First of the many - Hobbyboss 1/32 Il-2... Shturmovik? Stormovik? Sturmovik?

[Hurricaneflyer]

Alright, first of all, I will need to have a small rant: this Aircraft's nickname is a nightmare. I sent a solid hour or two looking for a proper 'official' spelling for use in the title, only to find that the closest there is (as it is used by the Videogame) is Sturmovik, which doesn't make sense considering the original Russian pronunciation, where 'ш' is pronounced as a "Sh" sound, but even more baffling is 'Stormovik' as there is no 'o' sound anywhere NEAR the first letters, and even though the theoretically correct 'Shturmovik' does indeed get used, it is primarily in more vintage works, where the more recently-printed copies of the same book have changed the spelling to that of the first variety! Due to this, I may as well use the original Cyrillic штурмовик, for at the very least it is undeniably accurate and true to the original with minimal fuss!

 

…Okay, pet peeve rant over. I should probably now get to the subject itself: Hobbyboss's single-seat wheel-equipped Il-2.

This is undeniably a great kit, as quite a few much more knowledgeable modelers have made clear, although that does not rectify a rather prominent issue: It cannot fit on my workbench!

 

The solution, as obvious as it is, was to build everything separately, stashing the rest of the sprue back in the box where they would not bother me, and so I started with...

 

The engine. Yes, I know that it is common courtesy to build the Cockpit first (at least so I think), however as I am studying resources and walkarounds to get the area as accurate as I can get in terms of colours, I elected to build the Mikulin AM-38 powerplant first, seeing as it should be relatively simple, right...?

 

Well, the construction could be worse, however seeing as there are 4 different paints needed for the engine I had to assemble parts that shared certain colours and leave others on the sprue before priming them, a spit in the face to my traditional practice of smothering the engine in Tamiya Gunmetal and calling it complete!

 

 

 

Here the parts were given their first coat of paint, chrome silver (the only shade I have at the moment) on the smaller pieces and a strange mixture of 'Dark Grey' and 'Neutral Grey' on the larger ones. Yes, I know I am supposed to use 'Dark Ghost Compass Grey' (which does not really match up with photographs of real AM-38s in any case), however seeing as I did not have the appropirate shade I just mixed' and matched'. It came out alright, but it was at this point I ran out of lacquer thinner (needed for one of the paints) and daylight, which meant I had to pause the painting, at least for now.

 

And that is all the work I have for today. Don't worry about the relative lack of progress, as I will make an attempt to expand the build everyday, majorly if possible.

 

I have tried to resize the photographs to be more compact (thank you very much @stevehnz) but if it has failed horribly please let me know. As an addition to this, if there is anything I could do to improve build or my methods I would be more than happy to see any tips or such, as this my first attempt at this sort of activity.

In any case, that is all for now.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

Edited December 28, 2022 by Hurricaneflyer
Elaboration, elaboration...

[Memphis]

5 hours ago, Hurricaneflyer said:

I will need to have a small rant: this Aircraft's nickname is a nightmare. I sent a solid hour or two looking for a proper 'official' spelling for use in the title, only to find that the closest there is (as it is used by the Videogame) is Sturmovik, which doesn't make sense considering the original Russian pronunciation, where 'ш' is pronounced as a "Sh" sound, but even more baffling is 'Stormovik' as there is no 'o' sound anywhere NEAR the first letters, and even though the theoretically correct 'Shturmovik' does indeed get used, it is primarily in more vintage works, where the more recently-printed copies of the same book have changed the spelling to that of the first variety! Due to this, I may as well use the original Cyrillic штурмовик, for at the very least it is undeniably accurate and true to the original with minimal fuss!

I think, if you need hear correct sound, correct name is "Shtoormovik" with emphasis on "i". But this word don't usual for English language. I'm Russian and I translate "Shturmovik" for Russian avtomatically in my head.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Memphis

[Biggles87]

I didn’t even realise that this kit existed so I’d better take a look.

Hope you have better luck with the construction than the name!

 

John

[Hurricaneflyer]

On 12/29/2022 at 2:24 AM, Memphis said:

I think, if you need hear correct sound, correct name is "Shtoormovik" with emphasis on "i". But this word don't usual for English language. I'm Russian and I translate "Shturmovik" for Russian avtomatically in my head.

