Airfix 1/24 Ju 87 Stuka

[nmayhew]

Jeezus! Where did I put my knitting needles?????

 

Crap, I'm just.................SPEECHLESS! Beautiful!!!!!!!

 

THOR, who needs a new hobby

 

 

 

i concur!

 

amazing...

[BlueMax]

I'm certainly looking forward to more of this build! I also have the old Airfix kit waiting in the wings to build.

 

Nice to see someone giving this big kit the "detail" attention it so richly deserves!

[LSP_Ray]

Absolutely outstanding work!!!

This will be a work of art when completed!

[bcauchi]

i don;t know how i managed to miss this build, this is exceptional work, simply amazing!! the scratchbuilding is fantastic and the detail is beathtaking.

[Martyn]

Outstanding work dude, more please more.

[blackbetty]

exceptional work, outstanding

[Hubert Boillot]

 

:bow:

 

Not being a great Luftwaffe fan, I had completely overlooked this thread. How wrong I was ! Absolutely stunning work ! I am hooked now !

 

Hubert.

[Kostucha]

Hello all,

 

This last course is finally done. Finished last Friday. Finally. Only one more to go. I've been kicking myself over the last little bit about having a few large scale kits on the go with no finished product to show. There's this Stuka, the 190, the Mossie waiting to be started, along with the Hurricane that's waiting as well right behind it. The list of kits I want to continue with keep growing - the VFS Thunderbolt, the VFS P-40 (for the challenge of it), Trumps Zero and fixing up the nose problem, the Spit of course... etc., etc., etc... but, with the big move coming up in less than 4 months across country, why risk the big ones? They're all in their boxes, aside from the 190 and the Stuka.

 

The Mossie, 190, and other kits were brought back this weekend to Shilo, and I've started to box up the Stuka. I want to get this one done, and finish it before I move. Nothing says I can't stick it in the truck with me when I move, and leave the rest of them in boxes, without risk of being damaged, or it they do get damaged, it's only a matter of replacing parts, and not redoing any work... military movers have a great reputation of damaging anything they touch... as I've seen with the move from my old place to the new house, even 4 blocks does a wonder on kits, as is whats happened to the Stuka.

 

But, I've got 3 months to complete less than 3 months of work. There's more than enough work to be done - and I'm still waiting on a clear parts tree from Airfix. Though that's not the only thing that needs to be done, a majority of the work has already been completed - thankfully. All that's left right now is to begin work on attaching the LH wing, fixing up all the broken parts, and finishing work on the fuselage joints, and rivets that need to be done. That's the main thing right now I suppose.

 

Resurecting ghosts from the work bench, as it were, and hopefully once this ones done, I can regain some piece of mind and be able to continue on with one kit at a time and not lose any focus. Here are pictures of what things are like after all the issues:

 

Starting off here is the LH wing. Broken off at the joint between it and the wing root:

 

 

 

 

And the large split running up the leading edge:

 

 

 

 

Moving onto the fuselage, some more problems. Here's a quick shot of the upper deck of the fuselage with a big ole crack in it:

 

 

 

 

Looking into the fuselage, all looks good aside from the missing parts:

 

 

 

 

The missing parts:

 

 

 

 

I'm going to try and use an extra canopy piece I had, clean it off, polish it up, and make my own masks to paint the internal and external framing on it, and rebuild the frame inside - or just make a new one altogether, as well as reinstall the wiring that broke off from the original:

 

 

 

 

The landing gear also took some damage - the hydrolic brake line broke off, as well as some of the spat mounting rings, though I only ended up finding one, as well as the ID/Info plate came off - I did manage to find that:

 

 

 

Luckily though, the engine remained undamaged:

 

 

 

 

I'm still going to stick to the same plan as before - getting everything done on the Stuka except for the firewall and forward. Once everything there is done, then and only then I'll continue with getting work done first on the firewall, the plumbing, and then doing the "engine mount swap" manouver. Last thing to go on will hopefully be the reworked propeller blades, and exposed prop hub.

 

Thanks for reading through, more updates hopefully this weekend.

 

Mark.

[LSP_Kevin]

Good to see you back Mark, and back in the saddle at that. Crying shame about the damage done to your magnificent Stuka, but I'm sure you'll recover from it beautifully. Looking forward to more!

 

Kev

[Kostucha]

Thanks Kev,

 

I'm hoping that it works out well with the canopy pieces that I used as masks for painting the primer - that they don't fog up on me. BUT, if it does work, than I'm not going to need to wait any longer for the Airfix replacements. The first thing I'm going to be doing, is cleaning up the joints between the outter wing and the wing root, drilling in some 'posts' from brass (a tube in the root, and a rod in the outer wing). The space between the two near the landing gear leg will need to be filled in with evergreen, and a hole scribed in without drilling through for the landing gear post (no need to mask it then when I'm painting).

