Willy_N

Cool build! I really like the old Monogram kits, many of them look very "right" built up

That is smooth!

Thanks guys:) Test fitting the new struts confirms that they seem to work out well. I wasn't able to completely duplicate the airfoil shape of the original parts, but I'm not sure how I could have done that and still retain some structural integrity without casting them or something. Painted and test fitted on the model, the look close enough. Test fitting also made me realize a previous blonde moment on my part, I had mistakenly re-drilled the rear mounting holes for the N-struts too low on the fuselage sides. Not a lot of fun to fix with each being approximately 1mm from a decal, but it turned out ok RL is keeping me quite busy these days, so I have only managed to paint the remaining small parts this week, and almost finishing them. Good thing I'm not in a hurry

This kit reminds me of some of the early Czech kits that way - high maintenance but eventually worth the effort! Edit: The Amodel IAR-80 I bult last year had no such issues at all, it was just really nice all around

Progress on the little flying kayak has been slow and frustrating, but it haven't crashed and burned yet.. As I mentioned in the acrylic paint test, I have been experiencing a lot of problems with some of my Vallejo paints, specifically some lighter shades. I ended up mixing a tan-tinted white colour, and mixing it 50/50 with floor polish. It worked out well, but I am constantly finding particles in the paint and I can't figure out where they come from. At least the floor polish added to the paint enabled me to polish out most of the blemishes, but the the hard to reach nooks and crannies are a long way from perfect. Ah well. I got the decals on without any major hitches, they are slightly on the thick side and stick like there's no tomorrow! I ended up wetting the surface of the model with water before application, adding more water if I needed to move the decal around. This called for some careful poking and prodding with a cotton stick to get water and air out from underneath the decals before I could hit them with some Micro Sol. The red crosses for the tail and fuselage seem to be a bit undersized compared to period photos, but they do look ok on the model. In two different reviews of this kit, reviews mentioned that the wheels were the wrong type, and should be spoked instead of solid. Also they had some issues re. the engine and propeller. Looking at the various photos I found on the great interwebs, I realized that there seems to have been a fair bit of variations regarding these things, I also found pictures showing what seemed to be a different rear canopy than the options included in the kit. I even found at least two different pictures of what I believe is the plane I'm modeling in different configurations. I decided to keep it simple and just follow the instructions. Which led me straight into my next problem. There are four wing struts that are supposed to be identical. In my sample, I was treated to four struts of different length. They don't seem to be broken or damaged, so I believe they are short shot. I made an attempt to scratch build new ones using styrene strip and copper wire. I think it worked out ok, but I won't know for sure until final assembly. Which might take a little while yet. Anyway, here is how it looks today:

Looks like you have the home stretch in sight now! Excellent work on a cool model

Thanks a lot! That did indeed explain a thing or two

Sorry for hijacking this excellent thread, but I have a side note and perhaps a plea for some hints. Upon my return to modeling, I realized that all enamels were long gone from the racks in my LHS, and thus arcrylics is the only way to go. Having no facilities for airbrushing, I have experimented with brushing on Vallejo Model Colour and Xtracrylics, I have learned that the Xtracrylix I have tried so far have been really very good, with excellent coverage and good consistency. Plus they level out nicely. They do dry very fast though, so a lot of care is needed to avoid accidental brush marks. The darker shades of Vallejo Model Colours have also proved very easy to use. Most of them doesn't require thinning, instead I constantly moisten the brush slightly in tap water while painting, a method I learned through painting watercolour paintings. (Turned out I had no talent at all for that!) This seems to work pretty well, and accidental brush marks can be smoothed out with a clean brush moistened in water if one is quick. In my experience, it doesn't adhere all that well to the surface though, turning any masking, sanding/polishing or even handling into nerve-wrecking tasks. I tried mixing the paint with floor polish, which seems to help, but not as well as I'd like (my reference is the enamels I used to use though). I read somewhere that Vallejo paints require a primer, so I bought a bottle of their surface primer in the Model Air-series. The paint adheres to the primer allright, but the primer doesn't seem to adhere to plastic. I have tried cleaning surfaces with just about anything that comes to mind, which is how I learned that my Antibac wet-wipes from the pharmacy are absolutely superb for stripping arcrylic paints! I still haven't found a sure-fire way of getting the paints to stick though. Any tips are greatly welcome! My other gripe with Vallejo Model Colour regards their lighter shades. In the bottles I have bought from my LHS, there seems to be at least some oddities when it comes to paint consistency - some are very thin while others are really thick. Thinking this was because I hadn't shaken the bottles sufficiently, I tried storing them upside-down for a while before shaking them well but I found the results to be pretty much the same. Am I doing something wrong, or have some of my paints gone bad?

