Ukrainian Yak-38 -- 1/72 Revell restoration

[mark.au]

In my experience wives find everything.  You’ll have that missing stabiliser back in your hands in no time.

[opus999]

20 hours ago, mark.au said:

In my experience wives find everything.  You’ll have that missing stabiliser back in your hands in no time.

indeed, we were searching the last set of shelves in the dining room tonight and she spotted it in the very back corner behind a bunch of stuff, 3rd shelf up.  We were really scratching our heads about how it got there -- it must've been really flying.  Jeez!

 

So, with parts in hand, it was time to start fixing things....

 

 

I took the paint off the nose around the seam so that I wouldn't get paint in the bond.  The seam came out OK, but some of the CA chipped, so there will be a little filling an sanding on the nose.

 

 

The loose stabilizer didn't have any chipped putty, so I put some glue in the open seam and pressed it back into place.  I may get away with just a hand brush touch-up in one spot there! 

 

 

The broken one though, is a bit more problematic.  It snapped off the tab*, so it was going to be a butt join, which I'm not happy about.  I thought about trying to put some strengthening rods in, but the stab. is so thin that I would have to use my thinnest rod, which is so flexible it probably wouldn't do any good.   Plus, the piece doesn't fit well any more, leaving a bit of a gap toward the back.  I'll see how it feels tomorrow; if it feels solid I'll leave it be, but if not I'll take it off and try to dress that seam up a bit to get a better fit.

 

 

On the bright side, the area I have to touch up is all one color, so I won't have to strip the whole back end as I feared.  I'm also glad I didn't have to try and replicate the piece!

 

 

* I initially thought it landed on its nose, but seeing as how the stabilizer tab broke off and the very tip of the trailing edge was bent, I think it may have landed on the stabilizer and rebounded onto the nose.

[mark.au]

Nice save!  

[drake122]

22 hours ago, mark.au said:

In my experience wives find everything.  You’ll have that missing stabiliser back in your hands in no time.

That works in mysterious ways. They certainly do find everything you don't want them to find... like hidden stashes of models one bought last month.

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, opus999 said:

the area I have to touch up is all one color

You are going to have to give us all lessons in “how to drop models”!

 

Glad to hear that the damage isn’t too bad and that it’s all fixable.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[opus999]

19 hours ago, mark.au said:

Nice save!  

 

18 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

You are going to have to give us all lessons in “how to drop models”!

 

Glad to hear that the damage isn’t too bad and that it’s all fixable.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

Thanks guys.  I'm really happy that there wasn't much damage for all the noise it made at 5 in the morning!

 

I'm a master at dropping models, but this is the first time I did it the right way!

[opus999]

Looking at the only photo I've found of the plane this is based on, I think the dark blue (FS25042) is too dark.  I thought it looked pretty striking, but it seemed too dark.  Now looking at the photo, it seems like it should be something like a dark sea gray.  The dark blue looks almost black and the photo doesn't show a contrast as great as that.  The other two grays look right, though. 

 

Examining the camo pattern, I think it will be fairly straightforward to mask the dark blue and over paint it with gray.  At least I hope.  Well, I can't work on it until tomorrow night any way, I wish I could post the photo, but now I can't find it on the interwebs.

 

Any thoughts out there?

[opus999]

It never fails that I find more pictures late in the game.  The one picture I had was of number 40, but I found 3 pictures of number 83 (the one I am modeling) -- 2 color and one b/w.  One of the photos is here: https://russianplanes.net/id24849 and it shows the colors very well. Together with the other photo (taken of the opposite side), I discovered a couple of things.  1) The camouflage pattern shown by Begemot is accurate except for the starboard side toward the front intake 2) the dark blue that Begemot calls for is too dark -- which i already thought anyway -- and needs to be just a little more blue.

 

On top of that, the light gray I used seems too light.  I almost wonder if I grabbed the wrong bottle.  It was supposed to be FS36270, which is a neutral gray, but it seems much lighter, both when held next to the bottle cap, and held next to other models with the same color.

 

I had thought about fixing the dark blue with masking and misting blue over it (like I did with my HobbyCraft build), but I realized I had other painting tasks (like the repairs) that together would be tedious and time consuming.  It occurred to me it would be faster and easier to start over with the painting.  So, that's my plan.  I'll over coat the whole thing with the FS15042 dark blue, mist the cobalt blue over it until the shade is right and then mask and paint the intermediate blue.  Finally, I'll mask and paint the light gray, but I'll use RAF medium sea gray, which seems like a close match to the photos (and isn't that far off from the neutral gray I was supposed to use).

