On the Bench

and a venture into Photography

1) December 2008. With the final completion of a model-maker's bench (that I made myself) the model-maker's Study is complete after a 3 year hiatus. Back in 2006 I packed all my hobby equipment away with the birth of our baby. The kits went into the attic and the baby took the Hobby Room as a Nursery. Three years later and we have moved house, the baby has her own room and the Study returns! It took seven months, after we moved in, to get to this stage. A lot of hard work.

2) Work starts on three Accurate Miniatures 1/48th scale Il-2 Shturmoviks/Sturmovik/Stormovik. One is the Accurate Miniatures two seat Il-2M3 whilst the other two are the Accurate Miniatures single seaters. One of the Accurate Miniatures single seaters has skis. If you trip over to the Project Pages here, here and here then you can see what we are dealing with. First I started with the Accurate Miniatures Il-2M3 as the most complicated kit. It would be the "model" for the other two builds. The test case. Why? Because they would be crammed with a lot of resin and metal so mistakes might get made.

3) First I built up both the CMK resin cockpit and the model's own. This was because I needed the help of the kit cockpit to see how to position the CMK resin one. The CMK superdetail set is great but the modeller is left clueless as to how to position the cockpit inside the fuselage halves. Their instructions are just too vague.

4) I also used the CMK Il-2 weapons set that included the wing weapon bays. This is quite chunky resin and needed quite a lot of careful thinning down in order to fit inside the wing.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• You will need to make CMK's cockpit wall inserts "PUR 1" and "PUR 3" as thin as you can. As mentioned earlier, the fit is very tight. After all this work is done you can fit the delicate photoetch items dry assembling as you go along to ensure nothing gets snapped off in later assembly.

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.

10) Underside view at this stage.

11) At this stage I selected the subject for this build from the Aeromaster set. I dug through my references for photo's and found one in "War in the Air". However it mentioned that some thought this photo was not of an actual scheme and that the White Arrow (containing the word "Avenger") was added by a photo-retoucher. I put this to the online Soviet Warplanes forum at http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=705.0 and had some response that pointed me at some new photo's online. Although one did show the same photo without the markings it looked clear that this photo had been retouched to remove the markings. I then found a second photo of the same plane with markings intact so it did look as if this matter may have been settled for certain. The photo I show here is a well known and high quality propoganda photo that is a likely montage with the bottom of the photo (showing Berlin) added later.

12) These photo's show the different retouched versions side-by-side. I have marked the areas showing evidence of having been retouched in the lower set.

13) Two different photo's of the same plane strongly suggesting that the aircraft and its paint scheme were real.

October 2009 - work starts again with the assembly of the engine area and undercarriage bays. You can follow the Accurate Miniatures written instructions here. I had actually followed the guidance in the online article by Steven Budd but it turns out that his advice is identical to that on the AM instructions. However he was building the single-seater so checked to see if earlier releases of this kit had different advice. Thy don't. Maybe Mr Budd never read the instructions?! There is other online advice that says join the sides of the engine compartment to the sides of the fuselage first. This may give a better fit but you wil have more of a challenge fitting the air ducting section. See photo 17 below for the assembled engine section.

14) By early November 2009 I was working on the undercarriage main bays. Here you see the plug moulds for the main gear bay doors. They are slightly larger than the photo-etch insets shown alongside. I had a rummage in a kitchen drawer and found a small metal tea strainer with a loop handle. I used bulldog clips to attach small squares of the plasticard to this metal handle before heating the plastic over a burning candle. As soon as it started to melt I simply plunge it over the male-mould. The mould is simply the gear bay door that has been cut from the gondola. It is glued to a strut of sprue. The doors are already quite thin. When in contact with hot plastic they will also melt and bend. You obviously do not want this so you need to support it at the extremities and supply plenty of thermal mass to wick away the heat. I used plasticine and BluTak - whatever I have to hand. Plasticine is better.

15) Here we see the gondola, main gear legs and main wing centre section. Gear bays have now been fully boxed in. Small missing struts and some photo-etch has been added to the gear bay.

16) The main gear all wired up. I have also attached the hydraulic ram that is missing from the kit. To help hold this in place I actually super-glue it to the thin fuse wire representing the hydraulic piping. When firmly in place I can drop the legs into the gear bay and get everything positioned before securing the hydraulic ram to the gear leg with a drop of super-glue. Note in this photo the actuating yoke at the bottom of the other strut. This is simply a triangle of plastic cut from leftover bomb-bay doors left lying around the bench from earlier surgery. These gear legs are not finished as further pipework and cabling has to be added later.

