Novo Tupolev SB-2 "Katyuska" Bomber - 1/72

[Kushan_Farsight]

My slightly late entrance to the party! 

 

My plans to start this first thing this morning utterly failed, so this will mostly be done tomorrow i think! Starting nice and late in the day with hopefully a bit more done in the early hours.  Obligatory start time shot 

 

 

quite a bit of flash! will have to get rid of this before i give it all a quick prime in the sunshine!

 

 

Current thinking is to do this in either a Czechoslovakian or Soviet livery, with 3 bladed props and wheels (i have sneaky plans for the 2 bladed props on another long stalled project)

Will pretty much all be OOB although i may add some vague detailing into the non existant interior....time permitting!  Bits all laid out on the table for a tidy up and then prime

 

 

Any idea what this is? Cant see it numbered on the plans and it doesnt seem to correspond to anything on the plane........just a bit more free plastic in the box?

 

 

Will add another update after some food and when more progress is made! 

 

 

[dogsbody]

Good luck with that! You're gonna need it. If it anything like my NOVO kit, there's enough extra plastic in the box to make an I-16 to go with the SB-2. I hope you've got lots of sanding material and course files.

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Jinxman]

Good luck with this one - looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

[JOCKNEY]

1 hour ago, Kushan_Farsight said:

Any idea what this is? Cant see it numbered on the plans and it doesnt seem to correspond to anything on the plane........just a bit more free plastic in the box?

 

It looks like a fossil of a stingray, bit of painting and a coat of gloss varnish, job done straight in the gallery, put the aircraft back in the box for another day 😉

 

Good luck with the aircraft if you choose to build that as well.

 

Cheers Pat 

[AdrianMF]

Wow! Man vs Plastic. Possibly not Frog’s finest moment. Pulling up a chair for a ringside seat!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[dogsbody]

8 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Wow! Man vs Plastic. Possibly not Frog’s finest moment. Pulling up a chair for a ringside seat!

 

Regards,

Adrian

The FROG kit I build back in the late 70's was bad enough, but the two I have now, a NOVO and some Eastern European bagged kit, are just awful.

 

 

 

Chris

[Kushan_Farsight]

Cheers for the encouragement everyone  

After a bit of tidying up and fettling got the main parts looking less flashy

 

 

Then before the sun set was able to get out and get a coat of primer over everything - 

 

Which made most of the parts not look too bad in fairness (we will see how they actually fit together in due time!)........although on closer inspection it does seem like those radiators look like they have been pre-molded with baked on grime and dirt!

 

 

Fuselage sides before - 

 

 

After (and yes i flipped the camera round  ) dark green interior with some little additions to give a bit of variation (totally non accurate)

 

 

All the shiny bits painted in silver and insides done.  Rationale is that now i can get the big bits all together, most of the silver parts stuck together and move onto the outer color scheme quite quickly. You can see the pilots stuffed up in the top corner - they i think will not be going in this model just to speed up the interior painting and detail (which shall be sparse  ) 

 

And thats me off for the night! I will have check to see how the rules work on when i start back up tomorrow - its either 2pm or 5pm, but either way theres going to be lots of modelling going on tomorrow evening! 

[Kushan_Farsight]

Oh and i know there are more sinkmarks all over the shop on this model, but to maintain my timings and sanity ive decided ill try and avoid using filler unless its absolutely necessary and that the hole/gap/groove would be large enough to fit a to scale chicken through. 🐔 The landing gear flaps are just an utter abomination - dont expect to see many shots of this from underneath! 

[Johnson]

Blimey, and I thought I started early! Best of luck with it, still lots of time left!

[Kushan_Farsight]

im going to start back up in about half an hour, although im not quite sure what category of the blitzbuild this falls into now (the other option.....or the lockdown option??) 

 

I jinxed myself with my filler comment - dislodging a filling last night before going to bed! - had to spend this morning hunting round a few shops for an emergency repair kit as obviously corona-virus means i cant just quickly nip to the dentist. So spent lunchtime carefully applying filler to MYSELF 

 

So my plan over the next few hour is to break the job into little sub assemblies and then bring them all together at the end.....

