Airfix 1/24 Ju 87 Stuka

[Kostucha]

Great work!

Those dents, did you just sand them or is there another trick up your sleeve?

Thanks!

I filed them in a little rough with a round file, then went over them with 600 grit sandpaper to smooth out any overly sharp edges.

[geedubelyer]

I'm really enjoying this thread Kostucha, thanks for taking the time to post regular and informative updates. :)

Your scratch-building is first rate and looks superb when in situ. The whole lot, cockpit, wing openings, fuselage detail, everything is terrific

Keep up the great work, :wub:

[Kostucha]

Geedubelyer,

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I really do enjoy posting the updates with as much helpful info as I can. If at some point this thread/build helps someone else out there in anyway, then it was definitely worth it. Thanks again! Your kind words are greatly appreciated,

Mark.

[theseeker]

Mark,

Great work my friend!

Rocky

[Kostucha]

Thanks Rocky! I'll have another set up update pictures tomorrow morning - the MG17 'gunbay' completed with the mounted MG17. And the rest of the wing too hopefully... tonight is a self declared building night - the wife and future pilot are heading out for a while... they both think I need a bit of a break given last week...

[Blackcollar]

Mark, you have too much time on your hands, and a dedicated work space I bet...

-Al

[viper494]

Looking great mate keep it going,i'll pm you with what i need if thats ok.

Clive.

[Kostucha]

Mark, you have too much time on your hands, and a dedicated work space I bet...

Al, I wouldn't say I have too much time... my time comes when the little man's asleep dreaming about flying and my Domestic 9'er is happily having a bubble bath/reading/asleep. Many, MANY a night I contemplate whether progress is more important, or showing up for PT in the morning with all cylinders firing... models usually win, at least for a little while.

As for the dedicated work space - it's kind of funny. I had the garage, it was great, lots of freedom of movement to build, paint, sand, etc., but with winter here (or at least it being too cold for Super Glue to work right), I moved back into the basement. It is a dedicated work space, but I'm limited by how much I can do. I wont sand filler, or use it for that matter in the house, same with painting, so every once in a while I'll be taking parts with me to paint somewhere's warm - heater in the garage usually helps (aside from minor painting with a brush or what have you).

Looking great mate keep it going,i'll pm you with what i need if thats ok.

Clive, thank you very much, and yeah, PM me anytime at all! Love your Stuka by the way, man, it looks sharp!

Alrighty, just need to take care of a few things this morning and a new post with update pics will be going up. Didn't get a chance to finish all the wiring in the MG bay, however, most of the other parts are there, including the reworked MG 17, the ammo can, and the framing along with all the needed wiring to be seen. That wing had some impressive plumming in it, that's for sure...

Take care!

[Kostucha]

So, work continued... cutting out all the access panels underneath and the framing to go in. The question came up in the "Props" section of ARC as to RLM 02 in a spray can form. I can't find it anywhere, so I opted to use testors Grey (yeah, I spray can a large majority of the work). Using the gloss grey, I get a nice chance to darken it with either a nice flat pastel calk coat, or just dirty the hell out of certain areas, so along the way, there's also a good look at what I do to get the RLM02 paint chip I have to match up with the final colour. Here's the wing with the gray sprayed on:

From here it was onto the shading/darkening/dirtying. Even though it was sealed, a lot of pictures I found of wrecked Stuka's and ones being worked on were rediculously dirty inside - not everything was that nice and sealed I suppose. Looking under the wing though, it makes sense - there are a number of openings here and there, but further to that, given the operational tempo of the Stukas, whether in '39 or '45, they were always being worked, so cleaning wasn't a priority it seems. There's even a couple pictures I have of Stukas with copious amounts of mud on the landing gear spats - flying along like nothing was happening... right, back to the picture. The pastel chalks shot with Dullcoat - oh yeah, I use dullcoat like it's going out of style, but I use it in layers a lot.

