Late starter SU9 and my first attempt at a GB

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:54 pm

well here goes. im in for the fun of just doing a groupbuild.

so for this one i trundled through my loft looking at my stash and thought im never going to build this SU9 unless i push myself! and what better push than putting less than a month left GB.

Its a metal tube with wings, and the box art is probably the best angle these old birds look! so with that in mind im going to have to get inventive with the weathering, and as these birds actually where not very capable at shooting anything down im led to believe they saw little service. brilliant!

so ive started with the thought this is going to OTB build, no aftermarket anything. if i scratch build anything it will be minimal. let the fun begin.

compulsory sprue shots,

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 4:05 pm

Racing of the blocks, cockpit is getting started... internet search begins on how these look whilst the black base drys.

obviously with all that hard work a cuppa is always at hand. The bottles are there for rinsing down the Tea and keeping the insanity going

Post by **panzerjager** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 4:12 pm

Interesting build,will be followed

Post by **Avgas** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 7:25 pm

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 10:46 pm

So after extensive research over a quick brew i think im going to build it to look something like this stationary old build i screen shot from a you tube vid.

turns out these old birds held a altitude record at one point! seems im starting to warm to the old girl.

Post by **Always48** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 9:56 pm

A bit more progress this evening, ive more or less got my tub painted up. first i lay down the basics

then after a bit of high lighting, shading, drybushing and i heavy ripped seat cushion type of effect i hope ive got a pit fitting of this cold war retired beast.

Post by **Always48** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 7:14 pm

so not being massively happy with the seat for details (no belts, headrest lacks the side detail etc), ive just ordered a pavla resin seat. i really didnt want to start chucking resin at it but at £2.50 plus postage it was impossiable to resist.
So to keep a bit of progress going i have started putting plastic together for the front wheelbay, and it would seem ive got to put the front landing gear in at this stage as its sandwiched between the two sides.

I think this kit is going to be more of a challenge than i first thought! Thats before i get to go with a nmf!

Post by **DBMiller** » Tue Mar 08, 2016 12:07 am

Nice!

Post by **Always48** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:00 pm

thx DBmiller,

Errrmm Houston we have a problem!

lieutenant "Dan" spots a issue with the seating arrangements in the Su9. The new seat is spot on for a average pilot, but the standard one is designed to fit a Hobbit!

so the new seat it is! but hang on theres no room for it in the tub! arrrghh Mayday mayday mayday, not sure how to proceed sir

anyone got any top tips?

Post by **Always48** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:22 pm

so lieutenant Dan shelfs the seat with others his not been to keen on putting his life in....

and returns to active flight status

Post by **JonMW** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:35 pm

Nice progress. The kit cockpit is way too small, it's not only too narrow but if you would cut off the sides of the cockpit to get the seat in, the seat will hit the instrument panel. I had to sand quite a bit on the seat and scratch build most of the cockpit to get it to fit as it should. It's a it of work but not too bad.

Post by **Always48** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:40 pm

meanwhile he leaves me to try and take this to the next stage

so 1st i measure and remove all the glued sides and instrument panel. next the

sawing...

then start making a new tub

sand down the seat, clean all the edges and trial fit.

next up sand down the bottom of the instrument panel and trial the fit and side panels.

then primer time.

thanks for looking at my abismal rectification lol

Post by **Always48** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:44 pm

JonMW wrote:Nice progress. The kit cockpit is way too small, it's not only too narrow but if you would cut off the sides of the cockpit to get the seat in, the seat will hit the instrument panel. I had to sand quite a bit on the seat and scratch build most of the cockpit to get it to fit as it should. It's a it of work but not too bad.

tell me about it! I didnt bargain on this when i got home and saw the seat in the post.

just scared the canopy wont fit, but thats tomorrow's worry
and my seat had a rub down too

hows your pit looking?

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 11:45 am

one new seat all painted up

a few bits of etch out the spares bin, makes for pedals

then the dreaded dry fit to see if the canopy is going to fit?

thatll be a NO then.

getting fustrated ive now got to drink more Ultimate tea and come up wigh a brain wave before i lose interest in the su9

Post by **JonMW** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:14 pm

The seat looks really nice. But a shame the canopy doesn't fit any more, guess mine won't either. Do you have any plan how to solve it? Right now I'm thinking vacuum forming a new thinner canopy and hope it's enough, or modifying it to have it open.

