it was a standard upgrade.  Very common. 

 

this is on a salvaged plane

24.jpg

 

from https://lend-lease.net/articles-en/bell-p39q-15be-44-2911-airacobra/

 

Quote

During testing and combat reports, the one thing the Soviets were discovering was that the P39 suffered a structural weakness of the rear fuselage. After thorough testing, the Soviet LII (Flight Research Institute) and TsAGI (Central Aero and Hydrodynamic Institute) recommended a number of improvements to be undertaken at repair workshops from mid 1944.

These were recorded as: –
Defect and modification. – Twisting of rear fuselage and skin deformation.
All Q models up to and including the Q21 to have the following.
a. Two additional skins around radio compartment hatches.
b. fuselage longeron reinforcing member
c. two supports to forward tailplane spar attachment joints
d. two plates to reinforce the port forward fuselage beam.

Items a and c are clearly visible on ‘White 23’. These skins have been added over the red star and have covered segments of it. Whether or not it was deemed important, the star was not repainted.

All Q series models were to have the following work undertaken to the fin.
a. reinforce fin leading edge with additional skin.
b. add third fin/fuselage attachment point.
c. reinforce the forward and rear post with additional profiles.
d. additional plates at the middle of the rudder hinge.

Items a and b were also visible on ‘White 23’. The starboard skin of the fin was unrivetted and removed. The third attachment was added and refitted along with the additional leading edge skin. On completion the starboard skin to the fin was resprayed masking out the number, again visible in the photos.

Additionally, operating procedures were also altered to cover dive speed limit, rudder deflection limit and hard landings when highly loaded. Items relating to the centre of gravity were also implemented to reduce the weight at the rear.

P39-2.jpg

 

The VVS used A LOT of Airacobras,  and not as a ground attack as so often quoted, as air superiority fighters, note the 2nd, Pokryshin, http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/lendlease/p-39/misos/pokryshkin.htm and 3rd, Rechkalov  http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/lendlease/p-39/misos/rechkalov/rechkalov.htm  top VVS aces flew P-39's,

 

The schemes in the kit are based on the work of this chap, Michal Sekula, 

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/lendlease/p-39/p-39.html

 

with the photos he based the profiles on, plus the reasons why he think the profile looks like it does, well worth a read.  

 

On 05/07/2019 at 00:40, depressed lemur said:

As I have not made anything other than factory fresh finishes I will have to decide how to approach a war weary look.  A bit of time on you tube may be in order for this one.

Don't get too sucked in by the fasions of model finsishes, there is a tendancy to think VVS planes were very battered, dirty  and scruffy,  they were in general well maintained, and often had short service lives, so didn't have time to get weathered. 

 

HTH

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What an education this is. Thanks for the info Troy. I will not be going too heavy on the weathering front, and certainly won't be going for the dragged through a wire wool factory sideways look which seems popular. I will be limiting to shading techniques so hopefully will be subtle. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Following a brief sojourn bought on by work I have finally returned to the North, back to the welcomed rain, drizzle, spitting and torrential downpours I am used to.  This has meant that I can again get back into my little cave and continue the build.  As far as I remember I had just about finished both cockpits and stated to put in the sidewall detail.  I put in most of what Eduard gave but some bits were too small / fiddly / out of sight when put in that I decided that cowardice was the better part of valour ans accidentally forgot to put them in.  Note, I could have blamed the carpet monster but I am sure that there are a few of you guys thinking "been there, done that".

 

So, A couple of pics of where I got to by CoP last night.

 

20190727_145033

 

Putting the fuselage halves together was a bit of a chore.  I am sure that this was my fault as I tried to stick nose weight in every crevice I could find.  In the end I did the old, glue a bit, clamp, check and repeat to get through both sets.

 

Next I concentrated on getting one kit to a more advanced position.

 

20190727_145028

 

Which involved some filling and scribing to get to this position.  The biggest pain here became the gun-sight as it seemed to ping off every time I turned the flipping thing.  Eventually I decided to leave it off until I finished sanding and scribing. 

