An-26 1:72

[4bogreen]

It doesn't carry bombs or missiles, its build in 1/72 scale...yawn  !
But...Detailing is awesome Aleks! You make a lot of nice stuff on it. It almost looks like 1/48 scale 
I see a lot of putty! I always use tape next to the hole or seem than fill it, take away the tape and you have a nice small seem of putty so sand. No loss of detail then 

I am very curious to see it in the color. Especially the engine/ landinggear area 
Nice build Aleks (nice subject to )

Regards,

Remco

[asekular]

Thanks a lot Remco,

An-26 can in fact carry bombs if needs be, so you can tick that box.   I?m not dogmatic about the scale; the perfect scale changes with the subject. This An in 1/72 is a tad bigger than say Mosquito in 1/48 so it?s quite a handful, without being a burden to handle.

I also use masking tape for puttying joints when applicable , but this time two surfaces were uneven. So, the high command decided  for ?carpet-puttying? and collateral damage was assessed as acceptable.

Cheers,
Aleks

[4bogreen]

Yes sir!

Carpet puttying is authorised, collateral damage is sandable 

Its always nice to see someone build nice things no matter the scale. Good is...eh...good!

I am building my first plane since 1997, so its a bit of going back to my roots. My first was a MiG-29 and some other planes. Then i went crazy with armor, and my passion for planes faded a bit... Now I'm back  (a bit then)

[asekular]

Howdy folks,

Before, we go any further I want to show the result of that puttying exercise from the last time. All is nice and smooth and panel lines are now restored. As a contrast to that self-coined “carpet-puttying” I will show you some “precision/tape-guided puttying” later on…



Moving on, it is time to work with the transparent bits. There are several small navigation and position lights and all of them require additional attention. To represent reflector bulb inside the enclosures simply drill a blind hole from the base of the part and then apply transparent paint inside. The base of the part is then painted silver to give it some reflectivity.





After gluing the transparent pieces to the airframe sand and polish to level everything with the surface.

There is a red reflector enclosure at the root of the vertical stabilizer that has a distinct metal fairing around it. To represent this fairing I used thin strips of adhesive tape as a border and then applied a layer of putty between these lines. Sand, polish and repeat if necessary. After couple of iterations I’ve obtain the satisfactory result. 





I sanded down main canopy’s internal side to a less absurd thickness and then polished everything. Then I started thinking on how to produce the masks for painting the frames. The windshield panels are engraved so finely that all my efforts to transfer the shapes to a piece of paper, or masking tape failed. I used thin strips of masking tape again, to trace the frames along the engraved lines, so that I can get a positive template. Then it was a simple task of covering this with yellow Tamiya tape and tracing the shapes with a pencil. As a result I’ve got painting mask that I will later on cut out with scissor. And yes, I will add rounded corners at the end, by nipping them with a scalpel. 







For the end here's couple of pictures of the assembled airframe.





Cheers,
Aleks

[Massimo Tessitori]

Very well made work, Aleks.
The work to sand the inside of the canopy is very risky. Have you utilized any trick to do this?
Regards
Massimo

[B_Realistic]

Very well made work, Aleks.
The work to sand the inside of the canopy is very risky. Have you utilized any trick to do this?
Regards
Massimo

@Massimo
I think it's called craftmanship.

@Aleks
A very effective tip to make those lights.
Thanks.

[asekular]

Hi guys and thanks again for cheering,

Massimo, the canopy was tricky, yes. Sorry but I didn?t make any pics of that process. As you can imagine, my hands were full?

I started with a sanding wheel on my Dremel. There is no trick, one just needs low RPM (brake it with your wet thumb if necessary ? no, modeling isn?t always pleasant), have light and steady hand and try not to melt the plastic. I then progressed through several grits of sandpaper and sticks: 400, 600 ? 3600 and used micro-mesh and Tamiya polishing compound at the end.

I did have a plan-B in the back of my head: if all went pear-shaped I would fill the canopy with epoxy sand it smooth from outside and vacuum-form a new one. Luckily it didn?t come to that?

Regards,
Aleks

[66misos]

Hi Aleks,
a really good job. I like to watch it even as "how to do" manual. Work with clear parts is really impresive.

    66misos

[asekular]

Greeting from ASBO (Antonov Scale Bureau Outfit) again. I was away for quite some time, due to varied unexpected home tasks, form plumbing to IT and back.

But I did also squeeze in some workbench moments. So here?s the update.

We are all excited here that the main airframe is now done and some finer details can be dealt with. For instance static dischargers are not regularly seen on models, especially in this scale. Positioned at the trailing edges of wingtips and tail surfaces, they are best represented by short lengths of nylon monofilament. I simply made few mill deep cuts with a razor saw and anchored the nylon thread with superglue.







For the wings I had to be more creative, as the static discharger is placed at the very tip where there is no obvious way to  attach it. I decided to cut the tips off and then use the flat inner surface (facing the butt end of the aileron), to cut a groove and place the discharge in it. Difficult to do, even more so to put in few words, but easy to show in pics?









Now to deal with the navigator?s office. The most prominent object in that big blister on the port side is the ubiquitous NKPB-7 bombsight.





There is no better way to do this, but a good old fashion scratch building. Look for most appropriate bits in the scrap box, cut, bend, sand, fiddle, lose it in carpet, curse and start all over again. After few attempts, something promising will emerge.







The blister itself was made of two parts: the spherical dome and the streamlined fairing. I made my new transparencies by vacuum-forming. Some may say that this is a lot of work for such a small detail, but I think the result is worth it?







Till the next time,
Aleks

[learstang]

Great work on the sight and blister, Aleks!

Regards,

Jason

[Massimo Tessitori]

Really fine and impressing work. I hope that the carpet monster has appreciated the tribute.
Regards
Massimo

[asekular]

Cheers guys!

Massimo,
My carpet creature is more of a swine than a monster really; not very appreciative and spiteful too. It sometimes rejects old offerings, but always when is too late.

Just the other day I was down on my knees looking for that special missing piece, when I suddenly found another long lost part. Peculiar thing is that I vacuumed the room in the meantime twice! So either my vacuum cleaner is not working very well, or there is indeed some sadistic beast breathing  in my rug.

Accepting the more plausible of the two answers: the carpet swine really exists!

Aleks

[B_Realistic]

Spectacular bomb sight.

[4bogreen]

Hi Aleks,

One word to discribe this...Awesome...

[asekular]

Hi again,

Here?s a small update on how to mask the canopy and create realistic looking fairing. Usually the kit transparency doesn?t correspond to the actual edge of the canopy frame. This is also the case on the An-26.



First of all I wanted to smooth out the joints between the canopy piece and the fuselage. This is done by some more putty and a masking tape.



Then came the window masks that I created some while ago (see my previous posts). Masking tape was used to define borders of the canopy fairing as on the real aircraft.



After spraying a very thin layer of the interior color I proceeded with the thicker layers of Surfacer 1000. When it dried I used fine sand paper and micromesh to smooth any imperfections, before spraying another layer. The idea is to build-up an edge against the masking tape.



De-masking followed and voil?, the canopy is ready and waiting for later application of the camouflage colors.







So much for now.

Ciao,
Aleks