You can get a lot of good effect with the mix of a gloss coat base, pastel chalks and dullcoat. From the "spotted" look on the pilots seat, to just a thin coat to take away the gloss look. As a note - as a good portion of the inner wing wont be easily seen, only certain areas were really focused on:

The Machine Gun bay:

And the outter third of the wing where a couple of service panels on top and a whole section will be removed:

After this was all said and done, I went into the rigging and plumbing. Here's a quick shot of the inside:

And another of what will be seen from underneath:

[Kostucha]

Work then moved into the gun bay. The first thing to be done here was to fix up the MG 17 a bit... as a side note, references for the MG 17's in the wing - well, there are almost none out there. It was a combination of a really shotty picture at a horrible angle that shows a little of the ammo can, a line drawing of the ammo can from the Squadron book, and 2 pictures of just an MG 17. Aside from that, countless searches over the net, along with 6, yeah, I've got now 6 books with over 1200 pictures... NOTHING... not one book (aside from the shotty picture - literally, it's a Stuka shot down that crashed hard enough to knock the panel off...). I tried to get it as close as possible... I've seen a lot of kits with the compressed air bottle in there too, which looks good, but I can't find a single reference to it at all - nothing in cross sections, line drawings, or otherwise, so I opted to keep this piece out.

Getting back to the MG 17, I took the kit part, added a new muzzle end and replaced some of the rear workings of the MG. Here's a shot from the side test fitting all the parts:

Another:

And one looking down the business end. I tried something different here. Stretched out a piece of brass pipe into a bit of a cone shape and slid it over the end of the barrel to try and get the right look of the muzzle end on the MG 17. I was really happy with the results (again, it's test fitted in this picture, explaining why the barrel is a bit out of line at the end):

The MG 17 was then painted a semi-gloss black (as every picture of the MG 17's I've seen whether in museum or heavily used was always at least a semi-gloss black), and mounted in. The ammo can is also in there and there's a small 3 round belt section of ammo that I've still got to add in between the can and the MG, along with the retaining pin, handle and mounting bracket for the ammo can:

And finally, a couple of quick shots showing it sitting in there with the top section of the wing on:

Once the spent casing/belt can is in, along with the rest of the wiring around the MG, I'll give a bit of a coating with fine ground pencil lead. I find when trying to represent gun-dust, nothing out there works better then pencil lead, applied much like the pastel chalks, just without the dullcoat.

Tonight I'm hoping to get those small pieces finished up around that area, and the dive brake actuator mounted in. After that, the two halves can be glued together, and the outter 1/4 of the wing can be started. I'm leaving this one off until the end as both top and bottom panels are removed, and this way the whole wing frame can be done nice and flush with where it should be.

Thanks everyone, and happy modeling!

Mark.

[Blackcollar]

Mark, your work is very inspiring, you must have one heck of a reference library on this plane. Got anything equivalent on a 109 G4? Got one in 32 in my stash...

Cheers and keep it up

-Al

[Kostucha]

Al, thanks for your compliments.

G4, no unfortunately not much. Not yet at least - E-3/4 yes. Lots of it.

I've compiled a lot of information I've obtained over the years on disc's and run off of that - individual reference photo's and what not. When it comes to books, I've just recently started adding to the collection, starting mainly with the Stuka, and the 190A's next. Basically going kit by kit. If I think I'm going to need the book, I'll get it. Down the road I know I'll be using them over and over again.

[Kostucha]

Unofrtunately not much got done last night. I did get the main landing gear on the LH side - drying as we speak. As well as the rest of the gun bay is completed and the dive brake actuator is in now too, with the top half of the wing being finished as well. Tonight I'll be putting top and bottom half together and I'll hopefully have some pictures posted tomorrow morning.

[Miccara]

You are a still a sick man.

I'm setting my modelling room on fire.

[Kostucha]

Do you have any 1/24 kits you'd be willing to part with first? Just kidding.

I appreciate the complement Larry, but please don't take out the modelling room - I don't want to feel guilty while working on the Stuka... at least wait until after...

[Aigore]

Awesome gunbay!!!! Your build is just plain joy to follow!

Cheers!

[Grant Lehman]

WOW. Just when you think your modelling skills are getting better, a masterpiece like this pops up and makes ya want to start knitting. Mark, I have never seen anything like this before. Really.... a work of ART !!!!!!

Very Nice.

