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.