Wow, that is really cool!

Wow, that looks very nice indeed! From your posts it strikes me that Eduard's 190 is a bit similar to the old Dragon kit? Or my memories of the old Dragon kit at least...

Very nice work! Amodel kits are quite rough by nature, but with work and patience they definetly turn into little gems

Wait, those two definitions aren't synonymous?

Wow, that looks fantastic! It is very rare to see any kind of build with such a personal history behind it

Reading this thread reminded me of an article comparing the then-new 9's from ICM, Hasegawa and Ocidental. It's still quite interesting reading http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/spitfirecomparisonba_1.htm

Here it is, not the best photo, but it should be understandable

Apart from some horrendous sink marks (which apparently was a real problem before ICM got their quality control up and running), I can't recall any real problems. I already knew from various reviews that the nose was a complicated affair, so my approach was planned from the start. I'll see if I can find a picture on my back-up disk

Nice save(s)! I remember building this kit when it first came out, agricultural fit calls for agricultural methods! I made several locating tabs on every single part of the nose plus various spreaders from sprue. It came out pretty well actually, even if it never got finished (That said, I found the model along with three unbuilt samples in my storage space when I visited my family over christmas - turns out it was already base coated and just needs the canopy and a few small bits done, so who knows I had mostly forgotten about it, but apparently, I had scratched a RNoAF PR IX conversion!)

Thank you Maru

A bit more progress - major subassemblies are assembled and given a thin basecoat to identify any bad seams, missed sinkmarks etc. I found a couple that I'll try to fix with primer paint. I had a hard time getting the winglets and tailplanes alligned, but I think they turned out pretty good in the end.

Progress on the Shavrov has been rather slow, but I have found the time to complete a few more sub assemblies, and to start painting the interior. I made a floor from scrap plastic, as there seems to have been at least something like it on the real thing. That also helped aligning the parts. The outer wings are done for now. I'll probably have to restore some details on them, but I'll give them a coat of paint first to see where I stand a bit more clearly. The wings center section is close to done, as are the winglets with the stabilizers. Although the parts for the latter fit quite well, the floats were a festival of small sink marks, so I am rather relieved to have them done! I'll have to make a new windscreen, as the one supplied in the kit lived up to my rather grim expectations and snapped in half during clean-up. I probably would have made one anyway, as the pour stubs extended into the windscreen itself, and would have been very difficult to remove properly without damage. I did find a suitable pilot figure. He was already posed and painted for a different project, so I had to do a bit of work on him, but he's coming along. I had to notch his legs to make them go under the instrument panel, but that should be pretty much invisible with everything assembled. I have only painted the primary uniform colours as of yet. I am sorry about his undignified pose though, it looks like he could use a magazine and some privacy

Great work Radders! And happy holidays and safe travels

That is a beautiful model of a lovely airplane! I am surprised to see just how rough the kit actually seems to be, but your solutions are amazing

This kit (as it is the only one in a manageable scale) is close to the top of my "this should have been on my shelf" list, so I'm looking forward to this! A beautiful machine from any angle

Thanks guys I found a couple of build articles on the interwebs for those interested: http://modelingmadness.com/review/preww2/russia/bakersh2.htm http://www.swannysmodels.com/Sh2.html - spending the evening looking at photos of flying kayaks

Thanks Peter! I know, it seemed like a good idea to get these more mundane tasks out of the way as soon as possible before starting with the more fiddly parts of the build