I hope to learn some tricks by following this post.

Grant

[Eastern]

Hi, Mark! I was really stanned and amazed with your latest updates. All those adds on look smashing. You are a real modeler, but crazy though. :D

Only crazy can make so meticulously all those details that never can be seen. ;) But from the other hand, I understand you all right cos I'm a crazy modeler myself. :D

It's just a sence of joy, satisfaction and pride when you are watching again and again that you've made with your own hands. And doesn't matter what they say. It's your gratification. And thanks for sharing, cos it's a joy watching your work results. It's very inspiring.

I take my hat off. :D

Cheers!

Alexander.

:D

[Ajed1]

In a word - gobsmacked

Thank you Mark for letting us see this masterpiece'

Ajed1

Who Dares Wins

[Kostucha]

Thank you all very much! Your compliments and comments are greatly appreciated! Really, they are.

Today I decided to take the day off of work - I'm entitled to it I think. So, with that, I got at working on the kit. I wanted to add the 3 rounds for the MG 17, and so I thought I would take a few extra pictures to show how I do this. It starts out with a piece of thin gauge solder:

From there, I cut them into more manageable sections. In order to get the rounded tip of the rounds, I use the rubber handle on the end of a small file. It's soft enough not to damage the piece, but hard enough that when rolled back and forth, it "narrows" the solder until they separate, leaving you with a fine, rounded and smooth tip:

Taking an X-acto blade, I LIGHTLY press and roll the piece to give an engraved line where the slug starts and the casing ends:

Taking a measuring device, I find how long the whole thing is. Here I'm measuring the width of the ammo can, and the width of the entry point on the MG17 where the rounds go in:

Now taking the same X-acto blade, you can really take full advantage of the solder here. A casing end has three nice things - a flat end, a primer cap, and a lip around the base of the casing. Take the X-acto blade and roll it back and forth until you cut away the excess. This leaves and nicely rounded cut and all three things that you want on the end of the round:

Using a thin cut piece of tape as the "ammo belt", lay out the rounds:

Folding over the tape, press the space inbetween the rounds to give a "linked" look - here you can also see the effect that doing a rolling cut on the solder gives you - the raised lip, flat bottom, and a "primer cap":

Then just paint accordingly:

Whole thing takes about 20 minutes to do.

Hope this was a bit of help!

Mark.

[Kostucha]

Continuing on,

Once I had the rounds done, I mounted them into the space. While they were drying, I also finished the details on the ammo can (the handle and retaining pin):

Moving on, once it was in, I added the last two pieces to the MG 17 - those bloody hoses, and the ammo can retainers:

Here's another view of it:

Added the other pieces inside that were needed, and then glued the wing halves together... finally. Here's a couple quick shots throughout:

And of the outter wing access panels:

And here is a shot of the panels open underneath the wing:

Work then carried over to the outer wing panel open from top and bottom. Here's a quick shot of the top of it:

And last but not least for today, the RH wing section has the glue setting as we speak:

As odd as it looks, somehow it still looks threatening sitting like that on the bench. The LH landing gear leg is also glued on. Work from here is going to involve the rear fuselage and tail plane, and other features of the fuselage including raised access panels.

Thank you for looking, and happy modeling to everyone!

Mark.

[Aigore]

I´m at a loss for words!

[Blackcollar]

Bullets Mark...? BULLETS?? That's awesome, well done.

-Al

[Eastern]

Man, you are really crazy about modeling... No words...

Cheers!

Alexander.

;)

[Kostucha]

Thank you all very much!

Al, yeah, bullets... there is so little for aftermarket out there for this scale - but understandably so as it's not a really popular scale. So, little ways of adding a bit more really comes down to knowing it has to be scratch built, and then simply saying "what do I want to do"... I really don't feel that just because it's not on the market, that a 1/32 or 1/48 kit should be able to look better in the end than a 1/24 kit. That, and it really is a challenge to stop a 1/24 aircraft kit from looking like a toy.

This Stuka model has just become so much fun to work on - without question the most enjoyable kit I've ever built. 1/24 just has so much to offer, and I'm really looking forward to continuing onto the 190 after this one.

Mark.