 

20190727_221231

 

Finally I stuck wings on.  Following the instructions I had no end of problems getting everything to line up with minimum gaps.  Again, this may be my fault but using the bit by bit approach it took over two hours just to get the wings aligned at the roots.  For the next kit I will try adding the lower wing first, then the upper wings at the root before bringing the ends together.  Might work better, might not.  I will add my thoughts once complete.

 

Thanks for looking.

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This week I moved on to adding the wings to the second airframe.  As I said, the approach this time was different to the build wings then attach to fuselage as recommend by the instructions.  Again, the work was carried out in stages to allow maximum setting time between stages to avoid breaking previous joints.

 

So, first of all, the rear of the lower wing was attached to the fuselage to create a joint.

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This is almost seamless compare to the first attempt.

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I left this for a couple of days before closing the front joint.  this again gave a good finish.

Leaving it a day to make sure it didn't pull apart I moved to the upper surfaces.

 

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 Getting the root to fit closely was fairly easy with both wings being attached quickly.  As you can see, a nice joint requiring no filler.

 

It does create a gap at the tip, but this closes up with minimum of fuss.

 

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I am now starting to add masking sponge into various holes which must mean I am getting on towards the best bit, painting.  First of all, though, I need to add half a dozen parts to the canopies before including, and then adding the doors in a closed position.

 

More to follow.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry, I realised that I have not been very good at updating this build.  Having said that, not much has happened as life has decided to get in the way of what I want to be doing.  Still, a little movement has happened.  Much masking has taken place and the kits have been primed using Tamiya Sky Grey (I just like it). I have also tried to do a bit of pre-shading (never tried, might have got a bit heavy), but I will plow on.

 

A word about Eduard masks.  I am a little hit and miss about this as the plus is that you don't have to faff about cutting Tamiya tape to size.  Also, they are commendably thin making masking curves a cinch and as for the landing light mask, 100% appreciated.  However, I find that (the ones in the kit) have sharp corners for the window frames, whereas the real thing has a radius.  Having said that, I will hold judgement until it is all removed.  

 

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The astute amongst you may notice that the doors have not been placed in the closed position, and sponge is sealing the area at the moment.  the reason for this is that the doors do not fit closed.  I can't work out if this is because I am rubbish at building (not unlikely) or the etch bulks the door just enough to interfere.  Still, not a deal breaker.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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Finally the first coats are going on.  As these started life in the U.S. the first stage is to finish in standard colours for the day, i.e. grey undersides and Olive upper (Mr. Hobby names).  Today I thought I would be brave and use my new airbrush for the first time.  It is a Harder and Steinbeck Ultra, and I got it around eight months ago, but didn't want to use it in case I broke it.  However, my cheapo brushes apply paint with much spattering involved which, according to Google and YouTube, means they are nearing EoL.  So I thought I would take a chance and use an airbrush that cost more than 15 quid, would it be any better?

 

Yes.

 

That was easy.

 

 

OK, to quantify; I found that I could reduce the psi from 20-22 down to around 15, despite this the paint still flows quicker, more evenly and to a better finish.  It is also a cinch to clean with a very quick break down procedure.  Definitely worth the money, and means I will need to get another as I have found that mixing between Vallejo and Tamiya/Mr. Hobby is a right pain.  So this will be used for Mr Colour (and Tamiya), the old brushes will be for Vallejo until I get another.

 

Oh, I forgot, this is supposed to be a build!  You want to see pictures to show I am not just waffling on.

 

2019-08-18_03-17-56

 

The underside is a nice smooth finish with just a hint of the pre-shading visible.  I would appreciate your comments on this, is it enough, too much, not enough?  There will be a touch up session as there is a smudge on the belly pan, and I will also try to add staining from the radiator vents at a later date if I feel brave.

 

20190818_151552 20190818_151557

 

 

The upper surfaces look a bit better I think.  I now need to add some more masking before doing a bit more pre-shade and covering with Russian colours.

 

Hopefully things will progress further soon.

 

Thanks for looking.

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I think your paintwork looks phenomenal! Way to not kill the preshade like I normally do. 

 

Thanks for for sharing this, I’ve got a much earlier release of this kit in the stash, and it’s making me itchy to build!

