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5) Here we are
experimenting with the positioning of the CMK resin cockpit and CMK
resin weapon bays. To cut a long story short - you will struggle to
use both as they leave very little room for the fuselage sides to
slide down between the resin items. Note the change in coloured
background for this shot. I will be developing my model photography
techniques during this build. I have a great Olympus E-410 DSLR but
will be buying some lights and a fill-in flash to improve the
photo's of this build. 6)
With the new photography lights setup the quality of the photo's
come on in leaps and bounds. Still not perfect but I am sure some
experiemntation with positioning the lights, and maybe a fill-in
flash, might polish the result. This photo shows the left cockpit
side after complete assembly. Of note here is the internal ribbing
and wiring that had to be added. Although the Il-2 didn't change a
lot internally through the war the two seaters preserved in museums
do show a few differences arising from their preservation. Many
pictures are contradictory so it was sometimes better to look at the
wartime photo's if you have them. Note here the difference between
left and right hand sides where I have hacked away at the bottom of
the wing root segment to get the fuselage side to fit between the
resin cockpit and weapons bays. This produces a distrinct downward
pointing "L" shape sticking out to the front. The bottom of the "L"
is required to align the fuselage to the wing underside.
7) Similar view of the other side.
There is a lot more detail here with my own added extras. The CMK
set here is most infuriating as it matches no photo I have ever
found. I know that in Ricardo Rodriguez's build (Airmodeller - issue
21 - Dec '08) he actually decided to not use these resin sections,
choosing instead to cut out the useful bits and scratch build the
rest. This is the best approach and I wil use this on the
single-seaters. Cut the useful parts out of the CMK resin and
combine with the Eduard parts with a bit of scratch building.
8) The rear gun represented its own
challenges. The Accurate Miniatures version is actually quite good
but the CMK resin item is modelled after the museum versions from
the late/post war. These all appear to be different as they have a
third (shorter) 'barrel' on top and no cocking arm. I guess this was
a pneumatic cocking mechanism that was seldom seen during the war.
It can be deleted from the CMK item with a sharp knife. The second
problem is that the CMK resin gun seems a little short and its photo
etch trigger guard does not resemble the real thing at all. I
elected to remove the handle section from the AM plastic part and
grafted that on instead. I removed the gun barrel itself and drilled
into the resin with a 0.8mm drill bit from the front. This allowed
me to install a brass tube that look about right in width and length
(ie, longer than the resin barrel). Next I added some prominent
mounting detail, obvious in all photo's, to the right-hand side of
the gun, plus the cocking handle on top.
Build Notes: I am combining the CMK resin Interior Set (No
4004), the CMK resin Armament set (No 4015) and the Eduard Il-2
photoetch set (48 255). As you try to combine these you find
that you have to quickly jump to AM's Step 4 "Lower Wing Center
Section" on the Accurate Miniatures Instruction sheet. This is
because the cockpit bath rests on top of this floor hence you need
to complete this assembly to position the resin cockpit. When this
is done then you can position all the other resin and photoetch items.
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Contrary to
the CMK instructions you do need to fit the Accurate Mniatures item numbered 24 "oil
cooler duct top". I fitted the Eduard photoetch items 63, 64 and 43
to the kit part 24 as they are a good reproduction of this area.
However I did not use Eduard's part 65 as it is too short and
narrow. I replaced it with plastic card. You will need to thin down
the radiator bath on AM's part number 22. I also discarded the CMK
resin item "PUR 2" as this bares no relationship to the radiator
tunnel on an Il-2. I cut the holes for the weapons bay in the lower
wing and thinned the plastic in this area. However, this proved
unnecessary as CMK actually made the resin weapons bays to fit
inside un-thinned surfaces. I realised this too late. I had to thin
down the sides of the resin cockpit plug, the weapons bay walls, the
fuselage sides and the CMK cockpit side panel inserts all to get a
reasonable cockpit fit. It is all hard work and a very tight fit.
You are probably better off using the Eduard Photoetch weapons bay
rather than the CMK resin one.
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The rest of the cockpit can now be
assembled as per CMK's instructions. Note that you will have to cut
off the bottle attached to the side of the tank between front and
rear cabins otherwise this middle section will not fit between the
fuselage sides. CMK's part "PUR 6" the rear bulkhead is also a very
tight fit so measure twice and secure with BluTak before committing
the superglue. Thin down the Accurate Mniatures bulkhead part 62 to get a scale
appearance. You will need to fill the upper of the two push rod
slots on CMK's part "PUR 5" as it is too high. Cut a similar slot
2mm further down. CMK recommends fitting the Accurate Miniatures push rod part number
84 however this is hopelessly over scale. I replaced it with
stretched sprue and actually glued it to the fuselage wall from the
rear so it threaded through the holes supplied in "PUR 6", 62 and
"PUR 5". I used a cut down yoke from the Accurate
Mniatures part 84 and superglued
this to "PUR 4". With careful dry fitting the push rod will meet the
end of the yoke and can be joined up after painting and final
assembly of the cockpit. The "push rod guard" Accurate
Mniatures part number 112 can
then be fitted. Quite how the model maker is suppose the slide the
push rod through its guard using either AM's or CMK's construction
sequence is not clear. The likelihood is that the modeller will have
snapped off the push rod in the attempt.
One of the references I used was Ricardo Rodriguez's build of the
Accurate Miniatures 1/48th Il-2M Type 3 as featured on pages 16 thru
26 of Airmodeller (issue 21 December 2008). I was interesting to
compare his work to mine because he appears to have assembled and
painted the CMK Cockpit without dry fitting it to the Accurate
Miniatures fuselage
sides. It remains unclear how he then assembled it as he wasn't
saying! Although not mentioned in his text it is clear that he
filled the push-rod slot in the CMK resin part "PUR 5" to reposition
the slot further down. This does suggest that he had performed some
of the exercise I completed. He may have found some other way of
forcing "PUR 5" in with that small bottle attached. |