 

The underside color in the photos is much lighter than the gray that Begemot calls for so I have a couple of candidates to choose from.

 

Don't think I'll be able to work on it tonight, so look for an update tomorrow.

[AdrianMF]

Good luck!

[mark.au]

This true commitment, I like it, looking forward to the results.

[opus999]

Progress at last today!  First off, I discovered my bottle of FS15042 on the shelf downstairs when I was collecting supplies.  If that was there, what was I using??  I was using Mr. Color Midnight Blue.  No wonder it looked black!!  Ugh...

 

First thing I did today was put primer on the areas that had been sanded clean.

 

 

You might notice a little black behind the intakes.  That's because I originally planned to paint the blow in doors behind the intakes, but forgot.  This time I painted black, and will put masks over the black.  I saw a guy, somewhere on the web, who had a Revell kit like this and he cut the blow in doors out.  I figured if he could do it then I could do it and attempted it on the HobbyCraft build.  Well, let's just say that I made such a mess of it, that filling the mess I made back in and painting the doors instead was a much better proposition!

 

So, without further ado... here's the masked doors and anti glare:

 

 

I first painted a uniform coat of the FS15042, which I could tell immediately was the right color.  Still, I decided to mist Cobalt blue on it to push it even more to the blue side because I figured the contrast with the lighter colors might make it look too dark.

 

 

Then came masking.  Having found actual photos, I discovered that the diagram that came with the decals was incorrect.  I tried to get as close to the photos as possible, but I found that I didn't have enough angles to really figure out how the camo went around the top to the starboard side, so I had to make an interpretation.  The other problem was this kit's dimensions are inaccurate, so the demarcation between colors on my model doesn't always go where it should because a feature (e.g., a door, or a fin) wasn't where it should be.  Disappointing, yes, but in the end I managed something that looks relatively accurate.

 

 

 

Sprayed on the intermediate blue

 

 

 

...and more masking.  Same difficulties.

 

 

 

But in the end It came out much better than the original job.  This looks right to me, and it compares very well, color wise, to the photos I have.  I think the light gray could stand to be a little darker, but y'know what?  I'll live with it!!

 

 

 

More painting to come:  I have a couple touch-ups and there's an odd sliver of intermediate gray that needs to go just below the starboard anti-recirculation fence.  I also have to paint the patches that the Ukranians painted when they covered the old Soviet symbols (e.g., the naval flag).  with my new pictures I found that those patches are a noticeably different color... which to me looks remarkably like straight FS15042, so that's what I'm going to use.  After that it's the bottom, the off-white dielectric panels and then the metal bits....

 

All in all a good day though.

[mark.au]

You should drop your models often and at the same place in the process as this one 😊

[opus999]

On 8/6/2022 at 4:42 AM, mark.au said:

You should drop your models often and at the same place in the process as this one 😊

Yeah, it sure seemed to improve things.  I think I would've come around to changing that dark blue at some point, though, because it was really bugging me.

 

So, as promised, I did some touch up and had to paint a curious little strip of intermediate blue.  The three photos I have are: 1) side view port side, 2) side view starboard side and 3) oblique view from behind the port side, with the a/c wings folded.  That means that the area where the fuselage curves down on the starboard side is not visible.  For the life of me, I studied those photos and just couldn't reconcile how that weird little strip connected with the other parts of the camo.  The strip curves down toward the leading edge of the starboard wing, but  that would connect with the other intermediate blue coming over the middle of the fueslage and that's not what I see in the picture.  Also in the picture there is a strip of the lightest gray coming over the middle of the fuselage that I don't have on my scheme, and that I can't really see in the oblique view.

 

Weird.

 

I scratched my head for quite a while and just decided to make the strip of intermediate blue a "blob" that doesn't connect to the wing.  It doesn't match the picture, and that totally drives me nuts, but I didn't know what else to do. So here it is with all the masking in place for the touch ups and the mystery strip.

