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Airfix 1/72 Ju87 B-1 (newer tooling) - another one!


Scargsy

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So I'm going to be building this ->

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Seems it's a pretty popular kit in the GB so it will be interesting to compare results and build notes!

Here's some obligatory sprue and instruction shots...

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This is the first Airfix kit I've built in over 25 years and as a newer tooling it will be interesting to compare to all the older kits I've been building.

The part count seems quite high (probably as the average age of kit builders has gone up over the years), but it seems nicely engineered - the wheels for example have a weighted/sagged side or an unloaded side and can be set in the pods either way depending on if the plane is being modeled in flight or not.

I'll be building straight out of the box, with the only additions being some aftermarket paint masks for the clear parts (which actually seem very nice and clear) and the camo - I've never tried pre-cut camo masks before so it should be interesting.

I'm planning on doing the Spanish markings as I think it makes an interesting change.

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So I started on the kit and whilst it seems nicely designed, the quality of the moulding is somewhat lacking, for example the underneath of the co-pilots chair was only half formed (luckily enough to still function) also one of the pedals wasn't fully formed...

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In fact the first two pieces (the main structural spar and the underside of the fuselage didn't fit together well at all due to raised injector pin marks which I had to shave off.

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Other than that it seems so good so far, though the left wing top was a little more reluctant to fit snuggly than the right, but overall the pieces fit quite nicely.

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To make it worst that open canopy style is on the 1/48 as well. How are you supposed to paint it? As you say however designed that, can't be a modeller. I'm being polite

here. I like open cockpits.

By the way. Complain to Airfix about the state of your parts. You have photos. Don't let them get away with it.

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18 hours ago, Ed Russell said:

Interestingly mine had none of these problems. QC issue I think.

Ditto.

Soft molding in (many) places, but all the parts are well formed! Obviously they send the good kits to Africa! Lucky me!

I haven't checked the canopy yet, so I am absolutely in the dark as far as your gripes are concerned!

I am sure I will be screaming with the best of you when I have looked at it...

 

JR

Edited by jean
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8 minutes ago, jean said:

I haven't checked the canopy yet, so I am absolutely in the dark as far as your gripes are concerned!

They have moulded the open canopy and the part that it slides over as one piece. On the plus side, it's very thin, on the minus side, you can't paint frames on the interior part.

The Ju-87 canopy framing is more complex than it looks. Some of the frames are internal not external. Anyone who wants pictures, PM me your email address.

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10 minutes ago, Ed Russell said:

They have moulded the open canopy and the part that it slides over as one piece. On the plus side, it's very thin, on the minus side, you can't paint frames on the interior part.

The Ju-87 canopy framing is more complex than it looks. Some of the frames are internal not external. Anyone who wants pictures, PM me your email address.

Hi Ed,

 

just looked at my kit... Yes, I see what you mean.

Cute!

I had intended using the closed canopy, so I will not stress. But if I were to use the "open" one, I would use thin painted strips of clear decals on the inside of the canopy.

Painting the internal frames seems rather hopeless!

I sure will be watching.

 

JR

Edited by jean
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So I've found some other weirdness, during the build - a few bits have dark colouration patches, it doesn't seem to affect the plastic as far as I can tell so maybe it was just a colour mixing issue (not fully mixed?) e.g. on the end of one of the propeller blades...

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I also found some more annoying injector marks in places that affect fit - e.g. the inside of the engine covers,

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these needed slicing off so the part with the exhaust port parts could fit flush

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I must say though that the final results do look good...

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Other than those gremlins and a few small bits of flash the whole nose assembly went together well, with pretty good fit - though there's a good few parts.

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My only gripe would be that it seems impossible to paint the inner parts like the exhaust ports before fitting them, maybe someone has a smart idea though (e.g. coating them after painting with some kind of masking fluid that could be removed later)? 

I pressed on, the wing fitment was really quite good - there's some very small gaps that I'll put a small bit of filler in but overall it's surprisingly good.

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The rear horizontal stabilisers I was dreading putting on/aligning with the supports but it all worked well - the support parts have plenty of depth in the fitting points and everything nicely aligned.

