Roden LaGG 3

[Andwil]

My entry will be Roden’s 1/72 LaGG-3 for which I have some aftermarket decals, some resin wheels and a Yalu instrument panel.  Here are the sprues, which have had a wash:

 

 

 

There’s a fuselage and choice of rudders somewhere in that flash!  Odd that the smaller spruce with the small detail parts is cleanly moulded whereas the larger parts have a lot of flash.

 

I’m going to also be building a Red Star ex Frog LaGG-3 alongside this one, which won’t be part of this group build.  It is not as finely detailed as the Roden offering but is a much nicer crisp moulding.

 

More to follow.

 

AW

[Andwil]

I’ve made a start of sorts, been looking into all the different types of LaGG-3 to decide on what subjects are possible from the parts and decals I have.  Also been cleaning up the parts of the Roden kit, or rather carving the parts out of the mass of flash.  Not easy as the parts or often not well defined, the plastic is soft making it easy to cut too much away and also it doesn’t sand well, tending to leave furry edges.  The small parts are ready for priming now.

 

More to follow,

 

AW

 

ps. Did I mention that fit is poor?

[Andwil]

An overdue update.  The cockpit has been painted and assembled and the Yalu instrument panel stuck on.  The kit IP needed a bit of fettling to fit the floor piece, and I ended up cutting off the small alignment pins as, well, they didn’t align with the notches in the floor.  Also, the seat pan and back were rather vague as to where they sit, but I think I’ve got it right.  Belts as usual from wine bottle foil.

 

 

 

The cockpit assembly as usual is too wide to fit in the fuselage and required a fair bit of sanding.  Must have been designed by the same people who do the Aries resin cockpits!  In order to fit it in the correct place in the fuselage I taped the fuselage halves together (in itself not easy as there are no locating pins and large parts of the fuselage “missing” where the cowl and wing fit) and dropped the cockpit assembly in from below.  When this was in the right spot I ran some Tamiya green around the join in the starboard fuselage half.  I will leave this to set before untaping the fuselage to fit the radio shelf behind the seat back.

 

 

 

The cockpit will probably need a little more sanding on the port side.  While the fus was taped up I took the opportunity to check the fit of the canopy, looks like it’s going to be ok.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

[Milan Mynar]

Nice progress.

[JOCKNEY]

Great start 

 

Looks like a vacform / injection hybrid ! 

 

Best of luck

 

Cheers Pat

[Andwil]

Following on from Thursday, yesterday Iun-taped the fuselage and the cockpit promptly fell out  seems if you drop it in from below it doesn’t make sufficient contact with the fuselage side.  So I glued it into the half.  Then glued in the radio shelf with a plastic card support to strengthen the joint.

 

Today I closed up the fuselage.  I started gluing and clamping a bit at a time starting from the back and working forward.

 

There’s the Red Star LaGG in the background.

 

The Roden kit has awful seams:

 

 

A huge gap in the radiator ducting:

 

 

I stuck a bit of plastic card over the gap, hopefully not much will be seen once the radiator bath is attached.

 

 

Then I attached the cowling top panel, which needed some sanding to fit and the exhausts had to be fitted at this stage as they cannot be added later which is a bit of a bother.  Of course the slot for them needed to be enlarged as the exhaust part is longer than the opening.

 

 

The gap in front of the cockpit needed a shim.  Next job after this lot has set will be attending to those horrible seams.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

[Andwil]

The Toko/Roden LaGG-3 kits are engineered to allow for the many versions of the aircraft to be modelled.  As a result, there are a lot of fiddly, multi-part components which seem to have exceeded the ability of the moulds to cope with.  Today I assembled the I’ll-fitting two part chin radiator after much sanding and fettling.

 

 

Filler was liberally applied to the model, I think every joint so far has required filler.

 

 

Once all this is dealt with, I think a nice little model will emerge.  Any residual seams I’ll put down to a representation of crude Soviet construction in difficult circumstances!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

[Torbjorn]

I have built one of these, and was considering to warn you of these difficulties, but I see you found out

 

Beware of the wing roots, I remember that being the worst part. 

 

 

[Learstang]

You're doing a good job with this kit! You are correct that the profusion of parts for different versions does lead to some dodgy fit, but I built this kit, and the result was a rather nice-looking model. If I can make a nice-looking model out of it, I'm certain you can also. Shameless Self Promotion: I believe someone put out a book with some nice camouflage schemes of the Lavochkin fighters. Shameless Self-Promotion.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Ooooh I have one of these, will follow along for tips. 

[Andwil]

11 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

Beware of the wing roots, I remember that being the worst part. 

Something to look forward to!  I have been expecting it though.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Wings on today and the fit at the roots is indeed ugly.  Some filing and sanding got them pretty well right, to avoid a huge step on the port wing root I had to spread the leading edge with a thin shim.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

Edited November 27 by Andwil
Correcting typo

[Bengalensis]

This one is really providing some work for you, good to see you fighting back 👍

[stevehnz]

You've got some work going on with this one. I've got a couple of the EE ex Dako ones, reports on the Roden ones have made me shy away from them.

Steve.

[Andwil]

Today I assembled the four parts of the ventral radiator tub, again much fettling required and a lot of filler slapped onto the resulting gaps.  There is nearly as much filler as plastic in this area.  The exit duct on the chin was shaped to fit and thinned to reduce the clunky appearance.

 

 

A lot of sanding to follow.  I have no idea what that square hole under the fuselage is for.

 

At least the rudder fitted without filler (after some sanding….)

 

 

The tail planes have been fettled to fit after painting to aid masking the camo.  The attachment tabs on the tail planes themselves were twice as thick as the slots in the fuselage!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

[Milan Mynar]

You're fighting with this quite  well, I can see that you need to use a lot of putty.

[Andwil]

Well knock me down with a feather, the canopy, often the poorest fitting part on even well moulded kits, fits perfectly!  Sure, the quarter lights needed a bit of fettling, but the main canopy went on beautifully.  Masked with the KV pre-cut mask and now ready for the paint shop.

 

 

I also found that the square hole under the rear fuselage has a small clear part to go into it, so maybe a light?  It will get stuck in after painting along with the landing light in the port wing.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

[Andwil]

After a few busy days I got some bench time today and primed my LaGGs:

 

 Again, the Red Star kit in the background.

 

Generally happy, a bit more filling and sanding required at the wing roots and around the radiator.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

AW

[stevehnz]

Good going to get to this, well done that man. 😊

Steve.

[Andwil]

A second round of filling, sanding and priming has fixed the wing roots, still a little more sanding required on the spine, but the radiator remains unsatisfactory due to shrinkage of the putty, so round three will be done with miliput.

 

AW