Airfix 1/24 Ju 87 Stuka

[GreyGhost]

I hope I can put in a good show for you guys!

Even if you stopped now, you already have !

Gregg

[Qian]

Great work thus far!!

[D_IcarUS_]

Keep on amazing me!!! :) :unsure:

[Kostucha]

Thank you all for your comments and compliments. Greatly appreciated. I'm hoping to knock off the straps and lines for the tank this morning. Hopefully another update soon.

[DougN]

Excellent work! Here are a few photos I took at the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin in January that might be useful to you:

Cheers,

Doug

[Kostucha]

Thank you! Those pictures are amazing! Thank you very, very much. A lot of good detail around the cockpit/canopy area, and a good shot showing the thickness of the pilots seat. That and so much more, thank you!

[Kostucha]

Hello all.

Just a very quick update before I head into Winnipeg for the course. I opted to spend more time with the family today than the Stuka, and so not everything was finished. The two wing root halves were put together, as well as the tank installed. The fuel lines and cover-cap was put on as well and that all connected, the two cap necks on top of the tank were shaved down, and finally, last but not least, the black rubber/tar strip that was placed between the tank and the metal straps was wrapped around the fuel tank. The metal straps underneath were added, and later on once I'm back, the three remaining frame sections on the top section of the wing root will be added, painted, weathered and chipped accordingly. Here are a few pictures.

Keep in mind, the straps are not yet complete - there is still touch up paint to be added, and the fine touches added. Still a couple of nights left to finish this section.

Bottom:

Top:

Bottom and lines:

Let me know what you all think and any critiques or advice before I plan on wrapping this up. I'd love to get your opinions on how this is going.

Thanks all,

Mark.

[geedubelyer]

You, Sir, are a veritable modelling machine (but in a good way)

Beautiful attention to detail Kostucha. It's a pleasure to be able to follow every step of the construction process with you. Thank you for taking the time to add such in depth updates. I know how long it can take to post this sort of information so I'm grateful for your effort.

Your modelling is very crisp and neat. I admire what you've achieved so far and look forward to more when you get back. (Hope the course goes well.)

Cheers,

[Kostucha]

Thank you very much for your comment! I must say, it is my pleasure to share with you all what I'm working on. As I head out the door here, I hope to have pictures up this time next week of some of the progress being made. Once these two wing roots are done, filled, sanded, and rescribed, onto other things. I'm sure that I'll be trying to tackle various parts of the cockpit, starting with the instrument panel - my most favoured piece to work on. After that, we'll see. But again, thanks everyone!

Mark.

[HOLMES]

WOW!! AMAZING work Matk...!!!!

I am really going to follow this....... {saved it in MY favorites }

I got a 1.32 of this model for a present from MY colleagues and so I am going to

use your thread and build as a guide...

HOLMES

[Kostucha]

Thank you very much! Please, feel free to use anything you find on this thread to help you out. If I wanted to keep all the little secrets to myself, I'd never post a thing.

Tonight I found a few good references as to what the early Luftwaffe style fuel tank caps look like, so I was beginning on planning those out. Then something of real interest came to light and I thought I would share it with everyone...

This is no longer going to be a B-2. In looking for reference material, I came across a gentleman who is currently restoring a Ju-87B-1. Him and I have been talking for some time now, and it was his suggestion - giving credit where credit is due - to make my model a mock-up if you will, of the B-1 he is restoring. This is going to turn into a very fun project indeed. Keeping some of the details to a minimum on this one, the Ju-87B-1 in question, Wk. No. 5136 of II St. G. 2, flown by Oberleutnant Dieter Pekrun, was shot down 12 May 1940. My intent is to now focus on modeling this kit to show this stuka as it would have looked the morning of the 12th. A lot of history here, and it is really a great project to be able to connect with someone halfway around the world and the two of us working together. My information on the Stuka acquired to date and his as well is assisting the other with two very different sized projects that in the end, are the same aircraft.

With this in mind, it allows me to focus on one simple end state goal and being able to tweak this kit into something very accurate as a representation of the real thing. The other interesting fun part is that I've always wanted to build a -24 Hurricane, and I think I've found my proverbial "straw" that just broke the camels back. 5136 was downed by Pilot/Off. Mike Stephens of Green Section, "B" flight, flying Hurricane L 1610 of 3rd Squadron, R.A.F.

I think it would be very interesting to have both these a/c in 1/24, modeled with the same fashion (of having various panels on one side of the a/c showing the inner workings), sitting side by side modeled as accurately as possible showing how they both would have appeared on the morning of May the 12th, 1940.

So, with this little bit of enthusiastic "push" on the project, tomorrow I sincerely hope to have a few more pictures of the wing root done. My plan is to have this section of the wing root finally finished, filled, scribed, ready to be painted first in overall silver, then the red oxide.

Thank you again everyone for your comments, your input, as always, is greatly appreciated.

Mark.

[geedubelyer]

Hi Mark,

Nice to see you back, I hope the course went well.

I think your plans for building the two rival aircraft are superb! What a brilliant idea with a great link to the past.

This should be just the inspiration you need to keep motivated.

I'm eager to see more of your big Stuka soon.

[Kostucha]

Hello all,

Wanted to just do something quickly other than the wing root - it's getting a bit tiresome. So, decided to make the instrument panel. Here's a quick picture of it so far. I've still yet to add the handles/levers, and some other minor details (like the rudder pedals on the back and other things that still need to be attached).

Here's where I'm at so far. I didn't trim the plastic around the outside of the panel, I wanted to leave it there to show how I get the "glass" look to the panel. This panel is almost completely stock from the box - just trimmed off some of the molded in handles/leavers. The clear insert was easy to paint effectively, but you could easily see the raised detail on it. So, I just do like on most panels, and sandwiched a piece of clear cellophane between the gauges and the panel face.

Mark.

[Kostucha]

Hello again. I really need a camera that does justice up close. None the less, unfortunately looking through things, I found some good accurate pictures of what the instrument panel of a Ju-87B-1 looks like, and I'm going to be making a new panel to match what the B-1's should have from Styrene and careful cutting. So, if anything, this is just a little preview of what the panel will closely resemble.

All in all, the changes from the B-2 to the B-1 aren't all that difficult to duplicate:

-No gun covers on the ends of the MG17's in the wings

-Engine is shorter by 1 actual inch (Jumo 211A's for the B-1's, and Jumo 211D's for the B-2's)

-Propeller blades are the narrower VLM? type of propeller as oppose to the paddle propellers later introduced.

-Cowel Flaps - specifically to Wk.No. 5136 are different. I'm trying to confirm if they were feild mod flaps, or the solid one-piece design.

-Different exhaust ports on the cowel (but as they'll be removed it's not a big concern at this point

-Wheels are slightly smaller. In finding how much smaller, I've decided there will be no noticable difference between tire sizes of the B-1 vs. the B-2

-No up armour packages (U2 through to U4) on the B-1

-Different Instrument Panel (as mentioned before)

-The radiator slung underneath the engine was also a little shorter and snug with the engine.

There are some saving graces about the B-1 being a later B-1 (determined by running Wk. No's), in that the gun sight was the same, as were the radio's and thankfully, VERY THANKFULLY, the fuel tanks in the wing roots were also the same as what's been installed already.

I would like to thank everyone out there for all their help and support, advice and pictures to help with this project. Without your help, I'd be in the dark on a number of things, so again, thank you!

I'm hoping though that someone may be able to point me in the right direction on this one. Is there any way at all, a book, a website, any information as such, that could shed light on matching Wk. No's, or Pilot Names, with what the fuselage markings would be? I'm just trying to figure out the last two letter codes and colour of the "dog" emblem on the fuselage for II St. G. 2 (it's a white band around the circle, I just can't get 100% confirmation on the inner colour (red/green/yellow)). If I can get that, and the last two letter codes for this aircraft, it would help this project, as well as the full 1/1 scale rebuild going on overseas.

None the less, thank you all again, and hopefully tonight I'll have some more finished products for you all.

Mark.

[Kostucha]

Work started out on planning how to build the new panel last night... just waiting for a confirmation from the gentelman overseas whether this indeed is the intended panel layout of 5136. If that's the case, then it's time to start cutting. All I can say now is I got a bit carried away with the drawing of how I'm going to do this - my word there's going to be a lot of little tiny pieces... perhaps I've gotten myself into a little bit of trouble with this one folks...

Soon as I get that e-mail, pictures will be going up. As well, pictures will go up tonight of the finished inner construction of the wing root. All that's left is scribing and rivets after the filler putty is applied and sanded down.

[Kostucha]

Hello all,

Here's a quick update. I finished up the framing on top of the fuel tank section of the wing root... finally...

Using this image from a great reference book - appropriately titled Junkers Ju 87 Stuka from Mushroom Model Publications (No. 6125). I must say, this book is certainly a great reference book. Though it doesn't have all the information, this one is instrumental in finding all the changes from the Ju-87B-1 to the B-2, or in my case, reverting it back a notch. Anywho, using this picture, I based all the work on top off of this (and a few other pictures, this one just depicts it very well):

So, with that, I went on to finish it all and here's two quick views:

As you can see the wing walking strip has been cut back as this section would need to be removed to get this section of panel off. What needs to be done now on the wing root is to "rivet" the exposed area, fill in the seams (as you can see they're pretty rough so far), rivet the new panel section that was put in underneath, and cover the wing root in the bare metal colour.

Tomorrow hopefully I get a response confirming the panel layout of 5136. Once that's good to go, then that'll be the very next step after the wing root, and then onto the cockpit working front to back.

But, back to the wing root. Let me know what you all think.

Mark.

[D_IcarUS_]

Glad to have you back!

Man, the instrument panel is quite a job! Just wonderful as all the work you have done so far. It will be a winner.

Regards.

[Kostucha]

Thank you very much! Looking at this one though, there are a number of things that I'm not happy with - I'll keep those points in mind when I make the second one.

[Kostucha]

Hello all,

So, big sigh of frustration, my order of RLM 02 still hasn't come in. So, I didn't want to waste my "self declared day-off"... decided to putter away at the Jumo 211. I knew what I had to do to make it a 211A rather than a D, and decided to see how much I could get done today.

The big thing for me, in all the reference pictures I had, the wires up to the spark plugs are molded far too thick. So I found the right looking gauge of solder and began making new parts. Here's a side by side of the LH and RH parts.

With them made, they were the first parts to go onto the newly assembled engine block. I dropped the ball on taking a picture before any work was done on the block to shave it down, but here it is, painted, with the new parts on them:

Carb assembly was next, and here there was a good part, but no plumbing at all. Going off of as many pictures as I could find, here's what I came out with before final painting and mounting:

All in all, the engine's a bit of a kit on it's own. A lot of great parts here. Tomorrow or Sunday I'll hopefully finish up the rest of the pipes and parts to go on. Anywho, here's what I've got so far, let me know what you think:

Mark.

[theseeker]

Mark,

Simply brilliant! Your attention to detail is outstanding.

Rocky

[Kostucha]

Rocky,

Thank you very much. All that's left on this Jumo is the piping from the lower rad going front and back (2 pieces), as well as some smaller piping going through. After that, there's a "bracket" that the lower cowel is mounted on to. It needs to be completely redone too. Once that's on, there's some reinforcing brackets going between that and the rad. What's a bonus for 5136 is the lack of cowel-flaps as far as my research can tell. From what I can decipher, it was a single piece rather than cowel flaps. The forward plate to be mounted up front, and then it's the staining/weathering/and general beating of the very, very dirty Jumo 211A.

I started planning out how the heck I'm going to be making the forward facing firewall. I'm going to mount the entire engine assembly to the firewall prior to installing it. All that requires is taking the engine mounts off of the fuselage halves and securly mounting them to a piece made behind the fire wall. There's far too much plumbing and wiring involved to try and work it in once it's all mounted to the completed aircraft. Saving this 1/24 a flight into the wall near the end of the project, I'll deal with this issue right now, then mount the completed assembly at the end.

[Kostucha]

Found some more information. From Mushroom Model Publications Junkers Ju 87 Stuka:

"During the B-1's production run, an improved exhaust manifold was introduced and machines produced to this specification were designated Ju-87B-1/UI. The machines received W.Nr. serials in continuous number blocks- those from the Dessau factory had numbers from about W.Nr. 0195 to 0500...and those from Breman had W.Nr. 5072 to 5599.

In around May-June, a revised B model was introduced to the Stuka production lines. Changes included an improved Jumo engine, the 211D..."

With that, it definitely narrows the information down that 5136 indeed had the fuller exhaust manifold rather than the ports through the cowel. Perfect, I've got those parts. I'm still curious though, whether or not there was a single piece radiator flap, multiple flaps installed in the field, or the factory set. I can't find information on what W.Nr.'s in the factory began receiving them, or when they were introduced.

From pictures and colour profiles, it becomes more confusing as there really seems to be a lack of consistency with regards to the issue of flaps. I thought at first that the modification would be specific to either time, or units, but no! It's pretty random when and where this modification was seen. The perfect example is the ever famous picture of the "diving" stuka's:

L1+HU (in the foreground) has them. L1+AU has the solid piece, yet both were serving Ju-87B-1's with 10./LG 1 at the same time.

Anyone have any insight into this one?

Edited August 22, 2009 by Kostucha

[Big Kev]

Mark, your engine wiring is awesome. This is some great work indeed.

Kev

[Kostucha]

Thanks Kev!

[Kostucha]

Remember what I wrote about the B-1 having a shallower and different radiator... right, So, I'm now in the works with starting up and finishing up the new radiator. Off to the model shop for more evergreen...