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I spotted this kit
by an unknown (to me or anyone else with an ignorance of "Russian"
text) manufacturer on eBay and subsequently won the auction. The kit had few
parts - primarily left and right fuselage halves and solid mainwings and
tailplanes. The tailfin was squared off, which made the kit an An-2M.
There were no clear parts as the cockpit was moulded in solid plastic with the
main fuselage and the plastic parts were quite thick 3 to 5mm in places.
There were no detail parts - no interior required with no clear parts - and what
little surface detail that existed was heavily engraved - sort of Matchbox on
steroids. On the plus side the plastic used was easy to cut and sand and
responded well to liquid poly and cyano cements.
| View of the kit
parts as supplied - I have started filling the engraved trenches with
Humbrol grey filler. |
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image below to see larger image
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I scribed the ribbing effect on
the top and bottom surfaces of both mainwings using a large knife and an old
photoetch fret as a flexible straightedge - this was quite effective as the
pains in my upper right arm testified for the next two weeks. I
marked the curved tailfin profile on the kit parts and cut and sanded the parts
to shape - removing the rudder at the same time.
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I considered leaving the solid
canopy in place and painting the glazing panels black but decided that this
would not look good in this scale so I cut away the solid canopy. Thus
both a new clear canopy and cockpit interior were required. The
former was produced by the plunge form method using the solid canopy
and a hole cut in the lid of an old cigar box.
The cockpit was scratch built
from plastic sheet and steel wire with the help of some of Mike Grant's 1:48
scale instrument decals.
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images below to see larger images
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I scribed panel lines on the
fuselage halves with an Olfa P-cutter and the aforementioned PE fret and primed
the plastic with Halfords grey spray primer. Halfords "Nissan
Silver" was used for the BMF scheme. The kit wing struts were
somewhat thin and feeble and so I reinforced them by laminating them with
plastic card. I rigged the model with Aeroclub "stretchy"
rigging thread and javelin struts cut form steel pins. A spare resin
engine from a Classic Airframes Hudson, spares box wheels and a
prop from a Monogram B-29 (with the cuffs removed) completed the build.
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images below to see larger images
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I made my own decals
to model a German registered An-2 as flown by Classic Wings - see photos on
Airliners.net.
Darius
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