 

 

 

Then it was time for more masking.  This time it was for the painted-over Soviet navy flags.  For the overpainted stars on the tail fin, I just did free hand.  After that I masked to paint the bottom, where I used Mr. color IJA gray:

 

 

and the various dielectric panels, which i painted a Mr. Color off-white (which has an FS number, but I don't recall what it is right now):

 

 

The end result of today's work:

 

 

 

 

I really like how it looks. The camo pattern continues to bother me though.  I wish I could put together a pattern to fit what I see in the photos, but it is just not coming to me.  I hate it when I am certain something is wrong, but I can't figure it out.

 

Well, Maybe I don't want to figure it out because I'd have to paint it a 3rd time... 😕

 

Anyway, I plan to do things in a little different order on this build.  I plan to dull coat next, to provide a surface for my pencil to mark, and then I will draw panel lines.  I fully realize that there will be decals that will need panel lines on top of them, and I will have to do that as well.  The reason why I am panel lining now, is so that I get all the various access doors, etc. so I can position the stencils  correctly.  On the Hobbycraft build I had to do some careful estimation of where various access panels were when I was putting decals on, and then had to draw the panel lines around them.  It made the job much slower, difficult and error prone. 

 

After the dull coat and drawn-on panel lines, I will protect the pencil lead with a spray on semi-gloss, and then apply my aqua gloss for decals as I normally do.

 

I figure I can at least get a start on drawing on panel lines tomorrow.

[mark.au]

That paint job looks great!  

[opus999]

10 hours ago, mark.au said:

That paint job looks great!  

Thanks Mark, I really like it too... aside from my confusion and frustration with the pattern.

[mark.au]

5 hours ago, opus999 said:

Thanks Mark, I really like it too... aside from my confusion and frustration with the pattern.

Now, you need to attach a temporary lanyard to it and attach the other end to a fixed point high enough to prevent it flying into the ground again.

[opus999]

1 hour ago, mark.au said:

Now, you need to attach a temporary lanyard to it and attach the other end to a fixed point high enough to prevent it flying into the ground again.

Let me get out my hole punch, this should only take a second...

[opus999]

I didn't have any time to post this week, but did have a little time to work on this.  Monday and Tuesday I penciled in the panel lines using a schematic I have that matches well with close-up walkaround photos.  I found the pencil worked fine on just the Mr. Color paint, which meant I didn't have to spray a dull coat on.  That made me happy since I don't want to put more overcoats on than necessary.  The drawback to drawing directly on the Mr. Color is that it comes off much easier.  If you aren't familiar with how I use a pencil for panel lines, I draw the panel line on with no care taken to how dark it is.  Then, I go over it very carefully and very lightly with the eraser to dial it back to where I feel it is believable.  I've found this is faster and more controllable than trying to lightly draw them on and not mess with the eraser afterwards.  Well, with the Mr. Color, I had to recalibrate how lightly I went over it with the eraser because it didn't take much to completely remove them.

 

Still, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out:

 

 

 

Next up on Wednesday night was all the masking for the metal parts.  A half-hour of masking, 2 minutes of painting.  Well, the exhaust area took a little more, so maybe 10 minutes of painting.

 

 

In the photo above, you can see where I masked the plate for the IFF antennas on the nose and the antenna just forward of the tail fin.  And below, of course, is the exhaust area

 

 

I used Mr. Color super stainless for all the metal parts, because it seemed to best match the walkaround photos I've seen.  On the exhaust area I used Alclad Burnt metal, with Alclad jet exhaust on top of it:

 

 

I thought I was free to start decals on Thursday night, but realized I forgot the metal at the opening of the intakes.  Plus I had to fix the off-center dielectric panel on the nose.  Here's a shot of the masking (after I painted and remembered I hadn't taken a picture! )

 

 

 

I also hand painted the white panels on the tail, which my reference says are RSIU short wave ground control system aerials.  I had to hand paint them because I didn't have the ability to mask them.  I had left the panel lines for those, but even so, they were difficult to paint and didn't come out well.  Normally I paint these kinds of features with enamel over the aqua gloss and then use a toothpick to clean it up.  In this case all I had was Mr. Color Lacquer and it softens up the aqua gloss, so cleaning up with a toothpick can make an even bigger mess if you're not careful.  In the end they turned out just OK.  They look fine from arm's length so I guess I'm satisfied.

 

 

You'll notice I didn't zoom up too far on those...

