**** DONE: 1/48 Polikarpov I-16 Type 10 - Winter War / Eastern War WWII

Wurger · Aug 9, 2014

While I agree about the fuselage construction the one of wing is exactly conversely I'm afraid. The inner wing was of metal structure and had a metal skin of duraluminium sheets D1. Two main , pipe stringers were made of chrome steel HGSA. The airfoils made of duraluminium. The leading edge made of D1 durlaluminium sheets of 0.5mm thickness. The wing-fuselage "transition" was made of duraluminium plate D6. The outer parts of wing had two metal stringers made of HMA or HGSA metal pipes . These stringers were joined with duraluminium plate D6 and stiffened with a frame made of HMA steel pipes Airfoils were made of wire with wooden pieces . In order to keep the proper shape , the outer wings were partially covered with birch plywood (of 0.6 mm thickness ) up tp the first stringer and of 3mm at areas between stringers. The entire structure was covered with fabric. The stabilizers and elevators were of metal structure covered with birch plywood of 0.6mm at the leading edges ( stabilizers ) in order to keep the airfoil shape and skinned with fabric. The stabilizer and fin joints to the fuselage were molded with D6 dural sheets.

To sum up... pre-shading for the inner wing is correct. There were panel lines. But the outer parts of the wing had the smooth surface without any panel lines or inspection hatches visible. The molding of fuselage-wing and stabilizer joints made of metal plates attached to the wooden surfaces made a kind of "tappered step" but no gaps. But the preshading there can be done as well. The different matter are ribs covered with the canvas. Usually their top edges are exposed to the sunlight that makes them faded and much lighter than the rest of covering. Therefore it is illogical to make them darker while these should be lighter. It is also compatibile with painting rules. The closer to a viewer the lighter is. Of course it is my opinion only and I am not trying to minimise your great work here.

Lucky13 · Aug 9, 2014

Looking great John! :thumbright:

JKim · Aug 9, 2014

Thanks for the detailed insight Wurger! I see what you are saying. I accepted, rightly or wrongly, the panel lines shown on the kit and chose to highlight them without really knowing the specifics of real plane construction materials and methods. On such a small and simple aircraft such as the I-16, I made a conscious choice to highlight the few panel lines that were present, simply for effect. The preshading of the fabric covered control surfaces... yes, I can see the "correctness" of raised stringers being lighter but I chose to highlight in a simplified manner. To be technically correct, I should've preshaded the area between the stringers yes?

Wurger · Aug 9, 2014

Yes you should have. However most of pictures of I-16 shows them like being painted freshly. And it isn't possible to notice the difference in the tonality of the areas. Here is an example of a such painting made for Lysander wings I found via the net.

JKim · Aug 9, 2014

Point taken! One of the reasons I wanted to join a forum was to learn and I thank you for pointing some things that I hadn't considered.

Well, warts and all, I am chugging through the build and am nearing completion. I shot my model with some Alclad Gloss (the milky stuff) and afterwards, attached the exhaust stacks while the cowling was still unattached.

The cowling is a tight fit and I may just leave it unglued just in case something happens like one of the stacks falling off.

While glossing the bottom of the aircraft, I ran into a mini-disaster. Remember the Silly Putty that I had used to cover the landing gear wells? It had settled into the nooks and crannies and was a bit difficult to removed. If anyone has ever played with Silly Putty, you know that it stretches into fine hairs and during the removal process, those hairs landed all over the bottom of the model. I didn't think it was an issue since it's easy to remove using a larger piece of putty and simply dabbing it to remove any stray pieces. Well when I sprayed the Alclad Gloss on the bottom, it didn't like the residue from the Silly Putty and pooled away from any area that used to have putty on it. The result was a visible pattern of where those hairs had touched the model. Not knowing what to do, I dabbed any obvious excess gloss away from the model and simply let it sit overnight, knowing that gloss coats tend to settle and level as they dry. This morning, it didn't look as bad as it did last night and I sanded down the imperfections as much as I could with fine sandpaper. I think the next clear coat will render this a non-issue (fingers crossed!).

The preshading effects look a bit heavy-handed but this will be reduced when I apply my final clear coat.

Decaling is next and then I will have to tackle the landing gear!

