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Su-17M3 'Fitter-H'; Finished 07/12/2017


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Hi everyone! Here's my new project I wanna share with you, the Sukhoi Su-17M3.

 

But hold on, it's not the infamous Kitty Hawk Fitter and neither is the new HobbyBoss one. We're talking about a Modelsvit one in 1:72 scale. And from what I've seen so far, it is by far the best Fitter in this scale... and quite possibly in any.

 

You might have seen the K-36 seat already from Ken's beautiful M-17 build, but here it is again. Ejection seat consists of, believe it or not, 23 parts! What you see here is 22 parts as I left of the commendably thin ejection seat lever to add at the end. All in all a model inside a model I could say and the level of detail is just great. The only problem are instructions as they are not very clear with the location of some of the tinier parts.

 

su17wip-1.jpg

 

su17wip-2.jpg

 

Nicely molded exhaust turbine

su17wip-3.jpg

 

The exhaust pipe is of correct length and made out of 3 parts. It is a bit tricky to assemble, but for some time lost during the assembly, you get some really nice interior details and the dreadful seam lines that usually plague the exhaust halves, won't be seen here.

su17wip-4.jpg 

 

Cockpit and front wheel well details is awesome as well - larger companies should be learning from a small short-run company like Modelsvit.

su17wip-5.jpg

 

I've bypassed the instructions a bit here - instead of building the cockpit/front wheel well assembly first and then gluing everything into the fuselage halves, I found it easier to just glue the cockpit halves into each respective fuselage half and build on from there. And guess what, the fit is perfect!

su17wip-6.jpg

 

Just look at the back wall details. Much better than with KittyHawk kit in larger scale. You get two different instrument panels - one with flat surface if you choose decal and one with all the little details if you fancy painting all the little details. I guess I'll go with the later option and if I fail miserably, I still have a back up :)

su17wip-7.jpg

 

 

 

Edited by Sebastijan
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  • 2 weeks later...

Some more progress in between all the babysitting :D

 

su17wip-8.jpg

As I suspected adding a few colours and some weathering to the front wheel bay brought out all the details. You even get some decals for this area!

 

su17wip-9.jpg

Another view of the front wheel well.

 

su17wip-10.jpg

Combination of decals for the side panels and carefully painted details creates a very convincing cockpit right out of the box.

 

su17wip-11.jpg

I am really sorry the beautiful details of the back wall will be mostly hidden by the ejection seat.

 

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View of the left hand cockpit/wheel well. Modelsvit, unlike so many bigger producers, didn't forget to include throttle lever.

 

su17wip-13.jpg

23-piece K-36D ejection seat. I am really sorry that they are painted black with black leather and details get hidden away.

 

su17wip-14.jpg

Some drybrushing with Gray brought out details without exaggerating the effect.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Grazie mille, Giovanni!

 

I wouldn't be me, if I haven't complicated things beyond necessary. After I attached the nose ring, I went on to sand the little seam for the better looks. Not taking into account of how thin the plastic really is, I managed to sand in the bite on the upper side of the ring. Milliput Superfine to the rescue - it's not a perfect solution, but better than nothing :) Some in progress pics to be followed in a few days.

Edited by Sebastijan
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  • 3 weeks later...

thank you karl! Hope to see the photos when you do!

 

OK, long time since my last progress post - I was working on her but the pace was slow.

 

su17wip-15.jpg

Fuselage went together rather fine - I only had some problems on the join line in front of the cockpit. It is possible that was of my own doing though.

 

su17wip-16.jpg

Main wheel well sidewalls have two functions - apart from the obvious details and the depth of the well, they also serve as spacers for the swing wing.

 

su17wip-17.jpg

Wings themselves are made of two halves; they are a bit too thick, but easily sanded down to achieve a perfect fit.

 

su17wip-18.jpg

Unfortunately I experienced a little bit of setback during this build. When sanding the intake ring for a better transition to the fuselage, I accidentally sanded through the rather thin plastic and created a bite on the upper side. I somehow managed to fix this by using Milliput Superfine putty. Using metallic paint dry-brushed over the seams, reveals any seams that still might fixing.