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Hi guys,

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement, I keep plodding on with this but I think I am now at a kind of where the hell am I up to moments.

 

The paint schemes I am going for show repaired panels as neat lines as if they have been painted prior to addition to the aircraft.  I tried this with one fuselage, but decided to free hand the other.  My reasoning being that repairs would have been painted, but I think this may have been in the field as the suggested repair colours are German.  I therefore guess that the panels would be sprayed after application, but within the local of the repair. so,

 

First scheme,

 

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I think the edges look too neat.

 

Second kit

 

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A tight freehand on the affected panels.  I feel this looks better.

 

The undersides

 

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Again, a tight freehand spray.  I am happy with this.

 

Now, this is the what do I do bit.I think the finish is still clean, so I am going to freehand some staining, but, what about the decals?  If I leave them, they will look too neat?

 

I think I will add all markings now and seal with varnish.  Then I can experiment with exhaust and radiator staining.  I have no idea what I am doing, but we shall have to see how it works out. I just hope I don't stuff this up.

 

Thanks for looking.

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Decalling is the part of builds that I hate with a passion.  It is slow, tedious, and, once the main markings are on, descends into a purgatory of non-stop stencils.  I know that there are some of you out there who probably thrive on this kind of thing but once I get past this....

 

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I just want to stop.

 

Of course, the problem is, it doesn't look finished until you have stuck "no push" over every conceivable surface.

 

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This is enough for me.

 

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Though this is even better.  Although there is no clear guidance I have worked on the principle that if the Russians have seen fit to repair and repaint this particular airframe I can see no reason why they would reinstate unreadable (to them) capitalist words.  This at least cuts down the number of the flipping things to apply and the story fits my mind enough.

 

There are still the fuselage stencils to go before I can seal under a bit of Klear.  Then it is time for a bit of staining and weathering.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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Day of disaster!.

 

I managed to get back into the den today and cracked on with the Bella pair. the day started well with sealing both kits in Klear prior to trying out some kind of weathering.

 

20190831_131528

 

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Mmmm, shiny,  This does make them look very toy like, and when dry, handling them feels even worse but I am in a happy place with all the decals sealed in so things should be happy from here on in.

 

I decided to add only exhaust staining and some stains to the underside air outlets. I have never done this kind of thing before so started by looking at photos of used P-39s in Russia.  Contrary to popular belief they do not appear to look completely trashed, so just light staining is the way to go.  A quick trawl on the internet brought up a few different methods none of which I had any equipment to hand so deep breath and push on.

 

I started by masking above the exhaust outlet on the side as photos show that the staining goes in a downward sweep towards the middle area of the lower rear fuselage.  First on was a series of passes with Tamiya Smoke to build up layers getting thicker near to the exhaust outlet.  Once happy I tried to darken with a bit of Tyre Black followed by a light grey stain.

 

I have no idea if this is realistic, but it will do for my first go.

 

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This was left to dry for a couple of hours whilst I made tea.  Once refreshed I thought I could stick on my matt varnish.  My go-to for this has always been Hannants matt varnish through the airbrush.  the first one went fine.

 

20190831_221702

 

 

the high gloss has now dulled down to a matt sheen.  The second was 75% successful. Unfortunately one wing has gone white.

 

The first thing I did was panic.  Then I got annoyed and seriously thought about binning it before calming down and thinking.

 

I tried using water to remove it (after all it is water soluble) but this does not work when it has dried so, chemicals are needed.

 

I did not want to strip and re-start as a) I like the paint job so far and b) I am a little short on replacement decals.

 

20190831_221643

 

This was the result of IPA on a cotton bud (Q Tip).  I have had to use almost no pressure as the first brush through managed to lift a hint of green.  My first try was positive, so I pressed on with a couple of panels.  The result seems to be positive, but streaky.  This just adds some extra weathering :hmmm:.  As it seemed to work, I pressed on with the rest and ended up with a better looking (though slightly shiny) wing.  I will review this tomorrow evening and see if the method has worked, and if I need to re-varnish the matt.

 

Thanks for looking.

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