GB-46 1:48 Il-2m3 - WW2 Eastern Front / Twin Engine A/C, Transports and Gliders

[Crimea_River]

Thanks my friend. So not bare steel?

 

[Wurger]

I would say no bare steel there. The steel tone of the bomb can be becsuse of shots like the one .. but it seems to be a kind of a restored bomb for an exibition in a museum..or something like that.

But the shot reveals that the bomb was of a dark colour rather...

The pic source: Всё о Второй мировой — Исторический, научно-образовательный сайт о Второй мировой войне

And here not restored one, the remnants of the dark green colour still can be noticed.

The pic source: the net.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wojtek. I had already painted them steel but will redo in dark green, then chip to the steel.

 

[Wurger]

Sounds good.

 

[Crimea_River]

Bombs have been painted Tamiya Black Green XF-27, scratched through to the Alcad steel, and then glued into place:

The prop assembly was put together and painted separately but I had a beeyatch of a time installing it, so much so that it broke open the seam between the fuselage sides and the top cowling. My attempt to brush paint the "fix" doesn't make for a pretty solution so I will need to make a better repair of this area.

I toyed with the idea of leaving the gunner's canopy open but it I thought it looked weird. Some strategic use of CA glue allowed me to spring it a bit wider to make it fit properly in the closed position and it seems to have worked. The radio antenna mast and wires have also been added. I used nylon invisible mending thread with dabs of CA for the insulators. It was then painted a steel colour. The beginnings of the repair at the nose can also be seen in this pic.

 

[Wurger]

Nicely done, Andy !

 

[Airframes]

I agree.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks chaps.

 

[rochie]

Great job

 

[Crimea_River]

Cheers Karl.

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

The last items that are holding me up are the rocket rails. The kit supplies only an open style rail as shown here:

However, it appears that there was a faired-over version on my particular bird:

A better view of this type seems to show up on this example from the walk-around site I linked earlier:

I guess they are simple enough to make but it's just yet another hurdle.

 

[Wurger]

Yep... the rocket rails that come with the kit are the early ones. Usually there were four of them for each wing. Later Sturmoviks got the ones seen in the enlarged pic. In the case , there were two of them attached only for each wing.

The pic source: Il-2m3 of the 118 GShaP Latvia 24 October 1944 | World War Photos

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wojtek. As I suspected, though I was not aware the early ones were 4 on each wing. I will go ahead and try making 4 new faired rails. Any closeups of the longer rockets? The kit ones have fuse vanes on the front but I would not have thought those would be present on rockets.

 

[T Bolt]

Looking real nice Andy. Keep plugging away in it.

 

[Wurger]

I would say both the RS-82 (PC-82) and RS-132 (PC-132) had the fuse vanes...

 

[rochie]

Found this Andy.

 

[Wurger]

And here another shot....

 

[Crimea_River]

Excellent info guys. Thanks so much. Never saw rockets with vanes on them so learned somethng new.

 

[Crimea_River]

So first of all, the seam at the nose was fixed:

For the rails, I more or less eyeballed the length and shape from various pictures and profiles and cut 4 of them from 1mm styrene sheet.

With the 4 of them clamped together, I cut the notches with a file.

I then added the various fastener holes with a pin and then CA-glued a strip of very thin styrene centred along the bottom of each one. The strip was 1.8 mm wide and so overhangs the pod a bit on each side. The overhang was then pinched with a pair of flat needle nose pliers and then bent downwards. The one clamped in the tweezers below has been bent and the others are still flat.

Next, the areas on the underside where the rails are to be fastened were scraped to remove the paint....

...and then the rails were glued in place.

I actually forgot to taper the back ends of the rail fairings and so will do that once the glue is fully dry. I think these will work out nicely. Thanks for the input guys.