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:16 pm

Looking at my options.

slide canopy back..or see if anyone does a vac form canopy...

if i slide canopy to represent it being open there the space behind the headrest that i need to get very creative with and it doesnt represent the pic of the Su9 i posted up early in the build with it being redundant and left to rot.

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:23 pm

JonMW wrote:The seat looks really nice. But a shame the canopy doesn't fit any more, guess mine won't either. Do you have any plan how to solve it? Right now I'm thinking vacuum forming a new thinner canopy and hope it's enough, or modifying it to have it open.

Thanks Jon, must have posted at the same time

I have no experience in vacforming so i cant go down that avenue unless i can buy one somewhere...
i couldn't lower my tub but you might be able to as you have deeper sides made. just watch the nosewheel bay as they touch the bottom of the tub.

Post by **Always48** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:27 pm

just makes me wonder what is out of scale? seat maybe a touch to large perhaps, or the whole aircraft to small or a combination of both! who knows, but its the silliest of things making a lot of work....

Post by **Always48** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 8:55 am

Great day at the bench yesterday in the end, as it seems that im far more focused when in a GB. and oddly as ive never shown strangers my modeling efforts (or lack off modeling skills ) before i feel that im trying that bit harder than i admittedly normally would if that makes sense. I never realised the fun id have doing this in a Gb, and desire to break through a problem instead of settling for less will make me a better modeler for the future. Also looking at your guys work truely impresses me, i love the attention to detail and that scratch built factory is incredible!

So Ive managed to paint up the front wheelbay. Ive deliberately left the landin gear in metal finish as i will weather that when i pull the masking tape off after painting the fuselage so if i have to touch it up i can.

so with that completed i scratch built the splitter vanes on the shock cone, painted the nose and base painted the jet exhaust. this allowed the closing of the fuselage half and the sanding begins. To be honest the two half closed up very neatly with just a bit of filling to be done at the lower front end later.

Post by **Always48** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 10:17 am

The area's to tackle this week are the nose fuselage gaps, make new antenna for the 6 i knocked of the bottom fuselage, fill in gaps around the tail to fuselage joint. And if i get that done fix the wings in, then scratch build the rest of the top surfaces of the cockpit.

Post by **panzerjager** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:59 pm

Looking good

Post by **Always48** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 10:43 am

ok so i go to work today thinking ive took a day off soon to use up my holiday.... guess what! its today.... im telling you all the paint and glue fumes are playing havoc with me 42 year old brain...
And heres more confirmation. I,m looking at the not so clear diagram for installing 2 small parts to the fuselage that make up the end of the wing wheelbay and its took me 20mins to install them after checking out the orientation of the square hole. you would think the hole is for the gear door buts its not and this becomes more aparent later when something else must slot into it.

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:52 pm

This is most impressive, mate! First of, I like (only) old jet fighters and this is one! Then your job on cockpit and seat: I read your first post and it said you wanted to keep scratch building minimal. Well, the kit told you something else and I like it a lot how you overcame the problem. Beautiful! I'll follow this build from now on! Greetz from Germany and take care.

Jens

Post by **Always48** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:17 pm

so a big update, didnt realise id left it so long.

after joining up the fuselage i decided to try something a bit risky. i decided to sand little vertigo lines in the sides to recreate a 3d feel stressed skin look, sort of the way metql expqnds and contacts instead of smooth kit sides. never done it before and half wqy through i was bricking it

i used a coat of black paint to make visualisation of the lines uptill i buffed it back up.

then i cracked on with the painting, unfortunately i got carried away and didnt photo all the stages

realising tonight ive photoed it as it stands tonight. its my first Nmf and to be honnest ive struggled with Ak interactive extreme metal as its really delicate. some panels i had to repaint at leqst twice through clumsiness!

the gear doors

the rear legs with wheels drilled and flattened then wethered, i decided to paint a red marker but wether they did this i cant verify. on the legs i used fuses wire to make hoses to the hubs hiden behind some weathered doors.

hmm photobucket is slow, will post pics in a min

Post by **Damonkh** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:44 pm

looks great to me! Keep it up.

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 11:23 pm

Hehehe! This is my third attempt to look at the new pics and I can finally see them! That bird looks great, mate! Not, that I understand a lot about painting aircrafts, but I've got two eyes and they tell me, you did a very nice job there! Keep it up!

