Aero L-39 Albatros

[ross blackford]

, I've made a start on my project, the Eduard Aero L-39 Albatros which will be painted in one of the several third world schemes optional in the kit. The wings have been glued together and the port trailing edge is sanded to a more scale thickness. The plastic is quite soft and easy to sand. All sanding so far has been with a piece of old wet'n'dry. I'm a bit of a bower bird when it comes to chucking out wet'n'dry; I find it has it's uses even when pretty well worn out. I'll sand the other trailing edge and give the lkeading edges a light rub over tomorrow and post some pics of the progress. I think I'll try for the first time ever some pre-shading, post-shading and use of some lights washes and see how I go with these.

,

Ross.

[MiG Mongoose]

I also have this kitset and look forward to starting it. I have only had a look at the parts and they look very good and all of that PE is going to be a treat!!

Good luck picking what markings you will make it in, I'm going to make one in Ghanian markings, but still unsure of what to do with the 2nd kit!!

I look forward to seeing more progress.

[johnsan]

Take care around the instrument panels. The fit is a bit tricky. Otherwise, this kit is pretty easy to build.

[ross blackford]

,

I was assembling the seats last night and dropped one of the headboxes into the carpet monster, (or so I initially thought). I searched around for a little while and evenually found it sitting on top of a black power supply I have near the desk. I thought "Must make a note to self, be careful with the other one". Wouldn't you know it, about 10 minutes later I dropped the other one into the carpet monster, which as fate would have it is pretty much exactly the same colour as the plastic Eduard likes to mould their parts from. It will be a very careful movement of stuff away from that area and shaking of several items that could trap it and then a careful hands and knees search with a powerful LED torch. Hopefully I won't have to fabricate one from a laminate of sheet styrene.

Apart from that all is going well, the drop fanks are aseembled, The sink marks on the rear fuse above the exhaust are fill and the seams of the wingtip and drop tanks as well. I must say, the fit isn't as good as I thought it might be, but we'll get there. I have a couple of nights off now so should get some more progress in over these next few days or so.

;),

Ross.

[ross blackford]

:D, Some more progress last night,

The tanks are now sanded, the intakes attached and filled and a couple of areas on the wing leading edges have had a bit of filler added to fill in some small gaps. The cockpit has one seat sitting in place and I'm not too sure about the orientation of the other seat's headbox (darned headboxes). I think I may have got that wrong somehow so I'll have to look at some close up pics of that area.

I'll have some more tomorrow afternoon. The compressor face and turbine wheel are also in place. Those seats are a tight fit in the pit so I may have to sand the seat sides down a bit to get the PE detail that attaches to the sides of the seats to fit in.

,

Ross.

[Mike J. Idacavage]

Hi Ross! This is a great start for your build. I really like the L-39 Albatros and have 8 or so in my stash, mostly the Eduard kit. I had a go at the KP version a few years ago so I'll be following your trek through the Eduard build with a lot of interest!

Have fun modeling!

Mike

[ross blackford]

:lol:, I've made a bit more progress on the Albatros over the last couple of nights. The seats are now ready for painting and the PE parts to be attached to them. The intakes are sanded and the PE instrument panels are attached to the plastic kit parts ready to be installed in the panel shrouds. The PE side consoles are installed and the wall panels will be installed tomorrow night then I'll take some more pics. I've been a bit slack over the last couple of days in so far as work on the model is concerned, but one thing I did find was that the PE parts weren't nearly as hard to work with as I thought they would be. I was looking for some excuse to get out of using them, (any excuse would have done) but now I'm glad I decided to use them as I think they'll enhance the model a lot.

I've been working to clean up the yard so the concreter and his bobcat man could come this morning and excavate the site for my second double garage. The site is now waiting for the reo to be laid and the slab will be laid next Wednesday all being well. I've gotten an early night the last couple of nights (as I've been absolutely knackered by evening) and will be again tonight as I have several loads of rubbish to take to the tip tomorrow. In the middle of all this other activity however progress has been made. Pics tomorrow night.

,

Ross.

[Aussie_superbug]

She's looking good so far Ross, looking forward to seeing so more progress.

Brendon

[ross blackford]

,

A few more pics as promised last night. First the cockpit and instrument panels.

Apologies for the quality, the flash gives off too much light indoors. I'll have to mount the camera on the tripod in future. Now for some of the work done to the rest of the model.

And a couple of the larger build going on in the back yard. Excavation complete, just waiting for the fill to arrive, Bobcat in the background. This project has been consuming a fair bit of my spare time over the last few days.

Cheers,

Ross.

[ross blackford]

:D, Some more work on the L-39 tonight. The cockpit is painted along with the seatsand rudder pedals and I've completed the PE work on one of the seats. I'll have to make a seat pan handle for the other seat 'cause I pooched the PE one. Oh well. One thing though. Working with such tiny PE parts is a patience and character building exercise for sure, especially when they have to be attached and the CA allowed to dry and then bent around right angle corners as in the seat straps. I'll try to get around to taking some photos outside tomorrow if it stops raining long enough. It's rained on and off most of today and is still raining on and off now.

:),

Ross.

[spyromania]

hey Ross, nice job. i have a L-39 that i need to do but i'll watch your thread and see how it goes. nice job with the Bobcat my friend.... keep it rolling...

chris :thumbsup:

[ross blackford]

:), G'day Chris,

How's it going with you mate? I hope you've found a solution to the issues with the IAR-27. I'd really love to see this little gem finished. I have a real entusiasm for Golden Age a/c and it would be great to see your effort up there with the completed trainers. At the end of August each year there is a fly in at a wartime airfield in south eastern Queensland to which all sorts of a/c fly in for the weekend but mainly golden Age types. It's sponsored by the Queensland Vintage Aircraft Group and when I was there 2 years ago I took over 1300 pics.

I've got some more work done on the Albatros over the last few days, but haven't had the chance to take any pics yet. I'll try and do that tomorrow. I haven't been feeling the greatest this last fortnight, I've had 5 days off in the fortnight and for me to take a day off work I have to feel half dead. The bobcat work wasn't mine, that came with the slab. I bought a kit garage erected by the company I bought it from. All galvanized steel frame with colourbond steel walls with some bits left over that I'm going to use as the basis for shelving down one wall. Here are a few shots of the completed garage. I have yet to get the ramp at the front done but here we have 5 years from the date of planning approval to finish the complete project so I'm doing a bit at a time.

At the moment it's been raining for days so only the 4x4 is being used at the moment. As yet I don't have a driveway either so I don't want to get the red one bogged. And this is the main reason I bought the garage. When the ground dries out enough I'll be putting my old caravan in the garage to restore it.

,

Ross.

ps Keep going with IAR. Don't let a mere technicality put you off.

[spyromania]

daaang , you built a hangar there Ross. .... lol. you could fit a Cessna easily in there. and don't worry about the IAR-27 , it's going, i just worked on a new set of plans for it for the past week. just like you there's a whole lot going on around the house and with the business. but it's going. .. now where did i put that L-39? ...

chris

[ross blackford]

:D, A few more pics of the cockpit. A few more of the cockpit. Seats are detailed and fitted to the pit, instrument panels are detailed and almost ready for fitting. I just have to put a bit more paint on the bottomes of the fronts of the panels and add the rudder pedals. I have a little more detailing to do to the control columns, brake levers added to the tops in front of the stick grips.

,

Ross.