JKim · Aug 9, 2014

Wurger said:
Yes you should have. However most of pictures of I-16 shows them like being painted freshly. And it isn't possible to notice the difference in the tonality of the areas. Here is an example of a such painting made for Lysander wings I found via the net.

Well, taking a close look at this example, I'm not sure this is technically correct either. The spars seem to be emphasized in the wrong way. If the spars represent the highest point and fabric is stretched between them with a natural sag, the lowest point would be halfway between the spars. But the way the shading was done, with the darkest area closest to the spars and the lightest halfway between the spars, it represents the configuration to be spars without any fabric between them. That's the effect that I see.

Wurger · Aug 9, 2014

Nice.

Wurger · Aug 9, 2014

JKim said:
Well, taking a close look at this example, I'm not sure this is technically correct either. The spars seem to be emphasized in the wrong way. If the spars represent the highest point and fabric is stretched between them with a natural sag, the lowest point would be halfway between the spars. But the way the shading was done, with the darkest area closest to the spars and the lightest halfway between the spars, it represents the configuration to be spars without any fabric between them. That's the effect that I see.

Most of such covered parts of planes has a narrow strips of canvas strengthened the rib areas or covered seams made because of sewing of the fabric covering to ribs. Depending on paints these can be seen because of fading ( after some of time ) or gathering of some dust/ dirt around strip edges. Also the fabric cavities can appear after intensive usage of planes. In the case the canvas between two ribs/ stringers always looks darker. It is because the dirt / dust always gathers at these cavities close to areas located higher. Additionally the depth of canvas cavities changes along the airfoils or stringers.

fubar57 · Aug 9, 2014

Looks good John. So no problems attaching the exhaust after, good news.

Geo

Wurger · Aug 9, 2014

Here examples of shading for I-16 that looks much better methinks. The fist one is similar to the one we talked about above and the second one made with using lighter colours at rib areas.

The source of pictures... Modelarstwo Plastikowe ? Zobacz w?tek - I-16 typ 10 Eduard 1:48

JKim · Aug 9, 2014

Those are great builds. Much better than I could achieve. I thought this was going to be fun but maybe I was mistaken about this place.

CommanderBounds · Aug 9, 2014

I understand you JKim. I feel the same way sometimes but I guess that it's good to be able to see those and try to work toward being able to build like that. I already think you build well enough personally but I guess it's kinda normal to look down on your build when you see someone elses build that you find to be better. Me being 14 it's kinda hard not to do that!

Crimea_River · Aug 10, 2014

JKim said:
Those are great builds. Much better than I could achieve. I thought this was going to be fun but maybe I was mistaken about this place.

Don't take it the wrong way John. We're glad you're here and participating. From what I've seen of your builds so far, I think you do some great work so don't sell yourself short.

JKim · Aug 10, 2014

Okay... <deep breath> I'll continue with my build and try not to take things too personal. I don't think it's in the spirit of these group builds to tear down other people's work and even go as far as posting pictures of other people's work and saying "hey here's one that's much better than yours" but hey, I'm new here... what do I know?

I just noticed. This is the wrong prop! The kit comes with two and I had snipped off the correct one early in the build but forgot about it and painted this one. Hate doing things over but I'll get the correct propeller painted and swap it out.

Decals have been applied. Very few markings on this Russian plane. I guess there's just not enough room to put anymore. :lol:

Taking a look at the landing gear and trying to figure out the best way to approach this. The gear struts are very thin and delicate and made even thinner by removing the persistent molding ridges present. I've decided to glue the two parts of the main gear doors together first.

Although delicate, the fit of the main struts is good. Once attached using regular modeling glue, I reinforced the attachment points using dabs of Tamiya Extra Thin liquid glue. Hopefully it holds. I'm planning on using stretched sprue to represent the wire cables used to manually retract the gear. I messed up on one and will have to tidy up and redrill the tiny hole in the landing gear bay.

Wurger · Aug 10, 2014

I agree with Andy's post above. The main goal of the modelling section isn't to make little of sosmebody's work but show other ways useful for making models. There are guys who joined us almost without any skills at modelling. But each build made them better and better. Also everybody can achieve a such effect because it isn't the matter of our hands but minds. So .. head up and work, work ... :thumbright: