James' Waku Jak

[JamesPerrin]

Waku 1/72 Yak-15 (Jak-15)

Picked this up for the princely sum of £2. Often seen in the bargain vac box of many a 2 hand dealer, I bought this as I had sacrificed my PM Yak-15 for my daughter to play with. This kit looks to have better detail and the canopy will be light years ahead of the milk bottle bottom that formed the PM part. Some appendages such as the undercarriage were soon erm... detached and I fortunately scooped these up for the spares box and will be used to replace the vac parts.





Anybody know anything about Waku kits? The parent appears to be BR-Lodz, their logo is moulded into the plastic along with part numbers! I'm on hold next week and won't make a start until after the weekend as I'm also attending the Cosford Model show.

[K5083]

That looks great. Fun to see what is surfacing from people's stashes for this GB.

August

[Stuart]

always thought these were interesting looking aircraft - looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

[Przemek]

Hi James!
This is one of the oldest Polish vacu models, or one of the first - whichever you prefer
But do not worry - everything is ok with them. Waku, JMK, HobbyKlub, Miniplast (all from Poland) did good developed models. From Waku I have a Yak-18, and from JMK P-51B Mustang - for vacu admirers I recommend In addition, they were P-40, Airacobra, Bf-109 E-1 (from the war in Spain), Dardo, Łagg, PZL Wilga and many others.
Perhaps only the decals can be already in bad condition ..
Przemek

[JamesPerrin]

Thanks Pzemek, it may be one of the first Polish Vacforms but it very nice done and well presented. Equivalent to a polybag injection plastic kit.

Had a spare hour at the start of the GB but been away an not had chance to post.

The usual marking of the plastic with a marker pen. Use a pointy one as you need not make sure you get right into the corner of the moulding as you are trying to mark when the part meets the flat sheet.



Then just of matter of scoring and careful snapping out of the parts. It help if you isolate the parts first and make a few cuts from the part to the edge. Small pliers are useful in tricky situations. Off cuts go into a scrap card box on my workbench where it will be used to scratch parts for this and other kits.



All done.

[Jagewa]

The last photo the surface detail looks really nice.

[splash]

The two peice wing is a good design idea that should make life simpler.

Regards Splash

[JamesPerrin]

The two peice wing is a good design idea that should make life simpler.

The dihedral though makes it tricker to sand though. I will be mainly scrapping though to achieve thin trailing edges.

[JamesPerrin]

Crikey is this GB still going? I would have expected the GBL's to have accosted me in a dark alley by now Anyway, miracle of miracles I've had an a hour or so in the 'shed'. Up until now my only achievement was to make a new sanding board from an off-cut of kitchen cabinet and to clean up the fuselage halves.

I've now sanded down the rest of the components. The full span wing halves have dihedral moulded in, this is where have your sand paper come right to the edge of the board is a good idea, as you can hang one wing over the edge. It's also useful for working on the trailing edges of the flying surfaces alone as they take more sanding than the leading edges.



I just remembered to cut out the undercarriage doors before gluing the wings together by reamer made quick and neat work of the wheel covers.



The only flaw with the kit is the so thin it has cracked front edge of the engine nacelle in the wing lower half. This was backed with milliput which was also use to block the view between the wheel wells.

That all took an hour and the 5 mins to glue the wings, tailplane and fin together. With luck next month I might make a start on the cockpit!

[DavidWomby]

Thin plastic is an issue with mine too. I am reinforcing with 5 minute epoxy in a few places.

Thanks for the tip on putting sandpaper at the edge of the board!

David

[JamesPerrin]

Like tectonics things do happen if only imperceivably.

I found a useful link to a build of 1/48 Czech model build that has fully detailed cockpit. My only issue is that the high wing root intersects the cockpit area. Therefore some chopping was required. I then made a start on the cockpit structures.



A pair of dividers come in really handy for this sort of thing.

[lancfan]

Looking good James.

David.

[splash]

That's a clever way to make a cockpit tub but cutting into the upper wing.

Regards Splash

[JamesPerrin]

Well I took an hour this afternoon to finish building the cockpit. This scratchbuilding always takes time as there are some many fine adjustments that need to be made to get everything to fit. The rudder bar was more whim than something that will be seen, but the hole in the wing root now needs to be enlarged to accommodate the whim







I'll see if I can it painted up tonight as it means I might get the fuselage closed up and the main parts together before the end of play.

[JamesPerrin]

OK painted up, but the milliput I had added to the inside of the wing need chopping out as it fouled the cockpit. which has set me back a bit.



Also needed to add the nose bullet from a bit of a spares box bomb, this contain a small 2 stroke engine as a starter motor!