The Official 1943 70th Anniversary Group Build

Bish... LOL I feel your pain my brother, But rest assured, It is being built with the utmost respect and reverance to the Luftwaffe and all her brave airmen. As the build progresses you will see this I think. I guess what I'm trying to convey was the desperation felt by the aircrews as they worked around the clock to try and keep their aircraft at the ready and in combat condition. As you know Kursk was the first failure of BlitzKrieg to accomplish its goal and the turning point for the German forces on the Eastern Front.

Take care my friend...

Doug

Actually I think the truck is a very old Japanese model that Zvezda reboxed (the plastic doesn't have that soap feel that some Eastern European stuff does): but it's pretty bad. I'll share some woe stories soon. I did have a "gap shoot-out" with Golden Acrylic Gel and Perfect Plastic Putty on Thursday. The Gel is very good stuff if you've got time to let it set: it's white but dries clear and hard. So the gap still looks like it's there - a little paint and it isn't. If anything it's tougher than plastic so it takes to sanding well. (My one complaint of white glue as a filler is that it sands poorly - but I've never tried the window making variety and because it's a gadget I have two types.) Plastic Putty is neat stuff - because it's so benign you can work it with your finger nail and it dries very quickly. It sands very well - maybe a little too well. If you use coarse grit you can pull the stuff out (no harm done though) - with a light grain sanding stick you can get it very smooth. Stuff like this costs me way more than kits these days - of course I probably have a 75 kit stash. Nuts no doubt.

Eric

Sub, good to see ya. What are you building this time?

Doug, i must admit i did wounder where you were going with thsi build. But that looks amazing. I simply couldn't do that to any German aircraft, and to a Stuka would break my heart.

Looking forward to the G.

Sub... Yes yes and yes. I ran across some pictures of a staffle at Kursk and the struggle to maintain a combat effective force. Kinda changed coarse in mid thought. Will be starting the "G" version this weekend, and Thanks.

Doug

Ok, I have updated the front page, finally. Please check to make sure I didn't miss anybody!

Nukem- Welcome! I think you will find GB's are addicting.

Nathan- Good to see you on for another round. I can't say "nyet" to a Russian plane! Lots of good work on it so far.

Ebergerud- That will make a very interesting addition to our collection of military hardware here! I have a couple of Zvezda kits, one of them looks quite good but the other... looks pretty rough. On the subject of filling gaps, on my last build I experimented with using clear glue. I had used it to make small windows before, and it worked great to fill gaps!

Doug- That model looks very rough (in a good way!) Excellent work on that. I take it this is a junkyard bird? Are you making a diorama of sorts with it when you finish the other one?

Great job everyone!

Thanks, Budd

OK this one is complete, This is an older Ju87 "B" model Stuka. I will be starting the Ju87 "G" model this weekend. So far so good (I think).

Doug

Thanks for the comments guys. Eric, thanks for the gap filling tips. I usually turn to Mr. Surfacer or Mr. Dissolved putty for small seams or pinholes, then after about 15 min I wipe the excess off with Mr. Color thinner, which is safe on plastic, and this leaves me without having to sand. Sometimes it takes 2 coats. So far this is adequate, but I'll have a look into pastes and gels you mentioned. This kit is different as it just goes together so differently; 3 fuselage parts, different cockpit, different wing attachments. I'd like to do another as I'd be ready for the tricky areas. I have some Aeromaster decals coming so I'll be choosing a 1943 scheme shortly. As with all things VVS, I'll have to try and verify the schemes best I can. '43 was kind of a change-over year for VVS fighters as the colors were starting to go from the green/black to the two grays, so any '43 profile in green must be checked. Also Camo patterns started to become more standardized. So my heads been spinning trying to decifer Russian forums.

Looking good Nathan! You've got a good eye for detail!

Looking good Nathan. I doubt I'll ever get a cockpit that pretty. Recreating detail is somewhere near the heart of modeling, but I just can't shake the idea that "nobody will ever see it." I think really good modelers have something inside them that insists on getting it right whether anyone knows about it or not. Course my back room is utter chaos and I don't care much about that either.