Thank you @Memphis, it's nice to know what a native speaker of Russian thinks of the topic. I will keep the opinion in mind from now on.

On 12/29/2022 at 4:24 AM, Biggles87 said:

I didn’t even realise that this kit existed so I’d better take a look.

Don't worry John, HobbyBoss most certainly made an effort to do the Il-2s thoroughly; you can get it in Ski, Early (this kit), Straight-wing two-seater ('Il-2M') and Swept-wing two-seater ('Il-2M3') 'flavours', for an alright price from Ebay last I checked.

 

Anyway, hello again, here is today's progress:

As painting equipment has still yet to be obtained, I have resorted to cutting out and cleaning up various parts that I will be using later. Here are the two 7.62mm ShVAK machineguns and 23mm VYA-23 cannons (HobbyBoss do not supply the 20mm ShKAS cannons, though if you do not cut open the wings to expose the guns there is not much difference). Though they do come with hollowed barrels courtesy of slide-moulding, I am contemplating replacing the VYAs for sprue of an identical diameter as you can only see half of the barrel, for use in future projects...

This kit comes with what I believe to be white-metal undercarriage components as well as regular plastic ones. Quite a nice touch, and leaves less work for me.

Here is the AM-38 masked and ready for a coat of 'burnt iron'... IF I HAD ANY LACQUER THINNER ON HAND!

Finally, here is the Cockpit, with the parts roughly cleaned up and dry-fitted together. They will all be primed before I move on to painting them, as that will be next if I cannot obtain the thinner in time.

An alternative shot of the Cockpit. There is a slight amount of uncertainty to whether or not I should do the Instrument panel myself or just stick the decal on and call it a day...

 

That is all for today. Hopefully things will speed up tomorrow.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Hurricaneflyer
ShKAS was the cannon, not ShVAK...

[roginoz]

oooh Nice !!

 

Got this kit in the stash, it keeps rising to the top and then disappearing back down the bottom, for the same reason [excuse ?] as yours, @Hurricaneflyer, too small a modelling space and even less display space.

 

Nevertheless, I think it will get built this year, even if it has to hang from the ceiling, so I'll be following your build closely.

 

Good luck with it.

Rog

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello once more, here is the progress of yet another day...

 

Starting off with priming of the parts prepared yesterday, a lovely task when the wind blows the primer away from the plastic and into your face....

Next was the application of the colour 'Burnt Iron', thanks to the procurance of lacquer thinner, an immense relief meaning that not only are the parts ready...

...the engine is now ready to be assembled (don't mind the fuel tank behind it)! Now, how do you build an Aircraft Engine? Well, it's simple...

First you remove the cylinder blocks because you are an absolute spanner for not realising they were on the wrong sides assemble the small parts together...

Then you spruce up the main block...

Put them all together and attach the exhausts... 

And presto, its a Mikulin AM-38!

 

Now, can you see the mistake in this engine? I certainly didn't, because only now (in editing) do I realise that I put the engine exhausts on the wrong sides.

Not even when taking this rear view did it even cross my mind - perhaps this was a case of classic selective memory, choosing to remember the positions of the rear exhausts while forgetting the main ones! (Be careful at this part of the build, @roginoz!)

In any case, I will have to rectify this immediately... tomorrow. I will admit that the engine does indeed look splendid when completed, and when compared to a German DB-605 of the same scale, it towers over it!

 

Anyway, that is all from me today.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Winded Penguin]

That's a lot of detail in 1/32 scale. Looks like a really nice project👍

[Memphis]

On 29/12/2022 at 13:34, Hurricaneflyer said:

Thank you @Memphis, it's nice to know what a native speaker of Russian thinks of the topic. I will keep the opinion in mind from now on.

I'm glad to help you. I built Il-2 two seat version by TOKO in 1/72 20 years ago. It didn't have many details and I did not know how to make parts myself. So this was elementary and not interesting.

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello, for the last time of 2022. 

 

As the day has been quite busy, with outings and meetings alike, there was only enough time to fix the issue of yesterday, the misaligned exhausts:

Now the engine does indeed fit into the clear nose panels, and so once its mounting is done I will begin work on the cockpit.

