Kalinin K-7 from Mikro-Mir

[Pin]

2 minutes ago, Mike said:

I'm confused.  How many builds are going on in this thread?

Two, Ken and me 

[Flankerman]

I'm in the middle of a house clearance - so I'll be 'offline' for a week or two as far as building goes.

 

All down to you for the time being Alexey......

 

Ken

[Aardvark]

4 hours ago, Pin said:

Boogies are the concern. I'm not sure that that they would withstand the significant weight of the model, I'm thinking of replacing some plastic parts with scratch built ones made of metal tubes

 

Maybe make a copy of the front wheels in 

lead (Plumbum)

and install them instead of plastic?

 

B.R.

Serge 

[Pin]

The kit does not provide any struts to join massive "legs" to the wing, it needs some reinforcement.

 

Event without the tail booms the wing weight distribution makes it sit on its heels. 

 

I wanted to put lead pellets to the leading edge of the wing, for this I have made a bag that is easy to insert into a wing and fill with pellets through a funnel

 

Eventually it sits straight. But it required A LOT of weight, the wing is really very very heavy

 

[Pin]

No, the build is not stale or abandoned, but I spent to much time fitting and rescribing all seven engine nacelles

 

 

Unfortunately latest forum engine upgrade has invalidated all the pics. Maybe I should re-upload them some day

[John Meyer]

I'm working on this kit as well and have done some balance tests. There's ample room in existing spaces for weight without cutting holes in the wings, using magnets, etc. You can put weight in the "fuselage," the landing gear pontoons and supports, and the engine nacelles.

I threw away all the landing gear struts due to concerns about their weakness. They're also fiddly as can be, and completely invisible once the pontoons are together. I made axles out of steel rod and styrente supports glued to the pontoon walls. Much easier and stronger.

While it's a very cool kit in some ways, it's generally pretty awful in terms of fit. NOTHING can be assembled without tweaking and trimming. The windows are all to big for their openings in the fuselage and wings. The exhausts are all too big to fit in the slots on the nacelles. The openings for the struts on the horizontal tail and vertical fin are also too small. Nor will any of the control tabs fit without a lot of work. Etc. etc.  It just isn't any fun to build.