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

le_steph40 · Oct 8, 2020

Donivanp said:
So very nice work Andy, I do like the look of the exhaust.

I second that ! :thumbleft:

T Bolt · Oct 8, 2020

The exhausts look great Andy

Gnomey · Oct 8, 2020

Lovely work so far Andy!

fubar57 · Oct 8, 2020

Agree about the exhausts

Crimea_River · Oct 9, 2020

Thanks guys.

Crimea_River · Oct 10, 2020

I was feeling a bit under the weather today so didn't go down to Nanton for my usual Saturday Mosquito work session. Instead, I put a few hours in on my Il-2.

The gunner's "seat" is nothing but a fabric sling. The one supplied with the kit broke when I tried to install it so I had been putting off making my own from scratch til now. I simply made one out of a few layers of Tamiya tape and added the buckles and hangers with lead wire. Below shows the sling in place before applying paint.

The gin was painted up and set in place. The wind screen is also now in place awaiting a bit of touch up paint. Note also the start of some chipping using a silver coloured pencil.

With the extra black paint for the gun still in the airbrush cup, I also painted the prop seen below in the background and also applied the exhaust stains. A study of period photos helped me with the correct pattern.

The landing gear was next to go in. This is a very finicky affair with no real solid fitting points so I applied a bit of glue for now and will follow up with some CA once this has all set. Note the added hydraulic lines for the locking pin jack. The retraction jacks were omitted by the kit manufacturer and I had been intending to scratch build a set. I may still do so but they will be a real bear to get in as there was no way to assemble the whole gear mechanism beforehand.

That's all for now. Talk to you later.

Wurger · Oct 11, 2020

Wayne Little · Oct 11, 2020

Looks pretty damn good Any, colours look very similar to my Pe-2 from a few builds ago.....

T Bolt · Oct 11, 2020

Looks real nice Andy

Crimea_River · Oct 11, 2020

Thanks all.

Gnomey · Oct 14, 2020

Looks great so far Andy!

SaparotRob · Oct 15, 2020

That's great work, really. When I built model airplanes they came out looking like airplane shaped lumps of plastic. The stuff you guys build are so "real".

Crimea_River · Oct 16, 2020

Thanks guys.

I mentioned the absence of the undercarriage retraction jacks from the kit a couple of times and so I bit the bullet and decided to proceed with making my own. They are quite complex in that the jacks also have a secondary jack and spring to control the up-locks. Here's a shot of a museum specimen showing the jack at left (Modeling the VVS: Serb Museum Il-2 Walkaround):

And from the manual:

Here's my replication of these parts, a little out of proportion but they'll make do. The main jacks are made of brass tube and I wrapped some aluminum tape around the thicker one to increase the diameter and to make the collars. The rest of the parts are styrene rod and lead wire.

The undercarriage had to be assembled in the final position and this made it necessary to do some arthroscopic surgery to get the jacks in. Fortunately, I managed to get them in with minimal drama. In the below pic, I had to shine a flashlight into the space to highlight the installed parts. Note also the sprayed dust on the aft surfaces of the wing and nacelles behind the wheel openings.

I forgot to mention the wheels. The kit supplies two options: weighted and unweighted which is a nice touch. I installed the weighted set as I think they look far more realistic.

Next came some of the prickly parts. The cannons, machine guns, and pitot tube were all made of brass tubing.

A close-up of the starboard guns is shown below. Note the undercarriage down indicator in the top of the wing. The kit supplies parts for these but they would have scaled to 3 inch diameter pipes so I made my own.

Here's the port side after painting:

That's all for now. With the major work behind me now, there's a good chance that I'll get this puppy off my workbench by the end of the weekend. Thanks again for looking and for the positive waves.

rochie · Oct 16, 2020

wow really nice Andy, jacks look very effective

Crimea_River · Oct 16, 2020

Thanks Karl.

fubar57 · Oct 16, 2020

Beauty

Wurger · Oct 16, 2020

Gnomey · Oct 16, 2020

Good work so far Andy!

Crimea_River · Oct 16, 2020

One again, thanks gentlemen.

Fun with bombs. The two 250kg bombs supplied with the kit are pretty nice but I enhanced them a bit. The arming vanes on the front were simple moulded discs which I cut off and replaced with some left over Eduard PE ones. I then added hoist straps and the wires that secure the arming vane pins.

I couldn't find any decent pictures of these Soviet bombs on the net so they will be painted in plain steel per the instructions. If anyone has better info, I'd love to see it.