 

su17wip-19.jpg

Wings completed without any hassle and dryfit to the fuselage shows a perfect fit!

 

su17wip-20.jpg

The main problem I had during the construction so far is the big wing fence near the wing pivot. It's made of one piece with an aperture to slide the whole wing assembly through. And while the fit is great in the frontal area, there was quite a nasty gap on both top and bottom side along the way towards the trailing edge.

 

su17wip-21.jpg

Windshield is up, instrument panel with sighting glass and gun camera installed.

 

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Finally the wings attached and it looks like a Fitter at last!

 

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A bunch of little details added to the airframe. All the little intakes on the sides of the fuselage were drilled out. If you are asking what's with the metallic paint - I drybrush it on to see the state of join lines and puttied areas.

Also hats off to Modelsvit to providing the painting masks for canopies (both inner and outer!) and some other details.

 

su17wip-24.jpg

Although I've only seen Azerbaijani Fitters equipped with drop tanks, I don't see any reason, why they wouldn't carry classic Soviet weapons - I'll be equipping it with two underwing drop tanks, two S-24 rockets and four FAB-500 M62 bombs.

 

su17wip-25.jpg

The only aftermarket item used on this bird will be a set of Master pitot tubes. Delicate little things that proved a bit challenging (diameters didn't match perfectly) and I still have to fix the longer one a bit, but they look really awesome and 3D printed vanes are so thin yet flexible and a little mishandling won't break them.

 

 

 

 

 

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Wow Sebastijan! You build fast and beautifully.

 

Sorry I read the article but don't understand which nationality this fitter is going to be...

 

And for the dent on air intake...you can try with Ca glue using a drop as a filler. Then you have to sand carefully taking in consideration it becomes harder than the plastic itself.

 

 

This kit is awesome. I hope they will produce a M4 since it's my favorite version.

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Thanks Giovanni!

 

it's actually a rather slow build... Little kid at home and unfavorable working schedule prevent more work to be done... But at least I've reached the priming and painting stage.

 

She's gonna be carrying Azerbaijani markings.

 

I am quite sure, Modelsvit will include M4 at some point in the future - not a lot of modification compared to the M3... I am also hoping for M2 version.

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On 11/6/2017 at 6:29 AM, ChernayaAkula said:

Azeri Fitter? Awesome! :worship: It is gonna be that splinter scheme, right?

 

That's correct! ;) Although I love Afghan theater Fitters, I'm gonna do this one in this special scheme... M and M4's are gonna be Afghani ones.

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On 11/8/2017 at 7:45 AM, karl h said:

very nice work!

some pics of my fitter here: http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=65641&st=0&p=859108

(you can see the pics if you have thje imbedded photobucket fix)

Oh very cool progress on the big Fitter! You don't see many of those built.

 

Here's some painting progress - or at least what I was able to do this week anyway ;)

 

su17wip-26-600x401.jpg

Nice coat of primer makes a whole bunch of difference to the overall looks. Some little touchups were needed but nothing serious.

 

su17wip-27-600x401.jpg

 

First top colour. I had some problems determining the right paint to use, as all the photos of this rare birds I found have really bad photo reproduction resulting in colours appearing different from one photo to another.

 

su17wip-28-600x401.jpg

 

 

su17wip-29-600x401.jpg

 

And first part of splinter camo pattern is applied. No major problems, apart from some slight overspray, but that will be easy to remedy.

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Thanks guys!

 

On 11/20/2017 at 8:18 AM, kwstasb said:

Great work on a beautiful plane and camo. I am planning on starting the same build any time now. Could you share the colors you used for the camo? 

 

I am using Mr.Paint acrylic lacquers and I went with what I have in my collection, which meant I had to do some mixing. I mixed the colours by feeling so I can't really give you the ratios, unfortunately.

 

Undersides - MRP-197 Su-27 Light Blue Grey
Top
Tan - a mix of MRP-167 Light Earth, lightened with MRP-214 Yellow Brown RAL8020

Brown - MRP-166 Chestnust Brown

Green - MRP-32 Green For Wheels, darkened with MRP-5 Basic Black

Grey - MRP-246 Light Arctic Grey FS36628

 

Hope this helps

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