Jens

Post by **Always48** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 10:27 pm

Thanks guys, ill try to get the other pics up now as photobucket seems to be ok now.

next is decals, and weathering. i think there is a issue with the kit stars.... they are just red stars without the extra red outline which i read somewhere is more accurate. can anyone confirm?

Post by **Always48** » Tue Mar 29, 2016 8:39 pm

So not much to report really, over the Easter break I only managed to start building my base for the old girl to sit on. i used my tried and tested foamex board and cut it to replicate the typical russian concrete block, i removed a couple of the slabs totally and reseated them as if they had moved by subsidence and added cracks. i aim to fill the gaps between them with weeds etc once its painted.

along the back ive kurbed the area really to add a depth of interest and placed a cast concrete lampost also made from foamex, the light in the corner has colasped over time and hasits rebars showing. Thus making for a fair representation i think of a disused aircraft tucked away at the rear of a disused aurfield. anyways heres my pics

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 2:25 pm

Wow! I've been away for a couple of days and look what happened! That'll look great once it's painted and all the weeds etc. glued to it! Beautiful job, Alan!

Jens

Post by **Always48** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 9:05 pm

NonProlificModeler wrote:Wow! I've been away for a couple of days and look what happened! That'll look great once it's painted and all the weeds etc. glued to it! Beautiful job, Alan! Jens

Thanks jens, heres where it is at the moment, ive got to get something i can use to make long grass standing at the rear and in the joints but ive stained where the puddles would be and added litter. still got plenty of work to do with probes and weapons racks kn the plane. Also got to place wiring in to make that lantern pole light up.

i hope to use the slr camera for the final pics but not sure how the image size will work

any advice guys?

thanks for popping by

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 9:41 pm

Wow, that's really beautiful, Alan!

About that long grass: are you looking for the material or a way to make it stand tall? Your question on the pics with your other camera: is it about resizing the photos? I may have answers to all of your questions, but of course need to know what exactly you want to know or do.

Jens

Post by **Always48** » Sat Apr 02, 2016 11:08 pm

Hey thanks Jens, complements from a master

. Its my 5th and a half model build and i can already see my improvement over the others (i have 3 other models started but kinda stuck). Despite the push of a group build, i look at my shelf and im truely happy with hows it turning out. It strange really as when i started it was just a model of a jet that i thought is not as taxing as most of the other kits ive got and am still scared of messing up. Now its a jet i love, totally get its own beauty and its my favourite so far. maybe its the invested time or actually looking up a specimen to copy or its the scratch building. Deep questions, but its good for me to work out what i really love about the hobby.

The grass would be a question of what to use. i have some little clumps that i used on the tarmac runway under the Super Sabre, but i was in the fields walking the dog earlier and thought i need something taller. i suppose it would need to be strands of something green. considered the bristles from decorating paint brushes? what do you think?

As for the camera, i havnt uploaded pics from that camera to the photobucket acct before. i thought they might be abit large, plus i have PB as a app on this tablet, so not tried PB from a Pc. I guess it should be ok as im guessing plenty of guys upload to PB from SLR cameras on here. just have to reduce them to small files maybe... dont know....

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Sun Apr 03, 2016 1:59 am

Ah, alright. For the grass: I use NOCH grass - real hemp fibres - which comes in various colours. I'll try to give you more information later, 'cause I don't have the reference numbers handy right now. The fibres are quite long and you can cut them to the size you need. Best way to attach them to a dio is to take a strand of them, dip one end into some PVA glue and just put it onto the desired spot. If you use fast curing glue it'll only take two or three minutes till it's stable enough. If you watch out for my YT channel, there are two vids in which you can see what the fibres look like (Diorama First Snow Last Stand, East Prussia, Late 1944, Build, Part 3 and Final reveal).
I use my old digital camera and laptop for uploading to photobucket. Modern stuff like tablet and/or smart phone are out of reach, so I could only help with the software I use. But I guess that's not the problem. I hope you get the information you need and I'm sorry that I wasn't that helpful here.

Jens

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Sun Apr 03, 2016 6:00 pm

I could't find the long grass in the NOCH online catalogue, but I remembered that it said "NOCH/Woodland Scenics" on the package. So I looked up the ref. # for Woodland Scenics grass: WFG171, Natural Straw Field Grass; WFG172, Harvest Gold Field Grass; WFG173, Light Green Field Grass; WFG174, Medium Green Field Grass. These are the four colours that are available. Hope you can use it somehow.

