Nakotne 1/72 Polikarpov I-3 - FINISHED

[AdrianMF]

Nakotne is a Latvian manufacturer from the early 1990s. Scalemates says the kit was first released in 1992:

They only seem to have made three or four other kits before disappearing.

 

I will be making some changes suggested by online builds, mainly to add some detail for the recessed guns on top if the engine cowling, but will otherwise keep as close as possible to OOB.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Mjwomack]

2 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

They only seem to have made three or four other kits before disappearing.

 

And I've a feeling that you've got them all in your stash- which leads to only one rallying cry!

Love a rusty staple in packaging for authentication of age, hope your tetanus is up to date before you try opening it.

Presumably the conventional injection moulding or is it reindeer bone?

[JOCKNEY]

Right up my street Adrian 

 

I assume those markings are Latvian stars ?

 

Best of luck mate 

 

Cheers Pat 

[2996 Victor]

This looks like an interesting subject, Adrian, one I'm certainly not familiar with. It's an elegant aeroplane, seemingly quite Gallic in appearance. Looking forward to this build.

[AdrianMF]

On 15/06/2025 at 18:03, Mjwomack said:

you've got them all in your stash

Sadly/luckily several of them are modern Soviet/Russian jets so they are dead to me. If I ever see the I-4 (one up from this) I might be tempted (depending on how this one goes).

 

On 15/06/2025 at 19:28, JOCKNEY said:

Latvian stars

It's just an inter war variation on the Soviet star marking. Not sure what Latvian markings even look(ed) like. Internet dive ahead!

 

On 15/06/2025 at 19:31, 2996 Victor said:

interesting subject

It reminds me of a KP kit so far. I don't have an investment in the type so I'm going to concentrate on making a nice build of the kit rather than an accurate rendition of the real thing.

 

(Dammit! I've just realised that I have a massive book on every fighter ever made, so I have references in the house...)

[2996 Victor]

11 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

It's just an inter war variation on the Soviet star marking. Not sure what Latvian markings even look(ed) like. Internet dive ahead!

Red swastikas on a 45-degree angle, either on a white disc or direct onto the surface finish.

[AdrianMF]

Finally found the thread. Last but one! Now that I am free of MB5-shaped distractions I can get cracking with this.

 

But first, a declaration of where this is going. I made the mistake of googling the type, and there are some excellent and well documented builds and model design articles that detail how to make a perfect I-3. I'm not going to do that. I am going to live with the shape errors of the kit because I simply don't have a mental picture of how it should look - it's not a Spitfire. I am, however, going to fix things that will make an obvious difference to a casual observer, such as the lack of convincing armament, cockpit detail or exhausts. 
 

The fuselage is moulded in two halves. The top of the cowling is moulded as a featureless slightly convex surface. The real thing had two machine guns recessed into the top decking with  gun channels. I drilled and cut out a hole for the gun body and then filed a channel for the gun barrel and firing line:

 

And on the other side too:

 

The fairings for the engine cylinders should be a bit higher and squarer than the kit, but I am going to leave that alone and instead add some exhaust pipes where the kit just has a series of softly moulded depressions.

[AdrianMF]

Cockpit time:

 

Note that the holes for the exhausts have been drilled out too.

 

Exhausts are made from 1mm Albion Alloy brass tube. I made a simple jig (the notched card) to get the same 4mm length each time and then lined the tube up to be perpendicular to the knife blade. I just rolled the knife and tube forward and back a couple of times to cut each piece:

 

Another simple jig: a 1mm ditch at the top. The fuselage half is placed outside down so that the exhaust is over the ditch, then all the short tube sections are dropped in before running some superglue along each one to keep it in place. This gives a result (middle) where all the tubes project 1mm beyond the surface. Running a sanding stick across all the tubes makes them all uniform (bottom):

I'm still debating with myself on how to do the propeller mount, otherwise those fuselage halves would be glued together now:

The propeller backplate is not as big as the spinner at the top, hence the filler between the arms of the tweezers. I test fitted the tailplanes too; they need to be a little bit more swept than they are to get the elevator hinges in one straight line.

 

I feel like it's properly in progress now. About time too!

[marvinneko]

Nice jigs for the exhausts. My dad was obsessed with making jigs for everything but sadly it never rubbed off on me 😛 . Which reminds me, I need to do some rectangular 1/144 exhausts.

[AdrianMF]

Last night I got my fuselage stuck together and managed to cobble together a removable turning propeller installation. I need to restock on tubing so that I can do longer prop shafts and bearings. This one is a bit shorter than ideal so there will be a trade off between ease of spinnability and sag. But it's done:

 

Now on to a much more interesting topic (and that includes my current proper job task of allocating secure product access ports!), namely the production of rectangular exhausts in small scales. 

16 hours ago, marvinneko said:

I need to do some rectangular 1/144 exhausts.

Here is a fabulously quick and dirty setup using a jig made for cutting lengths of strip for 1/72 Short Empire chairs, some Albion Alloys brass tube and pliers:

 

The jig limits how flat you can squash the tube and how far sideways the tube can spread out. If I were doing this properly I would use pre-cut lengths of tube, glue a backing piece behind the jig to stop it deforming, use a vice to get a parallel squash and put a snippet of Sellotape over the sample so it doesn't disappear at any point. Oh, and possibly anneal the brass tube to soften it beforehand (heat to red hot and leave to cool slowly).

[marvinneko]

5 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

a trade off between ease of spinnability and sag. But it's done:

 

ok, I gotta know... are you revisiting old builds and spinning those props? I suppose it could be a form of mindfulness 🤔 I remember fidget spinners were a huge thing for a few years. Now I am imagining a whole row of spinning props...

 

5 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Here is a fabulously quick and dirty setup using a jig made for cutting lengths of strip for 1/72 Short Empire chairs, some Albion Alloys brass tube and pliers:

 

Ok, you've laid down the challenge and now I gotta try it  

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to share so clearly!

 

This is very timely... I think I know what I shall be doing tonight.

[AdrianMF]

Back on the case. Wings and tailplane on:

 

I sanded all the detail off the radiator block and detailed it more accurately with strip and card.

And I made some guns from 60thou card and 0.8mm brass tube

 

And a sneaky little headrest from the end of an MB5 sprue.

 

Undercarriage next. One of those "assemble lots of plain struts in mid-air" jobs:

 

I think I need a cuppa first...

[AdrianMF]

On 23/09/2025 at 21:39, marvinneko said:

ok, I gotta know... are you revisiting old builds and spinning those props?

Er, yes!
 

Most of my finished models are in flattish plastic boxes on shelves in my modelling room, with a few in the display cabinet. Every time I finish a model I rearrange the display cabinet so the new model gets a turn, and I sometimes change up the display as well to reflect a new theme. Then I have to rearrange the storage to keep like with like...

 

Anyhow, every time I handle a finished model I (at least try to) blow its propeller round, unless it's a jet, in which case I just scowl at it!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[AdrianMF]

I have to say, I'm almost disappointed! I did a bit of drilling holes out, a bit of trimming locating pins and some flash cleanup, and it all assembled in mid air with not a hitch!

Everything that matters is perpendicular or parallel, and the wingtip height is the same on each end:

 

Most disappointing. Maybe I can have a good swear over the interplane struts...

[AdrianMF]

Apparently not!

 

A bit of hole deepening, pin trimming and flash removal, plus a bit of trimming to allow for the outboard leaning, and it all seems to be going well. This one is Contacta, undercarriage was CA. Time to leave that to set, probably overnight now.

 

The starboard tailplane leading edge needs a bit of sanding back too. It's been bugging me all evening that something looks a bit off!

[AdrianMF]

And I couldn't resist adding the cabane struts, which I think are resting in the holes under the top wing...

My container full of drills is providing some gentle persuasion...

[AdrianMF]

The cabane struts turned out fine, so this morning I started with the air intake below the nose, which I had missed earlier:
 

 

It would have been a lot easier to do this one before I stuck everything together. Somewhere in the room is the last cm of a new scalpel blade that pinged off when I was tackling the rather hard plastic. I have checked my hair and my clothing too.

 

It's time to write a list of things between me and completion - nearly there!

[AdrianMF]

Progress has been made:

 

I have done the things that are crossed off on the list, and I'm in the process of painting the blue and green. The blue needs another coat or two, and when that's dry I can mask it up and do the edges of the green. The tendrils at the front are where I have filled in the misplaced holes that I drilled in the cylinder fairings.

 

All in all it's going well - everything fits together nicely -  and the kit has exceeded my (rather low) expectations. However, I think I have reached my limit for obscure interwar drab biplanes for this year. That said, I do need to resume the Eduard Avia 534 that I started alongside the KP one, just to remind myself what a good kit feels like!

[AdrianMF]

10 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Somewhere in the room is the last cm of a new scalpel blade that pinged off when I was tackling the rather hard plastic.

I was just getting undressed for bed when I saw a glint of something in my underpants. It was this:

 

No damage, lucky escape!

 

😱😱😱

[Mjwomack]

13 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

I was just getting undressed for bed when I saw a glint of something in my underpants. It was this:

 

Well that's what you told the arresting officer!😱

[psdavidson]

16 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

It was this:

I got a postimage 503 error instead of a picture

Given the previous sentence, I think I missed a bullet there

[AdrianMF]

I actually managed to get some work on this done over the past couple of days:

 

Decals and rigging next. I'm going to keep weathering to a minimum as I don't think these saw much, if any, action.

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Sometimes, you just know that a decal isn't going to work!

 

After some very gentle prodding:

 

And while we are on the subject of kits fighting back, here's what happened to the windscreen when I was cutting it loose from the sprue:

 

Reaching for the spares as we speak...

[AdrianMF]

Construction is now complete. The windscreen is a 6x3mm rectangle of thin packing material folded in half, cut to shape and drilled to take the telescope sighting tube. Framing is made from self-adhesive aluminium tape and the sighting scope is made from 0.5 mm plastic rod:

 

The Mk1 of all this had to be scrapped because it was too tall and was interfering with the top wing fit.

 

Just markings, varnish, rigging and the top wing to go now! The AMG Polikarpov R-5 kit has some spare stars (lots of different styles) so I should be able to get this done this week.

[John Masters]

This is looking very fine Adrain.  It might have been mentioned before by someone else...I think this might be the same kit re-released by Encore.  The profile images look identical, as do the decals.  It's an excellent representation of a mid-war Polikarpov.  You are certainly doing it justice!