While you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, I have to admit I bought this kit becuase of it’s box art, which are the markings I went with. Something about that red nose. Here’s my 1/48 Eduard Yak-1b, kit #1117 Limited edition with color PE and masks. What can I say about the re-boxed Accurate Miniatures kit that hasn’t already been said? It’s a phenominal little kit.
The exhaust stacks fought me a bit and and my “five minutes here, five minutes there” approach dragged this thing on over a month, but today she’s done. I also ran into the first problem I’ve ever had with Polyscale’s flat clear, and wanted to warn the “faithful” out there who swear by this product, like me: Do NOT spray it on a humid day! A white, chalky material covered my paint job…I did what I could to salvage it with super fine grit sanding sticks, but after research I learned that it doesn’t perform well on humid days at high psi.
I’m also still having trouble locking the rear landing gear into place.
Finally I have to say that these were probably the best decals I’ve used to date. Very thin, and not forgiving if you need to move them after placement, but they virtually disappeared into the Future clear cote.
mucker, that is one sweet build!..and what a great color scheme! I remember building the AM one. Eduards decals really are top-notch. I’ve only built their biplanes, but the decals were always in register, thin, and really settled down well. What colors did you use? The reason I ask is because the underside and the lighter top color look a lot like the Polyscale colors (Russian underside blue & top-side green) that I purchased to paint my Russian Spit.
Also, what pressure did you spray the clear flat at? I’ve used higher pressures on low humidity days and wound up with the same chalky coating, so I reduced the pressure to about 15psi and it seemed to do the trick.
Mike, you have a good eye…I used the Polyscale top side green and underside blue. THe balck was Polyscale steem power black and just plain Tamiya red for the nose. But you really nailed the green and light blue!
I usually spray at 18-20 psi. I guess I’m just used to it…plus it cleans the AB out nice at higher pressure [:D]. At first I thought I used the wrong product…something like a Tamiya flat BASE, but it’s the regular Polyscale 4106. I may take your advice and go down to 15psi .
Very nice, Your Highness. What a stunning looking paint job. Especially like the underside. Weathered to perfection. Out of interest could the flaps have been modelled deployed?
I have this one in my stash also. It looks like you did her justice there mucker. Yes you are right high humidity is not the ideal condition for painting. You can trap moister in between your model and paint. Also you never want to spray in very cool tempatures either. The paint will not cure at the right speed if the tempature is not high enough. Just a head up for those who might have a workshop in the garage where it tends to be a little cooler in the winter months. Wish I had the time to start mine now but to many commitments like stupidly picking the Trumpeter 1/32 P-38 for the group build starting on the 15 ensures my schedule will be hard pressed to work on anything else.
mucker, the only difference on my Spit will be substituting a neutral grey color for the black (and of course the camo pattern itself will be different). I really like those Polyscale colors, and it was a real treat to see how they look when they’re applied properly.
Once again, that’s real fine work! Thanks for sharing! [tup]
I built the AM boxing of that kit and used the same scheme you did. Definately and eye catcher in the display case. Looks like you did a good job on the wing root intake. That area was a PITA for me.
Beautiful build Mucker [tup][tup] Any information on who the pilot was of this particular aircraft. I’m thinking it must have been a pretty confident pilot who would paint his nose red. (or one that liked to drink a lot and wanted his planes nose to match his own [:o)])
Haha! Now that you mention that, the airline sized vodka bottle promo that came with the kit seems to make sense…[:-^]
The pilot was Captain Pavel Maximovich Chuvilev. Unfortunately I could not find much information about him, but I was sold on the box art and just had to build his plane.
Nice Yak, Charles! We used to call that whitish appearance “blushing” when it happened applying dope to fabric wings. Like Mike said, humidity is the culprit. I’m not sure why reducing the air pressure helps, but if it works, it works. I have the Eduard Yak 3 dual combo kit and it has three schemes with the red nose, great markings. They don’t have the black in the camouflage, its all in greys with light blue unders.
Well done Mucker! I never thought of building a soviet plane (I always thought they were just ugly), but after seeing yours, I will have to buy and build one.
