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YAK-3


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With the Stuka finished it's time to start another kit as a back up while I'm working on the Fiat G55, I was going to go for either an MS 406 or a Bloch 152 (both AZUR), but while I was in the loft I spotted this.

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Soviet aircraft are much neglected but are strangely attractive so I thought I would give it a go, it's a full resin kit which I have never tackled before, mind you there was very little plastic left on the Warbirds/Hasagawa Spitire XIV conversion that I built. Not being an expert on these things it does look a bit basic to me. There is a great CD in the box packed fill of reference materials, which is needed as my knowledge of this aircraft is a bit limited.

Here's the CD, it even has a walk around on it.

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Here's the resin, there are no decals just masks, should be interesting.

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And not looking forward to this bit.

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Cheers

Den

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Thats alot of resin! Good luck with it though mate. I'll keep an eye on your efforts as I've never tackled resin properly before so I'll see what all the fuss is about.

Neat subject btw, and yes, not one seen built very often.

Rowan

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I'll be following along with you on this one Den. Nenad's kits are often of very interesting subjects, and always look good in the box, but I've never built one. In fact, I've never built an all-resin kit (only bought my first a few weeks back). I guess most of the approaches and techniques we'd use on a plastic kit just don't apply here. And in your case, that goes for decals too!

Kev

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Hi guys, yes this could be interesting, I'm currently still working on the PCM Fiat G55, but I always have a back up model on the go, hence the Yak-3, so the G55 gets the most attention and the Yak stays in the background until the G55 is finished.

Currently I'm just cleaning up the parts on the Yak, so it will be a very slow build, I have copied your build on LSP Nenad, you make it look so easy !

As to decals, well I normally paint most markings anyway, (normally on my RAF stuff) so I don't think Soviet markings will be too much of a problem, just in case I do have some Soviet Star decals in stock !

Cheers

Den

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  • 1 month later...

With the G55 in the paint shop it is time to pay some serious attention to this one, I have been cleaning up the parts in the "background" but at no great pace, it's a bit of a guessing game as the assembly instructions don't seem to list all the parts. However there is a nice build article (mentioned above) on LSP and from that I have figured out what the various parts are.

Started by mating up the fuselage joints

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Then fitted the wing air inlets, there was a hole in this so I used CA to glue in some plastic rod then cut and sanded.

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Cheers

Den

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I've continued cleaning up and have adopted the CA and plastic rod filling system to deal with air bubbles, I don't like using filler and this method is a lot faster, I use a drill bit the same size as the bubble, drill it out then glue in the plastic rod, cut and sand and it's done.

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And on the seat

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Cheers

Den

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I'm really getting into this one, it may not be Paragon Designs standard but it has got me fired up, And yes it will be finished as a a Normandie Niemen aircraft.

Cheers

Den

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I've continued cleaning up and have adopted the CA and plastic rod filling system to deal with air bubbles, I don't like using filler and this method is a lot faster, I use a drill bit the same size as the bubble, drill it out then glue in the plastic rod, cut and sand and it's done.

Click You're welcome ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

The G55 is now in the paint shop so it is YAK-3 time, nearly at the paint stage, all the parts have been de flashed, sanded and washed in soapy water, used one of Viv's kitchen sieve things to make sure that I did not lose any little parts, worked well.

Drilled out various holes in the fuselage, drilled the main wheels and the spiner, painted the prop blades yellow after thinning them out a bit, all systems go.

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I don't like to fit stuff like the exhausts until everything else is finished but I had no choice with this one as they have to be fitted then a surround fitted around them which is painted camouflage colours, so I will have to paint the exhausts and mask them. One exhaust had a lot of holes in it, I tried to fill them and failed so the ends were cut off and replaced with plastic tube.

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Here's the nearly completed exhaust and surround.

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Cheers

Den

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A little bit more work on the Yak before I return to the G55, I drilled the undercarriage legs and wheel wells, cropped some small nails to make a couple of pins, inserted them with CA and hopefully the legs will have a more positive location point and be a bit stronger.

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Pre painted the exhausts with Humbrol H113 and then pencilled them a bit.

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Then splashed some interior colour about, for this I used WEM ACS05 WUP grey interior primer.

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Cheers

Den

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've now started the detail painting, as well as getting things ready for the later stages of the build I want to finish off the cockpit area so I can get the main airframe parts together. The kit comes with a great deal of information on a CD plus a very kind gentleman over on ARC sent me a CD with lots of addditional information, so I have enough details to make the cockpit a little bit realistic.

Here's some of the parts

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Cheers

Den

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And here we are ready to close up the fuselage, apart from the thingy (green thingy) that looks like a lawnmower starter, it is shown in photos under the instrument panel, I can't read Russian so do not know what it is and it didn't fit anyway !

Cheers

Den

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Lots of CA later, the fuselage halves are together, then more CA and sanding and all the seams will be (hopefully) invisible once painted !

A crater opened up during this process and had to be filled with plastic (sprue) and CA.

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Cheers

Den

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On we go, this is the next tricky bit, there are a few gaps to fill !

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Cheers

Den

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Nice work! :)

You've reminded me I have an Aeropoxy Rogozarski IK-3 I started ageds ago - now where did I put that???

Iain

You probably acted on your first impression and hid it in some very obscure place, which was what I was going to do with the Yak !

Cheers

Den

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Latest update, the seams have all been filled with CA and plastic and sanded smooth, not as difficult as I first thought, here's how it turned out.

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So now it's time to take a look at that canopy and give it a dip in Klear.

Cheers

Den

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