Airfix 1:24 Ju87B - Airscale Saves the Day-A Great Kit is Waiting

[CraigH]

The newest 1:24 kit from Airfix is safely built and stored away for the winter SPITFIRE Mk.IXe so it's time to turn my attentions to one of the oldest Airfix 1:24 kits and the one that really set Airfix apart IMHO in the large scale kit market.

As a fresh faced (really, I was) 13 year old, I trailed one dark late November Saturday afternoon with my Nan to the local Sheffield toy megastore, Redgates

to buy my Christmas present, ready to be whisked away to storage ready for Christmas day.

It was a no brainer what I wanted and, if you knew the vastness of redgates and the range of the toys it stocked, you'd realise I was probably already a dedicated modeller even back then.

I'd progressed from building 20 piece models from Aurora of creatures from my other passion, horror films,

through balsa planes both rubber powered and Jetex (weren't THEY fun?. There are still trees growing in my local wood with bits of balsa Mig15 embedded in them) to smaller aircraft. But today there was only one beast I wanted. I'd seen it in the Airfix catalogue, paper then not virtual, and it was the 1:24 Junkers JU87B. 

Procured, stashed and unwrapped on Christmas day, the build was epic as was the size. It took me about 4 months of guddling around to get it finished and God was I proud of it.

I still have it now. It's the only one of my models I've ever kept, it's that special to me. No airbrush or internet then, it was built OOB and brush painted with Airfix enamels. 

It's had a couple of rebirths... and a death. I refreshed it in 2010 on my return to modelling after a 35 year hiatus, it was dropped onto a concrete floor in 2015 and patched up after that. I still love it

 

And now it's back. It's on pre-order naturally, but this time I hope to really do it justice with access to reference material I never had back then, paints from MRP, closer to the original colours and thin as gossamer to apply and obtain subtle variations I never could back then. Oh, and an airbrush to spray them with.

Most exciting though is that some of the parts that were limited in fine detail due to the technology of the time have been produced as an aftermarket kit by Peter at AIRSCALE. Now it's not cheap but it's huge. It arrived yesterday and there are beautiful resin 3D printed parts such as pilot's seat, mg15 rear machine gun, rudder pedals, a fantastic pilots panel and twin radios. Those horrid rubber tyres beloved of 70s kits will go, to be replaced with weighted front and rear ones...I could go on.

 

So, all that remains is to await the arrival of the kit and get building. Below are some pictures of Redgates in the 70s, some crummy pics of my original 1975 kit and the embellishments from Peter and MRP I can't wait to use.

 

I'll be starting for nostalgia's sake, on Christmas Day because this year it's my totally gorgeous and understanding wife who's buying the kit and locking it away til Christmas. Feel free to watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8 by CraigH
Title Change

[Shoggz]

[CraigH]

3 minutes ago, Shoggz said:

[Duncan Doenitz]

I hope this thread is of use, I'm going to do the Troppo version.

 

Any news on new parts in the kit ?

 

Airfix 1:24 Stuka - Page 2 - LSP Discussion - Large Scale Planes

 

[LSP_Ray]

30 minutes ago, Duncan Doenitz said:

Any news on new parts in the kit ?

 

 

I ordered parts, too, and I got a notice they have shipped so they should be available. (I ordered more than just the Stuka stuff, but Peter was suppose to wait till everything was ready to ship.)

[CraigH]

1 hour ago, Duncan Doenitz said:

I hope this thread is of use, I'm going to do the Troppo version.

 

Any news on new parts in the kit ?

 

Airfix 1:24 Stuka - Page 2 - LSP Discussion - Large Scale Planes

 

The kit itself is just the original kit from original moulds. I have my kit from Airscale and delivery was awesome. I ordered it at 4pm and it arrived at 11am the next day! The detail is amazing. The oxygen kit is just superb. I used Profimodellers attempt on an HE111 and it was awful. Worth every penny if you really want to bring a 70s kit to the 2020s

[Alain Gadbois]

What a great backstory to your next build!

The Ju 87 you kept saw a lot of service! None of builds I made as a kid or teen survives today, being lost to fiery crashes and firecracker explosions!

The Airscale set will be a fantastic improvement to an already great kit.

 

Alain

[CraigH]

Well, obviously, the kit's not here yet so, short of buying an old one at inflated prices from eBay (other sites to buy things to feed our addiction ARE available), I've had a play around with the seats from Peter at Airscale in his superb Pro range for the Ju87. 

I'm going to say no more but leave the kit v Airscale pictures to speak for themselves. The kit parts are from my 1970s original kit which I've added to over the following years explaining the seatbelts which weren't available back in 1975.

I think you'll agree the degree of detail Peter's got into his printing is stunning. 

[jep1210]

Cripes-a-mighty, that Airscale detail is fantastic. Love your back story too, got me thinking of all my all kits from when I was young that never got saved. All for the best, I usually slapped them together sans paint (hey, the plastic WAS molded in the "correct" color, right? ) in about an hour, mostly Monogram for me back then. Looking forward to seeing this build come together.

 

BTW, I've never heard of Jetex, back when I was building balsa kits in the mid/late 70s, we just had rubber band "engines". Maybe it was before my time or not available in the States(?). 

Edited November 21, 2023 by jep1210

[CraigH]

20 minutes ago, jep1210 said:

Cripes-a-mighty, that Airscale detail is fantastic. Love your back story too, got me thinking of all my all kits from when I was young that never got saved. All for the best, I usually slapped them together sans paint (hey, the plastic WAS molded in the "correct" color, right? ) in about an hour, mostly Monogram for me back then. Looking forward to seeing this build come together.

