The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

So here it is my kick off build for the 2012 CBK SIG SMW "My first CBKs" Display!

As a little kid the Stuka seemed to hold sway in my mind above to the usual Spitfires, 109s etc. I've not idea where we bought it from it might have been a gift from my uncle in the RAF who often bought me model kits. What I do remember is my dad taking me to the local supermarket ( I think it was the Co-op) and buying a pack of paint that came in little phials. So this was the first kit I painted and finished with the decals. I remember being proud of it but when it was done it didn't occur to me to play with it or anything else and it sat on top of the fridge with a pile of other stuff until it got pushed down the back. The paints suffered a similar fate being left in another pile of stuff on top of the boiler. When I came to use them again they had dried up - I distinctly remember trying to apply the cruddy paint to another kit of which i have no recollection. My mum said well you shouldn't have left them on top of the boiler, as if this was obvious to a 7 year old, though I have never since left any paints on any boiler!


I got the correct period boxing circa 1979 from Chris of Kits-Kits a couple of Huddersfield shows ago as I always intended to take this trip down memory lane. I would have liked to have said the bombs and explosions on the art work were what drew me to it but at the time it would have been this sanitised version that I got my hands on.



Always and advantage of getting older boxing, the parts are all nice and crisply moulded with very fine panel lines and rivets all over. You don't though get the benefit of of Airfix's currently lovely decal sheets.

I'm not planning on adding much to the kit but will be improving the finesse of some of the parts. Pretty much all of which centre around the various intakes.

The top cowling has a intake for what I guess in an oil cooler, the front of which is open but the rear slit is mould closed.





A few minutes work with a sharp pointy knife and a file improve things immensely. The intake is now begging to have a oil cooler added!





The big distinctive chin intake for the radiator needs to thinned down. You can't thin it quite as much as required as this would start to cut it back, however it can be significantly improved.



At the rear things are much better but the trailing edge thickens as it meets the fuselage. Again trimming with a sharp knife improves it within a few secs.

Good start - I remember this kit myself - painted it white as a Russian Front a/c, IIRC!

Things seem to be moving apace with this build, which is nice. Firstly oil cooler added under cowling.



The simple cockpit painted dark grey. I was not going to waste time with embellishments that won't be seen especially as pilots will be added later. I did however move the IP towards to pilot as it was otherwise buried in the bowels of the beast. The stick is worth noting a mini masterpeice of detail! Shame the rear gun does not match.



Chris had made me aware that on of the tail struts was missing and required scratching. I didn't have any plastic strut fine enough so cut the V shame from card and whittled the aerofoil section. Then attached the tailplane and strutage.





I was on a roll and so stuck the wings on!



Tomorrow once dry I can start dive bombing things!!

Blimey that was quick James , nice work on scratching the tail strut and the other improvements.

Regards

Tom

You have your work cut out with this one, James.
I see lots of raised rivets. I see sink marks.
I see dead people too but that's another story!

Ian wrote:You have your work cut out with this one, James.
I see lots of raised rivets. I see sink marks.

Actually the raised rivets are very fine indeed, and what I think yoy think are sink marks are small intakes on the nose and bomb carrier location points.

Nice work James,always one of my faves way back when.

Not been able to get to the bench for a few days, but meant I had a clear idea what wanted to achieve when I did. I started work on the canopy, but more on that in a later post. I'd read the 1/24 Stuka build article in this month's Classic plastic and noted a few details, one of which was that the finlets on the ends on the tail plane are split between the stabiliser and control surface. I punched a disc from Dymo tape to use as a template for the curved separation.





The rest of my hour was spent applying tape and filling the fine gaps at the wing roots and the more substantial ones where the lower wing insert fits into the upper

Time on the Stuka has been mainly spent on sanding down filler and cleaning up parts. The dive brakes (?) under the leading edge of the wings are a bit chunky and I sanded them to less than half their original thickness. I also chopped out the landing light that is engraved but moulded solid on the port wing.

I have tonight though finished off a modification to the canopy. The rear gun is mounted in a shallow dome shape. To allow the gun to fit through this and combined with the limitations of IM means there is a ruddy great big hole in it.



So I filed it out. Sanding and polishing the edge makes it a lot less noticeable as it doesn't scatter the the light. It then took a while before I found something over which I could crash mould a new dome. Turned out to be under my nose as one of my lesser used craft knives has a round burnishing end which was just right



I cut out and sanded down the tip of this until it match the correct diameter and then I drill a hole in place for the gun. I will leave this off until the end of the build as it will allow me to also add the gun after masking and painting when it will be less likely to get damaged.

James,

Great solution well executed.

regards,

Martin

Oh James that is a smart result with the rear dome. Well done.

CHeers
JIm

Good idea with the finlet shape as well.

Every small step feels like a major achievement at the moment. Pilots are now done which means I can get her closed up and onto painting. Sometimes I forget how simple some kits are to build!


I had googled some stuka pilot images and none the wiser plumped for the light tan coloured uniforms and pale life savers. I later read this was Med/N.Africa garb so I've no idea if it's appropriate for the the main scheme as it says nothing about it. (though the box tells you which Italian sqn the R version is for and where they served)

That's some pretty fine pilot painting.

Nigel

Great tips here James. Very good work as usual.