I've found a couple of alternatives to putty that allow handling small gaps without damaging detail. The best is either acrylic modeling paste or acrylic gel (you want thick, but nothing added like lava) - as the name indicates this is a kind of liquid plastic. Made by any of the artist paint companies and an $8 jar will last you and your progeny a life. Same stuff that dio meisters use to make water. (Those guys will go through that $8 jar really fast: course you can buy in bulk and some people do. Modeling paste, once dried can be carved - like plastic marble. Amazing what some of the Sci-Fi fans do with the junk.)  Put on a small amount and then wipe away the excess - when it dries (white or clear depending upon the type) the gap will be filled but the rivet or line still there. If it's gel it will dry clear and when it dries you still see the gap: of course a coat of paint covers it. Neat stuff. Problem is that it takes several hours to properly dry. You can also put talcum into Klear and make a paste out of it. (I wonder if something like baking powder might work.) You can clear away almost everything with a q-tip or finger nail and it'll dry pretty quick. Either technique is reversible because it lays into the plastic's surface and doesn't create it's own like putty or any modeling cement will do. Use something like Goo Gone for removal.

There's a new gizmo out there that Aaron Skinner recommended and I bought. Its from the UK and called Perfect Plastic Putty from a company called Deluxe Materials. (Widely available on eBay: I get it from my Brit shop.) It's a distant cousin to modeling paste. Has a texture like toothpaste. It does not attack plastic at all and dries quite quickly. It sands very smoothly, and like all the acrylic stuff you clean it with water. It's not as tough as the other things mentioned and you can remove it while sanding if you don't watch it. But I'm getting used to it and can see it replacing putty for any medium sized ugly. (I'll find out soon. My Rooskie truck has turned into a serious problem child.)

For larger problems I like Aves Apoxie Sculpt which is an acrylic apoxie: two parts, combine, shape, lay in. Unlike normal apoxie when this stuff dries it hasn't attacked anything underneath. I botched a Zimmerit job (my only one - swear it - no more Zim for moi) and slowly stripped an entire tank of Apoxie Sculpt in about an hour and didn't harm a panel line. The second try was still out of scale (I think all home made Zim is) but better. Like everything mentioned it is non-toxic and you can't smell a thing.

Better living through chemistry.

I managed to get the lower and upper wings on. The fit at the roots was good, no gaps, but the lower wing fit was off at the front and a little at he rear around the radiator. I'm trying to avoid putty like the plague here so I don't destroy all the nice little rivets and detail on this kit, so I'm sanding and shimming where I can.

Nic start on the engie E. I agree, weather the snot out of it...it'll look cool. Whats the rustall technique?

Yaks and Stukas: they need something to defend or attack. So I submit a Zvezda 1/35 GAZ-MM 1943 for consideration. When done I'll bore all with some words about the impact of vehicles extending the reach of armies from the railhead (or harbor) but for now, let's say that trucks were very important in war for exactly the same way as they were/are in commerce. So: I bought this kit for $10 on a Dragon super-sale and I think it's a Japanese rebox from the 70s. Odd combination of nicely molded parts and nothing fitting correctly. The kit is perfect for a kind of medical experiment in weathering. (The truck was a Ford Model A and built into the 1950s in the USSR. It wasn't "state of the art" when it was first built.) Anyway, all of the weathering will be done with acrylics. (Mig Jimenez did a DVD about acrylic weathering that I think is the most informative of the bunch.) This isn't irrelevent because much of the truck was built of wood (1941-42) and more in metal (1943 and later). So we're going to give a Rooskie truck, the middle the world's greatest war, some pretty heavy weathering. I will be using the "Rustall" technique as well as more use of Com.Art.  The parts of the truck that were made of wood will hopefully show it. We'll see. It's only a truck/

Thanks for the comments guys. I gave the cockpit a burnt umber wash and tried not to disturb all the pe:

then I moved on to the undercarige, and added some ribs and wires to the gear well. The legs themselves got some brake lines and PE torque links:

Next will be fitting the wings to the fuselage, which I read is the most tricky part to this kit. A quick dry fit told me to get the putty and sprue ready....Yay...