 

I also hand painted the little white nubbins on the back of the aircraft (my references says they are rear radar warning antennae (sides) and an IFF aerial (bottom):

 

 

Friday we took the kids to a water park down in Oregon (aside:  for living in a an area that collectively has almost 200,000 people, it amazes me that I have to travel an hour to a town of 17,000 people to go to a water park with water slides.  In all fairness there are water slides here in the Tri-Cities, but they belong to fitness clubs that you have to be a member of to use ).   So, that evening, there wasn't much motivation to hit the bench.

 

Saturday i put on decals and got about 2/3 of them on.  There are a lot of stencils (over 100).  I debated whether to put them on, but my reference photos are inconclusive, so I opted for detail.

 

 

Getting close now!  I think I can finish the decals today.  Then it's weathering which will be on the light side, only because I'm not sure how often the aircraft was used after being turned over to Ukraine.  I need to work on the landing gears.  I broke one when I was removing the paint.  It is broken right where it connects to the wheel, so I need to think about how to fix it.  I also plan to run hydraulic lines on them.  After that, it will be down to details.

 

[mark.au]

That looks great, all those little details sum up to an excellent result.  I particularly like the pencil panel lines, they look very effective.

[opus999]

I spent a couple hours "finishing" off the decals.  No pictures to show, really because the remainder of the decals were stencils.  I say "finishing" because I'm not really finished.  I had forgotten to gloss coat the rocket pods and the various bay doors so I did that and will complete those decals tomorrow, probably.  I also plan to put a protective gloss coat on the whole aircraft tomorrow, so Tuesday will be oil wash and weathering.  It would be nice to finish before Thursday because next weekend is all accounted for, but we'll see...

[Dmitriy1967]

Hi!

I don't know have you seen these photos? Maybe they will be useful to you. There are a lot of details.

 

http://scalemodels.ru/modules/photo/viewcat_cid_409.html

 

[opus999]

6 hours ago, Dmitriy1967 said:

Hi!

I don't know have you seen these photos? Maybe they will be useful to you. There are a lot of details.

 

http://scalemodels.ru/modules/photo/viewcat_cid_409.html

 

 

Cheers for that!  I've seen a photo of that airframe at the museum before, but not these.  They will be helpful because I'm trying to figure out all the little antennas that are on the aircraft.

 

It's interesting that the colors of this museum example are different than the operational ones I found pictures of (like here: https://russianplanes.net/id24849).  The Begemot decal instructions said this example got the 4 color camo, and then it was repainted just before being put on display, so that might explain why the colors are different.

[AdrianMF]

The new paint job looks really striking. Nice!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Dmitriy1967]

On 8/17/2022 at 3:11 AM, opus999 said:

It's interesting that the colors of this museum example are different than the operational ones I found pictures of (like here: https://russianplanes.net/id24849).  The Begemot decal instructions said this example got the 4 color camo, and then it was repainted just before being put on display, so that might explain why the colors are different.

 

I could not find in the Russian-speaking part of the Internet any mention of when this aircraft number 83 was repainted in that tricolor camouflage of Ukraine. I mean its appearance before it was painted for an exhibition at the museum. It's very strange.

I can assume that when it was transferred to Ukraine, it was repainted right on the spot, temporarily, to change the signs of belonging to the country. Moreover, this plane has never taken off after the transfer to Ukraine.

But these are all my assumptions, which may be wrong. 

[opus999]

Not too much of an update tonight since I was out of town this weekend.

 

Over last week I used oil paints to create dirt and grime all over the aircraft

 

 

 

 

Wednesday night, the metal parts were masked off and the whole thing was dull coated.

 

 

Tonight I got back home and started painting the tires.  Clearly I am not finished yet.

 

 

I also used weathering pastels to create exhaust streaks, but I didn't go too dark.  Maybe they should be a little darker.  I don't know.

 

 

also added some exhaust from the vertical lift engines

 

 

Since dull coat was all finished, I took all the masking off

 

 

Wow those turbine intakes are comically tiny!  There's also some junk in the canopy, so I may need to take it off to clean.

 

...and the masking came of the pylons as well

 

 

I was going to add some grime around the wing hinge, but forgot.  So, I may do that tomorrow.

 

There is still a lot left to do!  I need to work on the landing gears and then see about making all the little antennas that didn't come with the kit!