Post by **Always48** » Sun Apr 03, 2016 11:01 pm

Thanks Jens thats great. done a quick search and that company do some amazing stuff

found a uk supplier too, so shall order some various colours for my collection. thank you again

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Sun Apr 03, 2016 11:33 pm

Not at all, Alan. If I had known your from Britain I would have posted the link to the shop, 'cause it is somewhere in the UK. You're right, Woodland Scenics do great stuff. They're very much like my favourite German model railroad supplier NOCH. Well, they've got some sort of business relationship going on.

Have a nice week, mate. Jens

Post by **Always48** » Mon Apr 04, 2016 9:37 pm

Just had a great hour and bit at the bench, loving tweaking the plane now. tonight i made a tiny little handle to sit on the canopy, as it turns out when the canopy is open there is this little handle that is upright.

put some grey paint on the conopy glass to give the front end paint chipping

then i weathered the shock cone before attaching the pitot tube

Attached the innermost landing gear doors, and worked out what the 2 pieces in the kit where - rams that the instructions forget to mention !

Then i get a visit from my mate "Dan" and he gives it the pilots eye.... and declares it unfit to fly! exactly the look im after

Thanks for popping by

Post by **Always48** » Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:28 pm

So with a big shout out Jens ive got me long grass.

which im now starting to add to the base clumps ive already glued down along the joints. these i also added a dirt panel liner wash to the bases hopefully to add depth.

hopefully looks something like grass clumps

thanks for looking

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:58 pm

Wow, Alan! That looks gorgeous! Glad I could help you with tracking down the grass. It was definitely worth it.

Jens

Post by **rwsmith14** » Sat Apr 16, 2016 2:47 am

Very Nice., I like it allot. it's giving me some inspration to get going on my Two seater SU-9U for the Shiny Things SIG.....

Post by **Always48** » Sat Apr 16, 2016 9:00 am

NonProlificModeler wrote:Wow, Alan! That looks gorgeous! Glad I could help you with tracking down the grass. It was definitely worth it. Jens

To right Jens, its adding a incredible amount of depth to the scene. so much so that im now got to add "other stuff" that would be found ....

rwsmith14 wrote:Very Nice., I like it allot. it's giving me some inspration to get going on my Two seater SU-9U for the Shiny Things SIG.....

Thanks mate,
You know what, i completely underestimated how good this plane looks and i now wish id done this for the shiny tings sig as ive been looking at what to build in that one and im currently stumped...
A two seat version now that would be very cool

Post by **rwsmith14** » Sat Apr 16, 2016 10:37 pm

Always48 wrote:
NonProlificModeler wrote:Wow, Alan! That looks gorgeous! Glad I could help you with tracking down the grass. It was definitely worth it. Jens
To right Jens, its adding a incredible amount of depth to the scene. so much so that im now got to add "other stuff" that would be found ....

rwsmith14 wrote:Very Nice., I like it allot. it's giving me some inspration to get going on my Two seater SU-9U for the Shiny Things SIG.....
Thanks mate,
You know what, i completely underestimated how good this plane looks and i now wish id done this for the shiny tings sig as ive been looking at what to build in that one and im currently stumped...
A two seat version now that would be very cool

I've always liked the Odd Two seaters jets, especialy the soviet built ones, from the cold war.

Post by **Always48** » Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:51 pm

can anyone guess what this might become....

heres a clues'ses

Post by **Always48** » Mon Apr 18, 2016 9:51 pm

so whilst that went on, i started work on the rear fence

somewhere nearer

ready to start painting once the glue sets, this is the reverse side atm

thanks for looking

Post by **Schoof** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 10:47 am

Only 1 days left..... hope it's enough for you to get it done in time...

Post by **Always48** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:31 pm

Schoof wrote:Only 1 days left..... hope it's enough for you to get it done in time...

thought we had till the end of the month.....

Post by **Schoof** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:56 pm

Ooohhhh sorry... that's 11 days left

Post by **DBMiller** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 10:59 pm

Schoof wrote:Ooohhhh sorry... that's 11 days left

Heart attack!

Post by **NonProlificModeler** » Wed Apr 20, 2016 2:22 pm

The barbed wire fence is splendid, Alan! And there'll be light, too??? Gorgeous! I love your dio!

Jens

Post by **Always48** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 11:36 pm

sneak peaks as i hope this works its from the SLR