My Lindberg JU-87 Stuka

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

More for my sanity the nostalgia, I could not resist the re-issue of the old Lindberg JU-87. As kid, I remembered how nicely it went together, and guess what???!!!

It still does!

This is a 1/48th scale Lindberg Stuka I just bought around Memorial Day and finished yesterday:

Nice simple straightforward build-everthing went together with little or no fuss.

My type of cockpit interior! Not all cluttered up with fiddley little details to mess up or hide when the fuselage is assembled.

The “flaperons” went on perfectly.

Now for the warpaint-as usual all done freehand by bristle brush, no masking whatsoever.

With crew members like these, who cares about buried interior stuff!

Then it began, I looked at the box art, instructions, and then the actual decals provided, and none of them added up-So I went to a really neat book I got for Luftwaffe squadrons of WWII for help and inspiration.

The result was I had to remove and re-install the wing bomb racks after the lower wing insignia decals.

To apply the yellow to the lower wings and cowling was simple-with acrylics all I had to do was apply a piece of Scotch tape to the area, and the green paint came off perfectly!

The cockpit framing was a 3:0 AM’er [|)]

The challenge was a yellow-tipped spinner with a black-green prop.

For this I put the prop nose down on a paint bottle lid, and slowly poured flat yellow paint into the lid until it reached the right point, then I blotted the tip with a paper towel for excess paint.

The repaired and installed bomb racks with the small bombs in place.

Finished aircraft with guns I made from a spare from a 50 cal Monogram kit.

The big bomb with trapeze gear

Close-up of squadron badge.

I think mine looks better then theirs!

The reference book for my markings I used is:

THE ESSENTIAL AIRCRAFT IDENTIFICATION GUIDE: LUFTWAFFE SQUADRONS 1939-45

Tom T [C):-)]

2

I love it! [tup] The brush painting is especially impressive! Stuka’s are the coolest airplanes. 'Bout a year ago I tackeled the Revell 1/48 offering. It was also excellent!

3

Looks really great. Those Lindberg kits can be a challenge. Nice paint job too.

4

Tom T,

Nice build, looks great, I think too that it looks better than the box.

One of my first kits as kid was a Ju-87 Stuka but the kit came with an electric motor that had to be built also, to spin the prop. I never could get the motor to work even with my uncles help. I can’t remember what company made the kit, but I’d like to find another one. This was back in the early 703, maybe even the late 60s.

THanks for posting Tom T. What’s next?

5

Very nice work. I built a couple as a kid, and bought one a few years ago, feeling the nostalgia. I haven’t got mine together yet. Looks like you filled in the hole for the stand. Is that the case? I think the stand is a neat part of this kit.

6

Nicely done! Have not built that kit, but built the Hasegawa offering years ago. Had a lot of fun with it too. [:)]

7

kielers, It was the 60’s version of the Lindberg kit.

8

This is a nice build. The old Lindberg kits were not that bad and they were fun to build.

9

[#ditto]

10

If the saying is true, that “You just shake the box and you got a Tamiya kit built”, for this one,“You just dump the box’s contents and it falls together”.

Notice in the pictures I used no green putty, nor did I have to especially sand, file or fill any surface on the entire kit.

It went together whithin a day, and I spent the rest of the week fiddling with the painting and marking details.

This is the opposite of a Czech A-12 Shirke kit I have on the “back-burner” wherein the "wunnerful resin bits-and-pieces"engine took me one week, as well as the "fantistic resin bits-and-pieces"cockpit another week, and with the lack of alignment pins or tabs, I have had to re-fit various parts multiple times to get them to look right. I am wondering of I should just loose the junky vacuum-formed canopies and call it quits![xx(]

Tom T [C):-)]

11

The main challenge about the Lindberg kits is that frankly a pilot figure is generally more difficult to detail paint then a typical detailed cockpit, and I believe that is where the main complaint comes from regarding any lack thereof.

I have to hold the figure using a special hobby base with clamps, and a magnifying visor to do 1/48th or smaller human figures, while using half a dozen colors, but not cockpits.

But frankly, I enjoy the results better.

Tom T[C):-)]

12

I am working on Hobby Craft Do-17Z and a Revell Dr.1 for the Flyboys Group build in that order.

Tom T [C):-)]

13

No, they eliminated the hole and the stand both.

This one I am going to suspend from my hobby room’s ceiling, so I really don’t mind.

Tom T [C):-)]

14

Well done Tom[tup] I have to ask, the one you built as a kid, did it have an explosive end[;)] as most of mine did.

15

Yea, it was the lack of details I was thinking of. Probably not a big deal with a Stuka where it has wheel pants and a prop. But with some of the jets, you can see inside the fuselage and the landing gear bay is just a shallow molded recess. I’m not big on PE or resin parts, but with something that obvious, I feel the need to fab up something to fix it.

16

No, we had a jealous cat that got into my bedroom and crashed as many of my display items as possible onto a concrete slab floor from a special set of shelves I had built, including a rare Athearn 4-6-2 steam locomotive in HO scale.

Actually, I recall building the kit twice.

That and the occasional earthquakes were hard on my collection back then.

Tom T [C):-)]