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Minibase SU-33 Madness


Uncarina

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First, Happy Birthday! My impression so far with this kit is that you can end up with a replica that has amazing detail. For example, raised and recessed rivets, components that stand proud where other manufacturers have them molded onto surfaces. At the same time, parts such as the intakes have raised plastic from the molds that have to be removed, and the fit while good isn’t the click fit of ZM, Meng (especially their Super Hornet), or Tamiya. I’m glad I purchased and started on the kit, but my priority build is my 1/32 Lancaster, so this won’t be completed anytime soon. I’m looking at each subassembly as a kit by itself.

 

Cheers,  Tom

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7 hours ago, Uncarina said:

First, Happy Birthday!

 That time of the year, yeah :)

Thanx!

7 hours ago, Uncarina said:

At the same time, parts such as the intakes have raised plastic from the molds that have to be removed, and the fit while good isn’t the click fit of ZM, Meng (especially their Super Hornet)

 My observations were mixed when I first got the kit. At some point I wondered should I keep it or not, but I decided on the former. There are some mistakes in the instructions and some of them are repeating what Trumpeter messed up with their Flanker. The latter one, when assembling the wings, you should switch the process described to avoid missalignment, but interestingly enough is not valid for all the Trumpi Flankers, only for the major part of them. It is a hit and miss.

 

With this MB Su-33 it seems that the case is the same, although it might be valid for all of the kits, not for some fraction of the production. In other words, missalignment can be avoided, but only if you decide to step aside from the building process described.

Also, to me it looks /and this is just an observation, not a critique/, that the PE mud guard /not the exact terminology/ of the nose wheel is a bit slipping on one side. Now if I am correct, this is most likely a result of the over-complication of the building process, which with so many parts inevitably leads to problems like that.

But I am reaching here, since on the pictures there is no clear view of the alignment.

There is some more stuff that I expect to appear with this kit /not with your particular build but in general/, like the canopy, the wing folding and such, but we hopefully will see that soon enough.

If you wonder why I am diggin' into this, is because I firmly believe that overcomplicated kits like this one brings problems that are avoided with simpler builds like Tamiya, Academy and such. That makes this thread even more interesting to me, because your approach is very serious and I believe it will give good points for the conclusion that I will come up with.

 

7 hours ago, Uncarina said:

Meng (especially their Super Hornet)

Is it really that good? I wonder how it compares to Hasegawa's kits in shape and size.

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I haven’t built the Trumpeter kits so cannot make the comparison, and am no expert that can make conclusions about mistakes other than the occasional misnumbering of the instructions.

 

So far my occasional alignment isues have stemmed from the vague location indicators for certain parts and oversized notches and holes that can result in parts not lining up as they should. I haven’t yet seen any warping of larger parts, so I’ll have to see how that plays out.

 

I can see how you might think that my  nose gear guard plates might be misaligned from my photos. However, I’m happy with how they turned out compared to the real thing and they look symmetrical and parallel, especially after spending over an hour and a half to ensure this. The rods on each end are inserted into holes on each plate, and while parallel they might appear tilted. This is due to the location of the holes on each plate, and it’s not something I’m concerned about.

 

With the Meng Super Hornet the fit is indeed that good. The panel lines appear to be slightly oversized but I’ve seen some excellent completed builds. I don’t have the Hasegawa kit but do have the Jake Melampy book and to me the model represents the actual aircraft. Maybe there are shape issues but I’m happy to build the kit out of the box. Thanks for watching my work.

 

Cheers,  Tom

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks for checking in. Right now I am on glorious holiday swimming with sea turtles and kayaking off the coast of Big Island Hawaii, then when I get home next week I’m off to go camping and fishing for several weeks in Baja California. I’m living my modeling life vicariously these days!

 

Cheers,  Tom

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  • 3 months later...

Thanks Michael. This build is definitely one that requires a lot of focus, and before I return to it I have a big Lancaster to finish. When I left off I was about to start filling the ejector pin marks in the intakes. However, there are some good builds to check out, including these:

 

 

 

Cheers,  Tom

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  • 2 weeks later...

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