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Keef's Build - Yak 25 K/S

keefr22

By keefr22
in Wings and Things of the Red Star

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keefr22 Blabber Mouth

keefr22

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Jimmy Durante - not good

:evil_laugh:

Sitting at my piano the other day.....

OK, greetings Komrad peoples,

After many delays & false promises, here is the long threatened update to the state of progress from the peoples aircraft factory on the dark side of the Loughor, in eastern Swanseaberia!

I've been making slow if mainly steady progress since my last update - which was made in the last decade! So, just a couple of pics of how she's gone, up to (almost) where she is tonight.

After getting the 'pit together, it went into the fuselage remarkably well. The same couldn't be said of the wheel wells! They were really naff pieces of plastic that didn't even want to fit where they touched when being assembled & did nothing more than want to keep the fuselage from fitting together when inserted inside! So in the end I dispensed with the nose bay completely, 'engineering' a nose gear support structure from tube & card, & just used the side & rear walls of the main gear well, again with a support structure for the main gear made up from plasticard & tube. Because I always stick my models to a base, this sort of bodging becomes invisible & means I also don't have to worry about detailing wheel wells! As I thought that one of the main problems with this build would be getting everything square I decided to insert both u/c units now, which was achieved with much superglue & not a little 5 minute epoxy!

So, the fuselage then looked like this;

0142.jpg

As the wheel mounting points on the main gear leg were a bit naff, I drilled & replaced them with wire. The nose gear leg is a remarkably flimsy bit of plastic that has a butt joint between the leg itself & the fork to hold the wheel! There is no way on earth this would hold the weight of the completed kit for long if stuck together the way A-model suggest. I should really have made a new one from brass, but not having the required stuff in stock & actually wanting to finish the thing I again drilled & pinned the joint & also ran a re-inforcing wire down the leg & again covered it all in epoxy! Maybe not pretty, but very much in the Soviet stylee of engineering excellence!!

I followed the glorious lead of Komrade Mitchem in replacing the plastic 'tubes' that a-model supply with some brass tubing for the inlets & exhausts;

0092.jpg

However despite ensuring that I used the same outside diameter tube as the kit pieces, when I attempted to stick the nacelles together, of course they wouldn't (stick together that is!!) So, after much grinding with the dremel, sanding, filing, cursing, grinding, sanding & cursing, they finally went together with much superglue, epoxy & a smidgin of filler!

011-1.jpg

As mentioned earlier, my biggest worry with this build, given its configuration of bicycle landing gear, outriggers & a horizontal stab set midway up the fin, was actually building it wonky (which would be made much easier given the standard of moulding in the kit!) So I made a high-tech jig & added the first wing, leaving it to set up overnight. Here she is waiting for the next batch of epoxy to dry (the outriggers were glued in with blu-tack!);

0012.jpg

And with the other wing added to help her stop flying round in ever decreasing circles to disappear up her own.....ahem;

0052.jpg

When that lot of epoxy was set, & the tailplane had been added, a little more filler was called for;

0082.jpg

And after sanding down, this is what she looked like this morning;

0103.jpg

I have actually done a little more tonight, having my first real disaster along the way. Unfortunately my camera batteries have gone again, so no pics. Basically I've added many of the little bits & bobs that were left, like the gun pods scabbed onto the fuselage, ventral strake, vents etc - & the canopy. Which was where the 'disaster' happened. the clear plastic is incredible brittle & it took me ages to carefully saw the canopy off the sprue. That should really have made me more wary, but when I was gluing it on, while holding it tightly to the fuselage to let the Tamiya extra thin do its stuff I managed to put two stress fractures in the starboard front of the canopy. Luckily they are only about 2 millimetres up into the clear portion, so they aren't that noticeable, but really annoying none the less. Short of ripping the canopy off & using it for a mould to vacform a new one there's little I can do except ignore it. And that's my chosen plan of action!

So, I've now faired the canopy in with filler & put Mr Surfacer 500 over all the joints. Hopefully that will all be smoothed off tomorrow, canopy masked & primer on either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning!

Phew, sorry for the length of this, but I had a bit of catching up to do.

Power to the people!!

Komrade Keefski

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AnonymousFO98 Completely Obsessed Member

AnonymousFO98

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0052.jpg

funnily enough that was how the Soviets built 'em Keef, with giant blocks of lego as jigs and occassionally as part of the airframe too :P

sorry about the canopy - know all too well about that sort of thing from bitter experience.

Nonetheless is a great looking beastie and so please get some more batteries as we want to see the next instalment :bounce:

Edited by walrus
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general melchett Completely Obsessed Member

general melchett

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Looking good Keefy!....don't worry too much about the finish on these crates, the real things were smashed together by huge Russian women with hairy arms and 20 lb sledge hammers anyway...the whole point was knocking out thousands of the things rather than worry about quality control and lovely smooth ripple free finishes!!...Sorry 'bout the canopy, I've never found them to be brittle..just your luck to find one that is!!, know what you mean about the flimsy undercarriage though!! the Fiddler is the same!!..moment you stand it on its legs it just neatly folds up on itself :analintruder:

Edited by general melchett
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mitchem Very Obsessed Member

mitchem

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Jumpin' Joe ! (Stalin that is)

That plane looks almost ..... respectable. Cracking job on the build so far.

