Being bashed ! Italeri 1/72 Tupolev tu22 Blinder

[yak face]

Hi all, after the Backfire i couldnt wait to get another soviet biggie on the go ,so here is the 1/72 Italeri tupolev tu 22 Blinder . After reading a lot of reviews and doing a bit of research it appears this kit is another one that was tooled a while back when info on soviet stuff was scarce/classified. Consequently its a bit (!!!) inaccurate, mainly the fuselage is 1" too short , the engines are too far apart and too long, and the tailplanes are the wrong shape and too far forward. Now i could just build it OOB ,but knowing the errors are there would bug me to death! so its out with the tools!!! There is a resin correction kit available but i thought i'd give it a bash and see if i could do the alterations myself. The fuselage is , helpfully, split just at the front of the wing so i assembled the two halves then made a mould of the top and bottom halves by using plasticene in a cut in half aerosol lid. I then filled the plasticene mould with car body filler and ended up with a top and bottom of about the same section as the fuselage at this point . I joined these two with epoxy resin and when cured cut it into a 1" long plug.Thats as far as ive got , the next thing is to figure out how to join the 3 bits and get it looking seamless!! here are some pics cheers tony

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[papa 695]

Looks like some hard work ahead of you Tony but with your skills i'm sure you will beat it into submission

 

[Dave W]

A good start Tony.Looks like i will have to get in quick and buy up Johns green putty stock.Looks like you will be needing some (lots?) for this project!.

 

[yak face]

A good start Tony.Looks like i will have to get in quick and buy up Johns green putty stock.Looks like you will be needing some (lots?) for this project!.

No s**t dave !! Im going to need the industrial size drum!!LOL!! Only drawback is that i was hoping to do it in the natural metal soviet scheme ,so the finish has got to be pretty good or it will stand out like a sore thumb (which is probably what im going to get after all this sanding!!!) cheers tony

 

[yak face]

A bit more progress today, ive superglued the plug in and got the trowel out!!! I used humbrol filler as i think its not as porous as the squadron green stuff once it hardens, and will probably stand up to the coarse dry sanding thats coming next. cheers tony

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[papa 695]

I hope you dont get tennis elbow for christmas after all that sanding Tony

 

[yak face]

Cheers ian , its going to be a very repetitive process-- sand ,fill,sand,fill,sand,fill etc!!!!!

 

[Vaughan]

The modifications are coming along nicely Tony. I'm looking forward to seeing the end result. Keep the good work up.

Vaughan

 

[Dave W]

Its all good practise for if you one day decide to tackle a vacfofm Tony!.

 

[yak face]

Its funny you should say that dave! I was eyeing up a very cheap vac form Yak 17 on e-bay the other day, but i bottled it! Its not the filling and sanding or cutting out, its just the drama of either making or sourcing the detail bits like undercarriage legs etc. Ive also been tempted by some 1/32 VF's too , great subjects like meteor f8 , jaguar gr1 etc but again the details would be a pain , especially in the large scale as they would have to be spot on.

 

[colin m]

Cheers ian , its going to be a very repetitive process-- sand ,fill,sand,fill,sand,fill etc!!!!!

aaahhhhh Airfix Vulcan

 

[colin m]

Oh no, I've just checked, it's something Russian ! Well good luck old chap, this should see you through until Christmas, 2012.................

Colin M..

 

[yak face]

Its probably not quite as bad as the airfix vulcan colin! its just had a shedload of green filler pasted on it so things are going to get messy pretty soon!!!! cheers tony

 

[spanner570]

Yo Tony, now that's what I call butchering!

Great thread. Cracking stuff mate...

Ron

 

[yak face]

latest installment, the green stuff is plastered on and the elevators are marked out ready for cutting down to size. Ron , nice to see you back hope you had a nice break, cheers tony

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[yak face]

Deja Vu anyone? This is the fourth load of green stuff and probably wont be the last, but its getting there ,and i think ive got rid of the dip on the spine above the plug. Back to the sanding stick!! tony

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[yak face]

..

 

[yak face]

Finally! After Fill,sand, prime and repeat about 7 times , i reckon its smooth enough. Ive re-scribed the missing panel lines and hopefully it wont show when the aluminium paint goes on later . The next bit is just as bad- the engines . The kit has the engines way too far apart so the job in hand is to make them closer together by some sort of surgery , probably involving saws.drills, files and a cartload of filler again!!! tony

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[treyzx10r]

Tony thats some serious body work,looks like you tackled it though! Might need to buy the green stuff in bulk next time!

 

[papa 695]

Looks very good to me, but like you say the alclad will show any faults. So now its back to more surgery are you a massacist Tony ? ha ha