 

The hope is that the method I'm thinking of will be able to give me enough space between the two main parts to use a combination of thick and thin superglue to join up the two pieces for a good strong joint without worry about cracking later on with the plastic tabs that the kit was engineered with - a real weak point - while at the same time, gluing the split in the outter wing together and fixing that part as well.

 

In a nutshell, once the wing is on, I'm laughing... easier said than done I suppose.

 

Thanks for reading, more updates soon!

 

Mark.

[JRutman]

Glad to see that you got the move behind you so I can look at this build again! It really illustrates the obvious,that you can add a whole boat load of detail on these 1/24 kits,no matter what their age. I am escpecially liking the detail added to the inside of the canopy as this area is overlooked by a lot of modelers in all scales.

J

[Max N]

This build is really inspirational, I know the final result is going to be something very special. I swear when I first looked at the photo of the damaged under-carriage leg I thought you had posted a reference shot of the real components - I did a total double-take when I realised it was part of the model! I'm really happy to see this build alive again :-)

I have been futzing around with the engine on my FW190, hope to have something to show soon.

[LSP_Paul]

Mark,

The last two kits Ive built were both "Re- Started" after a cross county move and I can relate.. I still find tiny bits of stuff from moving "almost done" models in the back of my Explorer to this day. Keep the faith and I know youll turn it back into the Stuka you imgined it would be.

All the best,

Paul

[Kostucha]

Glad to see that you got the move behind you so I can look at this build again! It really illustrates the obvious,that you can add a whole boat load of detail on these 1/24 kits,no matter what their age. I am escpecially liking the detail added to the inside of the canopy as this area is overlooked by a lot of modelers in all scales.

J

 

 

JR,

 

WOW! Thank you very much. It means a great deal to get words like that from you.

 

You hit the nail on the head with regards to the old kits. I love the old Airfix kits. I have a horrible tendency not to be able to build anything OOB, or leave anything stock. These Airfix kits fit the bill perfectly, in that they are good representations of the aircraft they're modeled after, yet, you're not breaking the bank either buying the kit, or wasting the detail the kit comes with when replacing things. They're a great place to start, this Stuka especially (along with their Hurricane) would build nicely OOB, but are a kit perfectly open for scratch building or added detail.

 

If I had the choice between the Trump Hurricane or the Airfix Hurri, I'd go Airfix in a heartbeat - and same with the Spits, the 109's... the 190 is a different story though.

 

Thank you again!

 

This build is really inspirational, I know the final result is going to be something very special. I swear when I first looked at the photo of the damaged under-carriage leg I thought you had posted a reference shot of the real components - I did a total double-take when I realised it was part of the model! I'm really happy to see this build alive again :-)

I have been futzing around with the engine on my FW190, hope to have something to show soon.

 

 

 

Thank you very much Max. That's a great compliment about the landing gear, knowing that it's come very close to looking like the real thing, that's the ultimate goal, and I'm glad it's achieved that look.

 

I can't wait to see your 190 engine - is it the inline or the BMW 801? If it's the 801, and you need some reference material or photo's, I'd be more than happy to share the stuff I've used in building up mine.

 

Mark,

The last two kits Ive built were both "Re- Started" after a cross county move and I can relate.. I still find tiny bits of stuff from moving "almost done" models in the back of my Explorer to this day. Keep the faith and I know youll turn it back into the Stuka you imgined it would be.

All the best,

Paul

 

 

Thank you Paul. I'm hoping that in about 12 weeks - when this next course is done, that I'll have the Stuka on a display case, ready to be moved with me, in a well protected box, in the truck out East, and far, FAR away from the hands of the moving company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The support on this site has been great! I'm really glad to be back at the Stuka. She's boxed up, ready for the drive to Winnipeg this weekend, and I went out and picked up a few more tools ready to get going.

 

I'm using vinyl tape to hopefully cut out the right shape for the masks to duplicate the panel lines inside the canopy pieces that I got with the Montex masks. In this scale, with so much glass, one really needs to make the framing outside AND inside these pieces. Aside from that, I'm thinking of how to set up the display base to get the Stuka to sit nice and secure on the base - a piece of glass inside of a wooden base/frame. Unfortunately I didn't think of this sooner and with rotating landing gear that's completed, there's no way to drill through the bottom. The display case though is something I'll worry about more down the road. Right now there's quite a bit to do to get to that point.

 

All in all though, I'm hoping to have the wing cleaned, setup, glued and drying by Sunday night - we'll see how it goes though. I'll also throw up some pictures of the setup I'll have in the room while on course - sure, priority lies with the course, but the floorspace in my room is going to building and finishing this Stuka.

 

Thanks again everyone!

 

Mark.

[junkers88a1]

 

awsome