1/48 Hobby Boss Su-30MK2 Venezuela AF

[ya-gabor]

13 hours ago, Janissary said:

So, like the Su-27, the FOD mesh would be laid flat (retracted) on the lower intake trunking when in flight, correct?

 

Yes. On a built kit you will not see much of it. I have detailed my Su-27 with a lot of scratch and in the finished model almost Zero is visible of it. But I know it is there! 

 

Best regards

Gabor

[Janissary]

A small update. A few extra holes help with gluing the intake upper plate:

 

The intake trunking is not glued yet, but the fit so far is looking really good, very pleasantly surprised.

 

I applied the glue through the extra holes seen here:

 

The fod mesh has been a hassle. I need to lay them down flat in the intake trunking. The backside of the kit parts (shown below) are too plain and simple with no texture. They are also too wide to lay down in the intake. So, I modified them quite a bit by sanding down *all* six surfaces of these rectangular parts. I laid them in the intakes with the textured pattern facing up. This is a deviation from the real thing, but it was necessary to have this texture be visible when looking down the intake trunking (no pics yet):

 

 

Now, enhancing all the rivet and panel lines. It takes a lot of time and it can be very straining on the fingers. Recently, I switched to this orange tool for deepening the rivets. Much less straining on the fingers. But the hundreds if not thousands of these rivets has started to strain my forearm. These look exaggerated but they will be sanded down with MicroMesh 1500 to achieve a more subtle look. More pictures to come once part cleaning is all done.

 

[kike]

I know how tedious riveting can be! but at the end it pays off and that stab is already looking awesome!!!

[Wolfgun33]

Nice work on the riveting. Looking forward to seeing how you do the acrylic rod. I have some that I wanted to use for a KC-135/C-17 dio idea but not sure how to go about it.

[foxmulder_ms]

I like your studio man :)

 

 

[Janissary]

Thank you all, I appreciate it. More scribing:

 

I have been curious to see how things look up close. Here are a few pics. The setup:

 

Below is the tip of the stainless steel sewing pin I use for scribing. I kept pieces of scribed styrene just to see how it looks:

 

 

 

Here is the body of the pin for comparison:

 

Below is the original surface (left) and scratches coming from Micromesh 1500 (right):

 

[Janissary]

Here is the corner of an oval access panel that has been scribed and the rivets deepened, but not cleaned yet. You also see signs of slippage of the scriber at the top left corner:

 

A close up of one of the rivets:

 

Original (unscribed) lines:

 

Scribed line (uncleaned) against original rivets and signs of Micromesh 1500.

 

[Wolfgun33]

Wow. That's awesome to see.

[kike]

Great pictures Jani!!!

[Peterpools]

Most impressive rivet work for sure and the close ups - a first for me.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Janissary]

Something is wrong with the forums on my side. Can't post pics, can't get onto arc on my mac, now editing my test post on the cell. See if this works. 

Edited October 18, 2017 by Janissary

[Janissary]

Is there a num of pic limit on this new site? I was trying to post a reply with 7 or so linked pics but got an error page. A few trials later seem to be kickedout. 

[tomdelis]

wow, i am impressed. Very informative post there. 

and also learned that its not just me who have slipped lines when rescribing

 

can't wait for more pics 

[Janissary]

Thank you, I will try to post a few more pics but hopefully it will go through this time. 

 

I've been pushing through this but have to stop and think many times. Here is a small update. 
I removed the mould seams, polished,  and glued together the windshield and the canopy using superglue. I first did this on futured parts, but the grip was almost non-existent so removed the future and then joined them:

Then, a future dip. It excites me:

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by Janissary

[Janissary]

Epoxy putty gives infinite time to make adjustments to the front LG door on the outside visible side. Once set, applied super glue and then sprinkled baby powder to the remaining seams:

 

 

I felt the need to remove all the main LG bays because I needed space/access for adjusting the doors here as well. It starts with little holes:

Then a lot of sawing, scribing, dremel etc...

 

 

Attached the bay doors to one another, rescribed the border between them and added strengthening support to the back:

 

This is roughly how it will come together, at least that's the hope. You can see how much work it will take. These parts were not designed for an in-flight config: 

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by Janissary

[Janissary]

Still working on the intake trunks. This is what I meant earlier with having the patterned side of the fod screens facing up: 

 

I had attached the little winglets/canards on the intake trunking (not shown) that are seen on Chinese and Indian versions. But just realized that the Venezuelan type does not have them so had to sand them down and fill the holes with bondo. Also, the rescribing has been very tedious on the parts. I decided not to replicate the series of rivets that are so visible on the Su-27 intakes. The faint red putty is where all the scribing mistakes are filled in:

 

A few steps toward the in-flight pose. 5/8" acrylic rod and slightly wider brass tubing:

 

 

 

[kike]

You're doing a great job Jani! even if the kit looks a bit better than the Academy you're giving it the touch!!

 

I don't know how far are you from painting the cockpit and pilots but if it's still time I'd like to post a couple of pics for reference in case you haven't seen them, I'm sure you know the color but pics might help!

 

Pilots

 

 

 

Cockpit

 

 

 

 

 

I had to mix the paint for the cokpit cause I didn't find an exact reference The guy who sent me these pics told me mine was pretty close, I got mine mixing Humbrol H48 with some drops of Russian topside blue and got here

 

 

Don't mean to hijack your thread but I lost a bunch of time looking for that color!

 

Hope that helps

 

 

 

 

[Janissary]

Thank you Kike. Beautiful pictures as usual. Indeed I needed good pics of the cockpit and pilots for colors and details, so this will be very useful. In an effort to test my self-control abilities, haven't painted a single part yet :) I am trying to get through all the boring stuff first and then enjoy the kit once painting starts! 

[kike]

[Peterpools]

Brilliant work. 

Thoroughly enjoying the thread, information and conversation.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Janissary]

Thank you Kike, Peter. Getting some more work done. Painted the insides of the exhausts with various Tamiya and Alcad paints. It won't be visible at all though:

 

Cut the brass tubing to size using a tube cutter. Creates very clean cuts:

 

Added tape to the end that sits inside the exhausts to get a press fit, hence natural centering. Added blobs of milliput to the other end on the kit side and pressed the tubing onto the putty:

 

For the most part, it will be the putty that sits on the inside of the tubing as seen below that will hold the tubing in place. Once the tubing was in place, I further pressed the putty against the kit wall and the inner circumference of the tubing using the acrylic rod to ensure there are no loose edges:

 

I painted the inner sides of the intake trunking using various metalizers and clear blue, orange, red, and applied a wash. I also added discoloration and grime, and blended eveything with dry pastels rubbed in with a cotton rag:

 

Some of what I have already painted will get over painted with the camo colors once the trunking is assembled. 

[KursadA]

Good progress, "Jani"! ;-)

[Janissary]

Thank you KursadA :) Nicknames aside, I've always known and thought that it's remarkably easy to figure me out through the pics I post, especially because I don't use photobucket! Still, I prefer "not to mingle work with love" as our compats like to say it.... :) 

[kike]

Great!! finally getting some paint!!!

 

These pics are for you to get a glimpse of how are they painted in case you were wondering!

 

 

 

 

 

Credits to the authors and posted here just for illustration purposes!

 

Looking forward for the next update!!

Edited November 2, 2017 by kike

[Whiskey]

Still amazes me on how massive these fighters are. Leave it to the Russians lol.