 

In any case, as it is only about 30 (give or take a few) minutes before the New Year here in New Zealand, I will simply leave off with this:

May everyone have a Happy New Year, as those of us who are first on receiving said New Year will look and tell you all what it is like.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Memphis]

There are traces of mold connection on the exhaust parts. Was it on the real prototype?

[Hurricaneflyer]

7 hours ago, Memphis said:

There are traces of mold connection on the exhaust parts. Was it on the real prototype?

Oddly enough, yes it was, at least according to the kit instructions:

The best evidence I could find on the actual Aircraft was this image from a Yugoslav Il-2 walkaround (this was the best photograph I could find on a whim; not very many people are interested in Il-2 exhausts!)

http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Research/Ilyushin/Il-2/Walkround/Serbia/23 Starboard Exhaust and Filter.jpg

As you can see if you open the image, on some of the exhausts the there are lines (potentially from misaligned welding or riveting?) going vertically and horizontally, though it is irregular.

So as far as I can tell, yes, the mould lines are indeed somewhat authentic (which partially answers the question of why they didn't supply the exhaust parts as whole pieces)!

 

[Memphis]

Thanks! I understanded you. 

[Hurricaneflyer]

A New Year, a new batch of Three-Hundred and Sixty-Five days. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Jokes aside, although the day once again was quite busy, there was still just enough time to get in the following progress:

 

The AM-38 has been mounted to the... well, mountings. There was a slight bit of confusion with the instructions at first, as I tested them on backwards, but it came out nicely in the end.

Now, the tricky part, painting the Cockpit pieces. This would not have been so difficult if it were not for:

 

A: The instructions be obtusely vague on the matter, pointing out the colours of dials and levers but not the parts they are mounted on and...

 

B: The utter lack of references and images of the Il-2's Cockpit. Honestly, I have every minute detail about the undercarriage, UBK, oil cooler and even the exhausts, BUT NO GOOD INTERIOR IMAGES!

 

That is not to say that they do not exist, as you can find photograph upon photograph of the instrument panel and control stick, yet nothing that shows the seat, backplate, or any other component not visible from the Pilot's view. As such, I decided to compromise (I am almost certain this is the wrong way to do things, but anyway...) by using the kit-specified grey on the backplate, and by using extremely light grey (or dark off-white) for the rest of the parts except for the floor which received green, as seen in the photographs that how that area. 

Here are the parts all rearranged into their final form. Once again, simply looking at it, something feels... off. If anyone can provide clarification on this (or any decent interior photographs, for the matter!) please do so. Looking at this combination is not filling me with confidence.

 

Anyway, that is all from me today. Onwards, to a New Year!

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Hurricaneflyer]

Another day, another modest update. Let us begin!

 

Today's work consisted of completion of the Cockpit, most of it being repainting as I have decided to follow the kit instructions for most of the pieces, leaving the off-white on the instrument panel, side console and seat.

Here is the completed instrument panel in a stunning high-quality photograph. I have attached the decal to the rear portion of the panel, while painting the forward clear part. Though it was a bit messy, any excess that leaked onto the apertures was quickly scraped away thanks to my application of 'Clear Floor Polish', which is essentially a New Zealand Future/Klear alternative (it seems to work like it, at least!)

Here the assembly has begun, though I paused it to take a photograph of the side-console's detail. I may have misapplied the paint on two of the dials, but it was fixed in haste.

Finally, here is the Cockpit fully completed. I will admit it is still a good deal basic and messy, but with this I can move on to more substantial portions of the build.

Here is a rear angle of the Cockpit. I am a slight bit skeptical on how well it will fit in the fuselage, but that is a matter for future me to handle.

 

And that is all for today. Tomorrow will be the preparation and application of the P.E seatbelts, as well as the first steps of Fuselage construction.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

 

[Biggles87]

Nice cockpit, I particularly like the IP, I have seen several pictures of Russian WW II aircraft with pale or unpainted aluminium panels.

Good luck with fitting it all in.

Happy New Year.

 

John

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello all, here is the day's progress:

 

Before I began preparation of the fuselage interiors, I test-fitted the Cockpit and Engine to see how they would fit. The fit on the Cockpit is fine, although the Engine is a great deal more loose (don't mind that the mounting wall does not connect to the fuselage, it is designed that way).

Here are the fuselage halves primed. The bits where the primer has gone all white is where I sprayed some Isopropyl Alcohol to remove it, as I had missed that I needed to glue fuel tanks in there.