 

BTW, I've never heard of Jetex, back when I was building balsa kits in the mid/late 70s, we just had rubber band "engines". Maybe it was before my time or not available in the States(?). 

Still going apparently 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jetex

[CraigH]

So it's time for the real work to begin.
Cutting all the rubbish out, there's nothing new as we all suspected. It's made in India and the plastic is that hard stuff that can easily leave a dent it you get your cutters too close to the edge when removing from  the sprue so beware.
There are dents, missing mouldings and flash galore so fill your boots and, yes, I've already started taking the moulded wiring off

 

For a 30 odd...Hell! who am I trying to kid FORTY odd year old kit the detail is still quite sharp. Raised rivets at points and some of the cockpit detail is moulded on URGHH!

 

Before the real fun starts, I had an itch I had to scratch. While I was spending Christmas over or on the toilet courtesy of viral gastroenteritis, I had a thought about the rear MG17 gun. I'd finished it from the Airscale kit pre Christmas

 

but never checked if it went through the small hole in the rear glass port as it has the sight already moulded to it. I knew Peter wouldn't have boo booed...didn't I?
No he hadn't it fits fine. Tight but fine.

 

I always start either engine or cockpit and I make no excuses for cockpit this time just so I can get cracking on Peter's upgrades.
So first, I thought flap/trim assembly and throttle quadrant.

They're already moulded onto the existing sidewall part "52" and here it is in all its clunky glory with the replacement parts above it. 

 

My first thought was to carefully razor saw and scalpel off the existing parts, so, to that end, I scored the inside of the part to give me a guide for cutting on the face side of it. 

 

 

It's very tight and I'd hate to nick something I later rely on in court. I prefer a scalpel as it's more precise so we soon had the parts removed

 

 

but even the untrained eye can see they're much bigger than their replacements
 

 

Hey ho, I thought, I'll take off the whole backing and reline it with some card to provide a base to put the new parts on, but on looking at the connection on the left side of the flap/trim assembly, it's clear it's never fitting the union beside it.
Now reference material for the cockpit of the B1 is a bit scarse to say the least. The best I could find was for a D and it becomes obvious that the connection on the left side of the assembly is an electrical connection and, not only that, the whole load of gubbins to the left of it on the kit part is pure fantasy on Airfix's part (presumably down to them finding the same lack of photos 40 years ago as I'm doing now), with the exception of the Morse key, which I've saved.

Ah well, that makes it easy LOL

 

What have I done???

Stay tuned for the solution...when I find it!

Edited December 29, 2023 by CraigH

[John Stambaugh]

A brave soul for sure!

[CraigH]

Right, on with the Motley, as they say...but for the hell of me I don't know why they say it!
I cut a piece of 0.5mm card to fit into the hole I created. I let it into the piece instead of gluing it to the back. More work but I don't know how tight a fit it's going to be when the two fuselage halves come together and an extra 1mm ( the same will happen on the other side to accommodate the switch panel) might be disastrous.

Initial coat of paint and a quick fit of the pieces shows there's some clean up to do and a bit of card filling at the bottom but I'm happy with it at this stage.

 

I popped the Airscale parts on to see what they looked like and, with a bit of filling at the base of the flap assembly, they're looking nice

 

 

I also tried the two seats to see what needed to come out and, as you can see, the pilot's seat needs a little protrusion taking off and the gap card filling. This should be great once painted tomorrow.

 

The rear seat, I think I dodged a bullet TBH. The kit part looks like this and the kit seat sits into the hole in the middle of the raised assembly

 

Taking the raised section down to floor level would've left a huge hole to fill and sand and the rest so I measured up the dimensions if I just took the raised sloped top part of the assembly away. Exactly the same size as the base of the gunner's seat so it can sit on that nicely.

 

 

Looking better than the kit parts already hopefully

 

 

Also sprayed some of the protrusions a grey colour for contrast. Hard to say which shade they should be as pictures are scarse. I'm working from 1939 handbooks and manuals mostly. If anyone has any links to good pictures I'd be most grateful
 

As ever, thanks for looking.

[airscale]

wow, looks fabulous - it is really rewarding to see this come to life

 

I am so pleased you are taking it on and showing how to integrate the parts

 

bravo

 

Peter

[CraigH]

Aaargh!! First disaster today. I was dry brushing the throttle quadrant when it went ping out of my hand and onto the carpet. No worries, I could see it under the bench except, when I picked it up and looked, the handle for the throttle had broken off. Bloody resin is so brittle at times. I've fashioned a new handle with scrap PE with a metal large biro ball on the top and it looks ok but I'm still mighty annoyed.

 

By the way, don't get it wrong, as I did initially, and think the kit throttle is correct with two levers (throttle and pitch),it isn't. Peter is right yet again in that there is only the throttle control on that quadrant. What I think is the pitch control, (it translates from the 1939 manual as fuel saving device?) sits above it on the fuselage wall. Strange.

 

 

I looked at the rudder pedal assembly today. The kit parts are clunk personified.

 

 

 

Now I'm not going into the detail shown in the 1939 manual as most of it can't be seen, 

 

 

 

but I've done a bit of drilling and cutting and added a bit of round road to come up with this to take the beautifully detailed rudder pedals form Peter. With this, I can decide when everything's in situe whether I want to run the rudder cables. I think they run down the side of the fuselage though in conduit so probably not.