Astonishingly good and detailed work, Nathan.  Nicely done.

Yes sir... This one is a Ju87"B" model and when finished it will be joined with a Ju87 "G" model Its a bit hectic keeping 2 builds going at the same time, but I've had a bit of down time to begin the year (minor illness) and I'm trying to make the best of it.

Doug

Doug, Nathan, some great looking work on those builds.

Doug, is that a Ju 87B kit.

YAKs looking good!

Time to close up the fuselage. Fit is amazing, with some small rivets to try and not have to sand over:

the top deck is visible through the canopy, and is where the radio mounts. Instead of sanding the seam, i covered it with plastic  card, as I have to make a vertical bulkhead for the rear anyway:

Had to add a few rivets on a metal panel before adding the top deck:

Fitting the top deck:

Now the cockpit got a base color of A-14 Steel gray, or in this case a mix of Gunze neutral gray and sky, then the pe panel and side walls all came together, and luckily, played nice!

I think I'll give the pit a careful pinwash, then slide it into the fuselage opening, and see how many photo etch parts I can knock off

Well no word from the host, but here's the beginnings of my Yak 1b from Accurate Miniatures. This is my first Yak although I've build a few AM kits back in the day. I gotta say i'm not a huge fan of the way the kit is designed to go together. The cockpit on the real thing is fairly spartan, made up of steel tubes and and sort of an open floor kind of like a hurricane. This makes the cockpit on the kit hard to build and paint. Both the seat and instrument panel get sandwiched in-between the two side walls, so everything must line up perfect in order to fit inside the fuselage. I'm adding a Pe set from Part(Poland manufacturer) and decals will be either from another Eduard limited edition kit or aftermarket, as the kit decal option is for a '44 bird. I added some lines and levers inside the cockpit just to make it look busy enough. The kit detail is amazing and fine for a kit tooled in '98, and fit so far of the fuselage parts is near perfect. Here's my start:

the kit side walls are made with rectangular tubing, which should be round, so I replaced some with 1mm brass rod. I didn't totally rebuild them because they have strategic tabs to ensure a positive fit with the floor, and I didn't want to screw this up. I added some wires and levers,some wheel from the pe set, then test fit.

This is the new PE panel and levers:

The top fuselage deck also got some work. I replaced the thick plastic cross bar with bent wire:

Then, the front of the nose got its 12.7mm gun from brass tube. There was just a hole.

The bottom of the floor is also the radiator, which got some pe grills:

Now the fuselage needs to be closed up to have the cockpit slide up from behind. I removed the tailwheel doors to be replaced with pe:

The inside of the exhaust openings had to be filled with plastic card to accept the exhausts later, which will be from Quickboost:

Thanks Nathan... alot of it is dry brushing, but there is some chipping too.

Nice job Doug, love the paint chipping. Looks very realistic.

Thank you! There will be another after this one for the same build.

Doug (RR)

The Stuka is looking very nice.  Good work!

OK, starting to get the paint and weathering on, There is a slight gap in pictures, but two things, I get carried away and forget to take them some times  and I ran out of batteries about that time. Since resolved, and back on track...

Doug

LOL... Thanks Eric (I think...) LOL, Dont know what happened to Lindberg, They used to be the kit to buy when I was a kid. Very detailed and appealing. But, now very cheap and basic. Thats why I bought this kit, I figured if I messed up I'm not out alot, and it will go along with the other one I'm doing for this build. When this one is finished, I will begin on the main one.

You ought to go into business. Buy about 500 Lindberg Stukas, call them "Rigid Classics", and throw in some of your scratch stuff and see if you can't figure out how to make decals. Glencoe seems to do pretty well with that formula - they suckered me into buying USS Oregon which originally came out in the 50s. Actually, I think several Eduard models have plastic from older breeds, some new decals, some PE, a mask and a fat price tag. Come to think about it, the world is not awash with good Stukas in 1/48. Free enterprise.

Looking good.

Eric

Little bit more...

Hey Sub, sign me up for this one. Gonna try and squeeze in a Yak1b, from Accurate Miniatures. I might have to dig for some decals to give me a '43 scheme. I just started it yesterday.