airfix 1/24 stuka, a long term project!

[PhilsModelMaking]

Hello all! well heres my first "proper" post and its my current long term project, in that I have took until now roughly a year to get it to this stage,and dropping off it when I've been involved in group builds or just fancied a change or had the motivation just vanish (its not just me that gets like that is it? )


It does have an original "flick to spin" motor in the engine but unfortunately when the full prop was fitted it could only turn it slowly compared with how fast it was when i just had the hub on to test it!


Look at it go here! but the weight of the full prop and any sort of friction slowed it down.

As I say, the above pics were taken maybe just over a year ago, I took these next lot today -


Engine fully mounted and plumbed in with scratch built details, cockpit with various controls and wiring scratch built as well and fuselage halves together


Its going to be a monster when finished!


The instrument panel had a airscale decal used for the clock faces.


The rear of the cockpit showing the extra wiring, and scratchbuilt throttle levers.


A close up of the mighty jumo 211 engine!

[Paul]

Exellent work, hows the kit fiting together, I've heard these can be a bit of a nightmare

[PhilsModelMaking]

thanks paul!
one tricky part was getting the engine inbetween its bearers, they are moulded with the fuselage, so any warping or bending can create problems. plus on my first attempt at fitting it i was hitting some extra greeblies I'd fitted to the front of the firewall, it took me a while to realise what the problem was, then while I was sorting that out, I snapped part of the engine bearer (if you look closely at my last pic you can see the lower part of the diagonal strut is slightly misaligned due to being repaired) also the engine cowlings needed a lot of sanding and better pins fitting to get them to look right. I may fix some of them in place and only leave one or two removable because it would be a crying shame to cover that engine for good.

[Paul]

thanks paul!
one tricky part was getting the engine inbetween its bearers, they are moulded with the fuselage, so any warping or bending can create problems. plus on my first attempt at fitting it i was hitting some extra greeblies I'd fitted to the front of the firewall, it took me a while to realise what the problem was, then while I was sorting that out, I snapped part of the engine bearer (if you look closely at my last pic you can see the lower part of the diagonal strut is slightly misaligned due to being repaired) also the engine cowlings needed a lot of sanding and better pins fitting to get them to look right. I may fix some of them in place and only leave one or two removable because it would be a crying shame to cover that engine for good.

Cheers for that, always wanted to build the 1/24 mustang, may give it a go one day

[khitomer]

Looks good philby, did you ever finish this kit?

[JayCub]

looks superb, and i have been putting off getting the airfix stuka as i found the plastic so thin on the spitfire it kind of put me off and the spitfire looks so-so at best and nowhere near this build, so i will put this on hold for later in the year and see how this builds up.
the cockpit looks shear magic and the greeblies are fantastic updates, great shot of the engine, could you use a variable resister and a more powerful battery to increase prop speed, could be a disaster also...

Tom

[PhilsModelMaking]

hello again!
@ liam- this is how the kit stands right now, my next section to deal with will be the painting and final fitting of the pilot and gunner, after that this kit should start to go together a lot quicker, as the bulk of the work is internal. you can if you want have the gun bays opened, but these again only have a basic amount of detail so i may have the covers closed just to get the wings done quicker.

@tom- i'm going to leave the motor as is, because even then the stand will need some surgery, because with the original 70's airfix motorising kit, there were metal parts that you had to fix to mouldings underneath the stand, as my motors were frog items for their "spin a prop" range i'll have to shoehorn in a new battery box under there.

also i've found some more pics that were left on my camera that show the firewall in better detail-



and one of the instrument panel before it was fitted-

[khitomer]

Looking really nice Philip, my kind of scale. Love the detail.

[PhilsModelMaking]

Looks good philby, did you ever finish this kit?

ermmmm...... actually no!
i did some more work on the wings and pilot/gunner figures after my last post then left this on a shelf for nearly three years!
however, as a sort of new years resolution i want to sort out as much of my shelf of doom as i can, so i have decided that i'll carry on with this kit, and as an incentive i want to take it to telford 2017.

so, to that end over the course of the last week i finally got to use the montex masks on the canopy, and today got it all sprayed.
masks for the inside too -


the set has masks for every glazed part including the wing light.


all i need to do now is paint the gunners head, then i can actually get the canopy on, finishing an interior that was started sometime in 2013!

[PhilsModelMaking]

did i say 2013? whilst uploading some more pics i noticed the first ones in the stuka album were actually from 2012!

now for some from 2017, basically more fettling work on the cowlings and exhausts, as i stated above these cowl panels will have to be fixed into place due to the fact that the little tabs that are meant to hold them on simply aren't up to the job, the only one i can leave loose is the top one so at least some of my detail work on the engine can still be seen.



before she's closed up one last pic of the engine,the panel covering the radiator is already glued in place -