 

1) Finish interior bits and seats, including at least some semblance of a joystick for the pilot

 

2) Props and spinners fixed to rad fronts

 

3)Wheel Subassemblies (painting as i go)

 

4) tiny bit of gun detailing

 

5)wheels into main wings and those complete

 

6) decide whether to try positioning the flaps in anything other than neutral

 

Then its a case of following the rest of the instructions.......... May have not quite given myself enough time to get this one over the finish line but i will give it a good go!

[Jinxman]

You still have my complete admiration for starting this...and then keeping it going. 😀

[dogsbody]

By flaps, do you mean the ailerons on the outboard trailing edges of the main wings?

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Kushan_Farsight]

From earlier this evening (6pm - 10pm)

 

 

Lack of any dash had annoyed me......but it just so happened there was this conveniently shaped bit of flash left over from trimming the main wings.........

 

Didnt turn out too bad!

 

Interior pretty much done at this point

 

Any clamp in use holding together the various rudder /elevator pieces 

 

A little inspiration from my beloved game War Thunder.... this is one of the earlier soviet planes that they actually have featured in-game pretty well, with about 5 different variant from the early 2 bladed right through to final AR-2 derivatives. 

 

 

Next up-  wing assembly and fuselage halves...... might not make it to the end of this blitzbuild! 

 

[Kushan_Farsight]

Unfortunatley....ive run out of time! didnt quite use the allotted time as efficiently, spending the time fixing myself and the garden more than these parts together it seems!

Oh well, heres some pics of where i managed to get up to.... 

 

Left wing assembled with exhausts, access panels, prop and uc, just needs undercarriage doors to be fitted. 

 

Plan was/is to have the other wing with aileron raised, somewhat simulating a pilot doing some on the ground checks before takeoff (yes i was inspired by my little run on war thunder earlier in the evening  ) 

 

Not the most aligned of cockpit parts....... but at least the glazing went in without any hitches! 

 

 

 

And how she was at stop time - 2.15am

 

 

 

I know i planned not to use too much filler but there is going to be some needed for these wing joins.....they are a bit too big to ignore. Both wings needed quite a significant bit of sanding to get the parts to blend together, it seemed the upper half mold maker never spoke to the lower half guy! 

 

Getting BritModeller on my phone is a must for the next one, because i have a very obscure route of making any posts at the moment that isnt suited to rapid fire updates, and i totally forgot to upload my delicious snacking to boot! 

 

Will try and get this model done in the week whilst my modelling drive is high. I think making the choice of an older poorly fitting kit + twin engines + turrets = a maths equation im not quite ready to solve during a Blitzbuild exam 

 

Cheers for stopping by everyone, sorry i couldnt get this one to the finish line!!

 

 

 

[TonyW]

A brave attempt at a kit that takes no prisoners. More than once I've opened the box of mine, looked at the parts, shuddered and put it all back again. 

 

Tony.

[Johnson]

A valiant effort! You can enjoy finishing it at your leisure while the rest of us look at our models and think ‘if I’d had the time I wouldn’t have done that!’

 

Hope you get the tooth fixed OK!

 

Cheers,

[AdrianMF]

3 hours ago, TonyW said:

A brave attempt at a kit that takes no prisoners. More than once I've opened the box of mine, looked at the parts, shuddered and put it all back again. 

What he said! I hope you get this finished, we would love to see it done. Maybe open a thread in Aircraft WIP?

 

Your “instrument panel from flash” is modelling moment of the year for me!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[qn30jEkPz7]

A solid effort. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out with more time to lavish on it

[Kushan_Farsight]

Cheers for the encouragment chaps. Ill take the guts of this thread and put it into a new post in the WIP section. 

 

I think if id locked myself in the room for 2x12hr stints i would have got it done, but life as it so often does got in the way a bit!  If i can get it done by this weekend ill be happy enough. 

 

In the meantime i found this rather interesting video on the SB-2. lots of little details and elements to take note of. 

 

 

I actually have another of these SB-2 kits and at some point would quite like to do this in a well worn winter camo with the 2 bladed props and skis..... but lets just finish this one first eh?