Since photo 6 we are working with two very large and powerful photographer's lamps for these photo's. I have ones with large CFL bulbs so they don't get very hot. They can be positioned quite close to the subject & I have mine sitting on the bench top. This does produce a bright patch either side of the subject so they could do with being moved slightly further away. Apart from this the light is good as the lamps came with their own white-clothe diffusers that slip over the front of the lamp. The photo's are brighter and with better white-balance as the bulbs are daylight balanced.

The next photographic problem to solve is focus. It is difficult to get close enough to the subject without everything being out of focus. This can be a little offset by using apperture priority and setting a high F-stop. However, I chose to splash out on a macro-lens for my Olympus - a Zuiko 50mm. To counteract the 'halo's' I need a fill in flash. Having spent over £170 on the Macro lense I baulked at the cost of an Olympus Flash (near enough £200 - I am not made of money). So I found a much cheaper Metz 36 AF-4 Flashgun for £70. Then it was onto EBay to find a Flash Hot Shoe extension cable for the Olympus. I found a Chinese supplier of cheap rip-off Olympus extension cables. Olympus peddle their version for over £40 but mine cost £18. When this kit comes together I hope to seat the Flash Gun away from the camera firing upwards into a reflector to bounce in fill-in light.

18) The next set of pictures wee aken in mid January 2010. Now I have the new flash gun and the Macro Lense and the results are obvious. Good crisp close-up pictures. 18 shows the plug-moulding of the new undercarriage covers - this time for the second Il-2 under construction - the first of the single seaters. On the first Il-2M3 2 seater I originally only made up two male moulds in the belief that they were symetircal each side. But they were not so I constructed another two. This picture shows the plastic sheet after being plunged over the male mould. The undercarriage doors has been cut out.

19) Here are the undercarriage door moulds with the newly formed doors plunged down on top. The plastic is heated with a candle until it become pliable before it is plunged over the mould and allowed to cool.

20) Two new undercarriage legs complete with new struts and wiring. These two were simply copied from the original two done for the two seater.

21) Undercarriage legs old and new. Building fiddley parts like this becomes much easier after you have sweated blood making the original masters. I think the trick is to leave an adequate amount of time between build to relieve the boredom!

22) February 2010 - Work done on the centre section of the 2nd Il-2 (a single seater). This time I used the superior Eduard photoetch for the weapons bays. Note also that I have cut away the bottom of the radiator trough and replaced it with thin plasticard after fabricating the insides from more plasticard. The radiator trough sides were thinned down to match. It is much easier to do this after the trough bottom has been removed.

23) The undercarriage sponsons form the 2nd Il-2 after clean-up. Much superglue poured into the interiour over the seams added strength and covered over joints it would otherwise be difficult to remove. A motorised router really helped out here.

24) The finished undercarriage doors from the second machine. I made up two more male plug moulds for these after I realised that all four would be unique as they are handed left and right. I use one set for the first Il-2M3 but corrected the mistake on the second machine. (The third machine has skis and no doors.)

26) Comparison of the first and second machines. The upper fuselage side is from the single seater assembled second in sequence. Instead of resin it has plasticard faired in with putty on the fuselage wall interiours. This better resembles the actual photos of the armour plating in this area. It is totally smooth without the 'step' modelled by AM.

27) Similar view of the opposite cockpit wall showing the different layout. The machine built second (at the top) better resembles the photos whilst the Il-2M3 at the bottom was built up from the CMK resin parts that don't match any photo's I have.

28) Closeup of the second machine. This is the starboard cockpit wall interiour. Note that I took some parts off the CMK resin cockpit wall as is clear in this photo. Fuse wire provides all wiring. Note that this area of the fuselage has been thinned quite a bit to allow the CMK resin cockpit plug to fit better.

30) The finished cockpit from the ski version. This used mostly parts left-over from the Eduard resin set.

31) The Tarmac horse, sledge & oil barrel combination. A neat little resin kit that requires quite a bit of cleaning up but is a real gem. Perfect for that snowy diarama from the Great Patriotic War.

32) Those Russian/German horses must have been very small - or this horse should be a donkey!

34) As there is no third CMK resin cockpit plug, the final cockpit was created using the AM parts with Eduard phototetch. Extra wiring has been added to recreate items found on the CMK cockpits.

35) The final set of undercarriage legs differ slightly from the other two sets as these are for the skis.