My only other issue so far was down to my own stupidity, when cleaning up clear parts for the floor bomb window I accidentally removed some of the alignment parts with the flash, but it all fitted, I used some canopy glue but it didn't seem to be holding it amazingly so where the nose sub-assembly touches it I added a little plastic cement - hopefully it hasn't completely melted through the paint on the exterior or frosted the visible window (I guess I'll only know once I remove the masking post paint).

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The rudder I'm going to leave off until after painting as the Spanish markings scheme has it painted white and painting before fitting will save me a bunch of masking later.

The kit has options for the legs either with or without the siren pods, though it doesn't explain the differences in the instructions, there's also options for the ordnance. I'm planning on fitting the siren versions and the largest central bomb as well as the wing mounted bombs, I've no idea if this is historically accurate to the period of the markings choice but it's what I'm rolling with.

The main gear fairings I'm also planning to leave off until after painting (well once I've built up the other one too) - since these are to be painted the same colour as the top camo not the underside colour, again saving me some hellish masking tasks later.

 

Next job will be trying to clean up any joins before adding the more fiddly parts to the wings.

Edited by Scargsy
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Hi Scargsy,

 

you sure bought a kit full of Gremlins! It does happen once in a while to all of us. My kit is boringly normal, I hate to say!

Re the exhausts, what I am planning in doing is painting the sides of the cowling and the exhausts stubs before assembly, put everything together and then finish painting the whole cowling, but not right by the stubs!

In theory it should work....

Future will tell.

Keep having fun!

 

JR

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Yep, looks definitely like a "kit produced on a Monday" :( I had a look at my B-1 kit I have in the stash and it doesn't look anything like yours in regards to flash and ejection pins.

 

But it comes together nicely none the less :clap2:

Cheers, Peter

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Pressing on with the build I decided to paint up the crew, firstly I gave them a base coat of colours as suggested in the instructions but something doesn't look right (and I'm not talking about my inability to paint figures neatly at 1/72 :D )

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Whilst I appreciate the humour in the instructions (I'm guessing they're faces of some of the staff), Humbrol 20 is apparently Crimson Gloss?

I'm not using Humbrol enamels anyhow, the crew got some Vallejo colours - Dunkelgelb primer and various shades drybrushed for their suits and I chose a lighter yellow colour to go over the parachute straps, faces painted with Mig Oilbrusher flesh then gave them an overall wash once dry with some Army Painter light tone (it's a kind of sepia coloured acrylic wash). They won't be winning any prizes for detail but should look good in-situ, where they wont be as noticeable under the canopy. 

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The canopy masking set I used (Peewit) seemed a bit of a life-saver, it's the first time I've used a pre-cut canopy mask but it certainly helped though it was still a fiddly and long winded affair with all those tiny frames, some I might not have greatly aligned but I'm hopeful it will give a good result, certainly better than me trying to cut tape on the canopy.

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Fitting the rear gun and bubble was an interesting affair - I masked up the round window first and attached it to rear canopy section but aligning the gun with the rear gunners hand was pretty much a guessing game given I'd already masked up the canopy before fitting it! I was considering maybe adding some masking to the inside of the round opening then pulling it out post painting and fitting the window/gun last but decided instead to just go for it, we'll see where the hand/gun align at the end!

I also added a tiny blob of canopy glue to the inside middle canopy section over the antenna attachment point, to hopefully stop my paint blowing into the inside via the hole!

 

As far as the gremlins go, the pilots gun sight seemed a bit malformed or at least nothing like the image in the instructions so I discarded it.

The wing flaps also had some warping on the longer legs (for both wings) and needed to be forced into alignment. The front aerofoil on the underside of the wings (if that's what they are - might even be some form of radiator), one side had the centre connection point missing from the moulding!

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She's also had a bit of plastic surgery in the form of filler, I fitted the bomb pylons to the underside of the wing - I actually like the design of these, rather than some tiny little pins to connect the bombs they have large V points that slot deeply into the bombs. So it's now all ready for some primer, I used a bit of PVA to temporarily attach the bombs to some cocktail sticks for painting, and labelled up the undercarriage sides so I don't confuse them (I can't obviously see any 'handedness').

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Edited by Scargsy
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Update: A coat of Zero light grey primer was applied, though this seems to have reacted with the canopy masks slightly (I think the drying caused them to curl up and off a little, hopefully that was post painting not during!).