And here are the halves painted. The area near the Engine has also received a full coat as I will be building the Il-2 with the clear nose pieces to show off the engine (and because not many people make them like that)!

Here is one of two little radio consoles that fits into the rear fuselage. Them being in the kit is rather superfluous, as it is more a matter of "I know it's there" more than anything else unless you cut open the access panels, in which case the ribbing in the fuselage will prove useful. In any case, I have painted them lightly.

Here is the second radio. The largest positive I can see is that the connectors will prove useful in holding the fuselage halves together when the time comes to glue them.

 

Now, I haven't forgotten anything, have I?

 

...No, wait, I need to paint the seatbelts.

Here is the fret of P.E that HobbyBoss provides with the kit. Most of it will be used in the Bomb Bays, but nice seatbelts are also provided.

Here I have given the seatbelts a rough coating of Tamiya 'light deck tan' (or something close to that), the best alternative I could find to the kit-specified shade, simply known as 'Sail Colour'!

 

As most of what was done today was painting, this is where I stopped for the day so to let the paint cure.

 

More progress will come tomorrow, as always.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[AdrianMF]

Coming along nicely! There's a lot to do inside the fuselage. Is the radio visible at all when you've put the fuselage together?

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello all, here is today's chronicles of progress, but first...

23 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

There's a lot to do inside the fuselage. Is the radio visible at all when you've put the fuselage together?

The answer to this question is that it is completely invisible. I believe they included it for the two-seater boxings, as the Il-2'M' and Il-2'M3' both have the gunner's opening, from which you can see the radio sets (if you move to a most unnatural angle.

 

Now, onto the build...

 

Before the mating of the fuselage halves could begin, I had to first fit the tailwheel mount, minus the tailwheel (it will be assembled at a later point in time).

Here is one last look at the fuselage just prior to the glue being applied. The engine is not present as it is (or can be) inserted from the top-down.

A close-up view of the Cockpit. The area immediately behind it is empty, but will still be somewhat visible when the canopy is applied. This is the reason the rear was painted.

And finally, the fuselage pieces being put together. Lining up the little tabs that held the radios in place was a pain, and the area immediately in front of the Cockpit was unusually stubborn, but it all came out well in the end.

A length-wise image of the (not yet completed) fuselage. The riveting detail on the plane is very fine, so much so that I worry about loosing it once a coat of primer is applied...

 

Future worries aside, that is all from me today.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello all, today's progress is listed below...

 

Now that the fuselage has been (mostly) assembled, it is time to move onto the rear control surfaces. Here are the two horizontal stabilisers in the midst of gluing.

Here are the elevators, also being held together. The elevators (unlike the main fin) do not have any sprue attachments on the trailing edge, which makes cleaning up the slightest bit more convenient.

And here is the completed product. It should also be noted that the lines on the main fin are rows of rivets, and those on the elevator are fabric lines.

Here is the rudder, though going together just fine is being held up for another reason - I had accidentally snapped off the aerial, which was not good seeing as I had no recollection of how it was positioned originally; but by using the kit's painting guide I glued it into a roughly correct stance.

Finally, here is all the parts glued onto the fuselage. There are a few gaps that need filling (which was done shortly after this photograph was taken), but otherwise they fit together alright. A quick word of warning for those who are building this model: Do not glue the vertical stabilisers onto the fuselage separate from the elevators: they are designed to go on together, and it will be difficult to assemble them separately.

 

In any case, that is all from me today.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello all, my most sincere apologies for not posting for the last two days. Life had reared it's ugly side, and as such I was taken away from the house for most of the day. Regardless, some work was indeed done, I simply did not have the time to post it.

 

Excuses aside, here are the new developments...

 

Now that the fuselage is mostly completed, attention now turns to the wings, more specifically the center-section with the Bomb-Bays and Gear Wells. HobbyBoss supplies Photo-Etch for the former (most of the fret is dedicated to it), and this entailed a thorough session of getting CA on my fingers and occasionally slotting a part into its correct spot. Here are said Bomb-bays after the ordeal.

And here they are attached to the wing's baseplate. It was quite a tight squeeze, so this needed more attention than necessary.

Here is one of the Gear Wells. These do not get any photo-etch at all, likely because it will not be visible after the undercarriage is installed.