(If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were a huge Swansea woman with hairy arms and a 20 lb sledge hammer :evil_laugh: )

However despite ensuring that I used the same outside diameter tube as the kit pieces, when I attempted to stick the nacelles together, of course they wouldn't (stick together that is!!) So, after much grinding with the dremel, sanding, filing, cursing, grinding, sanding & cursing, they finally went together with much superglue, epoxy & a smidgin of filler!

Funny..I remember going through the same procedure. :analintruder:

Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

Regards

mikoyan

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Phartycr0c Obsessed Member

Phartycr0c

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Blimey Keef, I forgot you were doing a Yak n'all, now I have two to choose from! Didn't even know a "Nimrod" version existed.

Lovely work there. keep it up!

BTW the hairy armed woman came from Plymouth not Swansea!

Edited by Phartycr0c
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mitchem Very Obsessed Member

mitchem

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Funny, I always thought it was Llanelli. Or was that the bearded ladies..... :whistle:

Thanks guys!

Keef

Flippin' Hell - you've done it now !

Just got home from work and the computer had been left on with your latest post. Kids tell me that mum was last seen heading towards Swansea with an axe in the back of her car and a frown upon her face. (At least they think it was a frown - difficult to tell when you only got one eye-brow)

Let me know if she pops by (she'll be the one with the beard.) :boxing:

In the meantime, I got some work to do on my Yak.

cheers

mikoyan

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keefr22 Blabber Mouth

keefr22

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THE BLACK YAK ;

Finally got some primer on it! It seems that spraying black overall is the latest fashion in pre-shading. Well, I've been doing it for years as I'm too lazy to spray individual panel lines and it also doubles as a primer coat.....!!!

Anyway, here's how she looks now;

0012-1.jpg

Sprayed overall with Tamiya matt black thinned with cellulose thinner. Haven't had chance to give it a good look over as it's still wet, but a quick glance shows that I might have got away with needing to do any more filling. If that is the case, it'll be a first for me!

I think it looks well cool in overall black, & was tempted to stick some red stars & numbers on it, saying it was one of the little known nightfighter Yaks.....!!! :P:D

Smoothing the paint off tomorrow, then painting the radome, with hopefully the alclad going on on Wednesday. We may just make the original deadline with a bit of luck & a following wind!

KK

edit for badd spolling

Edited by keefr22
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mitchem Very Obsessed Member

mitchem

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Damn me, Keef !

Carry on like this and you'll have me believing that you're living on the talented side of the Loughor - cut it out immediately, or I'll have to sell up and move.

(Like what you're doing with the Yak.....liking the Tamiya Lazy Susan too...very posh)

Looking forward to seeing some Alclad on it. In the mean-time I'm gonna sit back and watch - luverly !

mike

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keefr22 Blabber Mouth

keefr22

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:coolio:

The Black Yak nightfighter looks really cool

but the Whif GB ain't started yet - so stop messin around and get on wiv it! :whip::P

OK Komrade Bossski (is that the right amount of S's??!!) I'll get right back to it. Tomorrow. Er, later today, I mean...!!

And thank you Komrade Mitchem, much appreciated!

KK

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keefr22 Blabber Mouth

keefr22

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Funny you mention an all black preshade, that's something I've seen used to great affect on armour builds to give a little extra depth.

Looking pretty spiffy for what looks to be a tricky build!

Thanks Stebos! I have to say that it's not the easiest limited run kit I've built, but on the other hand the build has been (touch wood!) fairly straightforward!

Keef

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keefr22 Blabber Mouth

keefr22

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Your Vautour IIN... oops Yak-25 is progressing very nicely Keith. I did some black priming on certain of my models but they didn't have a NMF.

Cheers Laurent! Off to do some more on it now, I still hope to meet the original deadline!

K

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keefr22 Blabber Mouth

keefr22

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OK, so I managed to get the radome & dielectric panels painted & masked up yesterday, ready for my first foray into the world of alclad. All my previous NMF jobs have either been variations on good old humbrol 11, different xtracolor silvers or a hodgepodge of various acrylic silvers, often with panels polished with SnJ polishing powder. So, I was interested to see how easy this Alclad stuff was to use. Well, 5 minutes after loading the airbrush the Yak looked like this;

258.jpg

The stuff is stupidly easy to spray! However, being stupid by nature, that doesn't mean its foolproof, & I think I sprayed it a little too heavily on the fuselage & ended up with some pitting. I also managed to touch the wet paint in a couple of places with a misplaced finger nail. After seeking the advice of the good General Melchett, he advised me that the stuff dries & can be masked in 5 minutes or so. Erring on the side of caution I left it for half an hour & then spent a joyous (not!) three hours masking off different panels. The first coat had been white aluminium, & as I didn't know whether I'd take to the stuff or not, I'd only bought that shade & dark aluminium. The latter would have been far too contrasty for panel variation used neat, so I mixed it about 50/50 with the white aluminium. However when done I still thought it too contrasty. So after I'd sanded down my earlier glitches (you have to love how quick this stuff dries!) I resprayed those areas with white aluminium & then misted that over the whole airframe. After removing the masking (my favourite part of a build!) I've ended up with this;

261.jpg

I used neat dark aluminium on the airbrakes & panel over the cannon pod as these show up very dark in pics of the real thing. I'm quite pleased with it for a first use of alclad! I need to tidy up the anti-glare panel & walkways, maybe weather the radome a bit, add undercarriage, aerial wire & decals & she'll be done!

Keefski

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