I'd also got some rough patches, it was hard to tell how wet to go and where I'd painted as the primer and plastic were similar colours but some gentle fine grade sanding sponge action later and it was smooth. I gave it a quick wash and left it to dry (more on this later...)

It was time to hit the underside with some colour, I'd bought some AK Real Colors (lacquer) to test so RLM 65 (1938) for the underside, to my eyes it looked a bit dark and blue (compared to expectation) and I think it will be easier to darken rather than lighten the colour later so I mixed it up 1 part paint, 1 part Mr Color Self-Levelling Thinner and 2 parts Zero Paints light grey primer (which is pre-thinned)...

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Hilariously it now almost resembles the plastic colour again, but baring my little errors of a couple of runs and the odd bit of fluff stuck in seemed great.

On drying however I started noticing some oddness in a couple of patches (these photos taken an hour or so after the above)...

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I think what happened is that even though I'd left the model to dry after washing off the sanding dust it wasn't fully dry and so some water had worked its way back out and caused some kind of reaction. It'll need either cleaning up or maybe I'll roll with it and see if I can work it into some weathering patches.

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Hi Scargsy,

 

your Stuka does look good!

Indeed, we live and we learn, or try to...

I hope the mask curling was post printing! I personally only use alcohol for cleaning a model before painting. It tends to dry much faster than water.

 

I shall keep my fingers crossed for you.

Have fun!

 

JR

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Further painting issues...

 

I repainted the underside to cover up the white/crusty looking marks - all looked good until it dried, pretty much the same again - though somewhat less of a mark, it's clearly something underneath reacting with the paint.

 

Onward to the topside and again I'm using AK 'Real Colors' lacquers, but seeming to have issues once again.

Firstly the RLM 71 base coat, mixed 1:1 with Mr Color self-leveling thinners, now it went down really smoothly and I put a pretty wet coat on but once dried it had a bit of a blotchy appearance (this could be my mixing, technique, previous uneven primer, etc,)

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It didn't show up too much on the above photos, but I did a second coat but there were still some patchy looking bits, but it looked OK enough (could be counted as faded areas. etc.),,,

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Anyhow, I masked it up for the camo and applied the RLM 70, the camo masks worked well, but the paint was a completely different experience to the previous colour. Again I'd mixed it 50:50 with Mr Colour Self-Levelling but firstly it covered amazingly well but also it dried a much more gloss/satin finish...

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I did have a few issues with the first coat chipping up with the masking tape...

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As you can see I've removed the masks from the canopy and they'd done a decent job, I had a couple of areas where a bit of primer spray had snuck under but a toothpick managed to clean up the worst of it.

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Also there was the odd mark where the second coat had managed to sneak under the masking and a few chips I made in my haste at removing the masking.

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I masked off and painted the wing tips white but unfortunately went a bit heavy (too much impatience trying to do it in a single coat), cleaned up the chips as best I could with a hairy stick and decided I needed a gloss coat to smooth the finish for the decals.

How I hate doing gloss coats, urgh - so this is how it turned out...

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I never seem to have much success with gloss - the clear parts are now frosty looking and the gloss is a bit 'bobbly'. This is using clear lacquer BTW, I think maybe it needed another coat to fully smooth.

Hopefully good enough to get the decals on then sealed and I'm hoping the canopy issue is just micro-beading of the gloss coat, I took a look under a 30x microscope and I don't think it's actually chemically attacked the plastic, just there's lots of fine bobbles reflecting/refracting the light. I'm going to try brushing the clear lacquer over it to see if I can get a smooth coat. The body I'll spray with something like Tamiya clear to seal the decals before a coat of matt I think.

I started adding the decals, they went on fairly well but getting the black cross on the white tailfin was an impossibility for me, thankfully Airfix didn't supply it with a huge clear area but that made it rather flimsy and eventually I managed to tear it when trying to get it to sit right. It's a fairly simple design though so hopefully I can paint it on with a bit of masking tape to help me!

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One other thing I'd note (to anyone else doing the same build) the crosses for the underside - the decal placement has it running over/through one of the flap arms, I think that was one that was a bit out of whack before (sticking up) - I have been better leaving it unattached until getting the decal to conform to the wing then bending the arm down. In the end I just moved the decal placement inwards slightly on the underside so as to not interfere with the flap arm. 

 

 

Edited by Scargsy
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