Here everything has been installed and the top plates have been glued on. The mating surfaces on the outer edges are quite narrow, meaning that they needed some CA to stay in place.

Here is a frontal angle. The gaping hole is where the rounded undercarriage housing will be.

Here is a view of the bottom of the wing. So far, everything seems to be very well-detailed.

Now the wings were mounted to the fuselage. This was exceeding difficult, not only because the fuselage flexed quite badly while attaching it, but also because...

These (there is no other word for it) MASSIVE gaps where the fuselage and wing meet. And yes, 'these' as in plural, as everywhere where the wing meets the fuselage there is a tremendous gap, or even overhang. No amount of sanding or cutting would fix it, so I ended up going down the familiar route of opening my tube of half-hardened filler and mending it. It should cure by tomorrow.

Whilst that is (hopefully) dealt with, the next item of interest becomes the undercarrige. Here they have been assembled, with the exception of the wheel spokes and tyres.

Once given a coat of primer the gear was painted, using for the first time AK paints in painting the wheels. The AMT-7 seemed too strong compared to the kit instructions, but cross-referencing with profiles of the aircraft shows that this is reasonably correct.

Here is a close-up picture of the wheel. If the photograph quality was any good I would explain that the tread on the tires is quite nice and restrained, and that it fits on the main body snugly.

 

And that is all. Once again, I apologise for my absence, and I promise to have much more progress be done in the next few days to come.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello all, here are the collected works of yesterday and today. It will be a bit of an image dump, so here we go:

 

Before construction of the wing begins, first the various openings and holes must be cut and drilled. The top half of the wings have the YVa-23 ports opened here...

And they are also opened on the bottom.

While I was at this, a more thorough examination revealed that I had neglected to attach the rear half of the YVa-23s. Now they look much better, but seeing this only solidified my decision to keep them for later projects and instead create replacements.

So here are the two 'sacrifices', a pair of Air-to-Air Missiles from an old 1/72 Tarangus Saab J-32 Lansen. As they are of roughly the same diameter as the YVa Barrels, they will be used to make substitutes.

First the fins were all cut off, with the ones at the front being sanded down. The rounded end was also sanded flat.

After that, and a bit more sanding across the length of the Missile, the ends were drilled out. Though they do look... dubious, they fit in the mount just fine, and with a touch of filler and paint, no one will know the difference...

Anyway, once that was done the holes for the rocket rails were drilled out.

Now the wings are ready to be glued. This is one last look at the interior of the left wing...

And this is one of the right. Note that I have used the ShKAS machineguns as intended, as they will display more detail on the finished product than the cannons.

And here are both of the wings completed. The fit is good, and the only area with trouble was one of the spars, which got stuck obliquely in the wing, which was quickly rectified.

Here are the two wings, showing both the top and bottom.

And finally, the wings are properly attached to the rest of the fuselage. It is now truly starting to look like an Il-2.

Of course, there are some gripes, such as the gaps in the wing-to-center joint.

However on the bottom the fit is much better, only one spot really needs any filler.

And, as a final note, I briefly attached the undercarriage to the aircraft before taking this last photograph. A sign of things to come, I would say.

 

That is all from me today. I have finally made a decision on the livery of the model, so tomorrow's work will consist of a few changes to accommodate that.

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Memphis]

4 hours ago, Hurricaneflyer said:

So here are the two 'sacrifices', a pair of Air-to-Air Missiles from an old 1/72 Tarangus Saab J-32 Lansen. As they are of roughly the same diameter as the YVa Barrels, they will be used to make substitutes.

I use brass tubes of different diameters for the barrels. Here is the M60 Vulcan in 72nd scale. I bought them on Aliexpress. You can get the required diameter by reducing the walls.

[Hurricaneflyer]

6 hours ago, Memphis said:

I use brass tubes of different diameters for the barrels. Here is the M60 Vulcan in 72nd scale. I bought them on Aliexpress. You can get the required diameter by reducing the walls.

I did actually consider trying this, however I could not find any suitable brass barrels in my local model shops, and the shipping time from Aliexpress was far too long to use it for this project. 

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

[Hurricaneflyer]

Hello to all who visit this, unfortunately I could not finish this build thread, and I apologise for this.

 

However, I did finish the model, which I have finally uploaded here:

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer