Hasegawa 1/72 Yak-3 question

[kyofu]

I have not found a review of this kit on this site.? What is the general opinion of it by the experts?? Except for extraneous panel lines on wings, is the shape considered basically accurate?

If this has already been covered on this site (and I suspect it has), could you kindly direct me?? Thank you!? ?

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi,
I have not made a deep analysis of this kit. I hope that it's good, because I have one.
For what I heard, the main shortcoming should be the spinner; someone proposed to replace it with one advanced from Toko's LaGG-3 (that has two spinners).
Another thing, the exhaust pipes should not be at regular steps as on the kit.
Should anyone find more, please keep me informed.
Massimo

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi,
I've bought a model of Yak-3 of HobbyBoss, and compared it with the Hasegawa.
It is very similar, with the same size and shape, and, eventually, the same defects.
It has three more defects: the fuselage section is more squared (the tup curvature starts 1 mm above the tail surfaces, it should be 1 mm below), a small outlet on the fuselage side is barely visible, the wingroots intakes should have their lip anguled downwards and outwards and thinned, and the canopy sides are very slightly rounded instead of flat. The first two defects can be corrected with less than an hour of file work, the third is scarcely visible and, on my model, I'll use the second canopy included in the Hasegawa kit.
In consideration that the HobbyBoss costs 5.80 euros and the Hasegawa about 20 Euros, I think that it's an acceptable alternative.
Some defects are clearly visible on both models: the exhaust stacks are too close to those of a Me-109 (hard to remedy!), the spinner is too sharp (I'll try to replace it with that of a LaGG-3 of Toko, late version), some panels on the wings should be filled and some parts of the retraction mechanism of the landing gear should be deleted.
Massimo

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi,
I've to add another defect to the hobbyBoss: the nervures of the rudder are oblique, not longitudinal. Not nice. At least one hour of work to correct this. . The Hasegawa is good on this respect.
Massimo

[Audrius]

hello,
imho the main point of Hasegawa's Yak-3 to pay attention is that you need to correct panel line on the wings unless you are building late production model with metal wing which is represented by Hasegawa in the kit.
Otherwise this kit is lovely to me!

BR Audrius

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Audrius,
I am still wondering if there is a reasonable way to improve the exhaust pipes without deleting them at all. The most difficult part looks to delete the old ones without damaging the surrounding frame.
Massimo

[TISO]

How does old Heller/Smer comapares to Hasagawa and Hobby boss?

[John Thompson]

Discussion of Hobby Boss Yak-3:
http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=139.0

Comparison of Hasegawa and Heller/Smer Yak-3 kits:
http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Forum/showthread.php?tid=36

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi John,
thank you for the links. I rembered that the argument had been already discussed.
The only thing that didn't appear clear from the previous discussions was if the cheap Hobbyboss had disadvantages on the Hasegawa that costs nearly four times its price.
Massimo

[John Thompson]

I shouldn't admit this because of all the criticisms I made against the Hobby Boss Yak-3 in that other thread, but I'm working on building it right now...  I'll post something about it some day - correcting the exhaust stacks (which IIRC are like the stacks on the Hasegawa kit) wasn't as difficult as I expected. I just filed them so that the tips were round, used a sharp Xacto blade to scrape away some plastic on the pipes themselves to make them look round inside the area where they're protected by the ribs above and below them, and then drilled them out to make them look round inside as well. I hope this makes sense - they look okay from about a metre away!

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi John,
this sculpture work looks a fair solution, but don't correct the spacing between the pipes. On the real plane, the second pipe is close to the third, and the fourth to the fifth.
Or, maybe you could extend the sculpture to the front part of some pipes... It sounds as a difficult work.
Massimo

[John Thompson]

Blast - yes, I thought it was too easy. I see now what you mean. However, looking at the close-up photo of the Yak-3 exhausts on page 62 of the AJ Press "Yak-1 Yak-3" book by Robert Bock, it appears that the *ends* of the stacks were pretty much evenly spaced - this can be verified just by taking measurements from this photo. It's the lengths of the individual stacks that vary. This is apparently because the VK-105 engine cylinder heads had "siamesed" exhaust outlets in positions 2/3 and 4/5 (like the two middle exhaust ports on a Chevy small-block V8, for those who are familiar with that device!  ). In fact, it looks like the number 3 and 5 stacks were purposely made longer than the others to try to equalize the spacing of the ends of the stacks. So, it seems your suggestion about sculpting the front parts of some pipes (2, 4, and 6) is correct - I just don't know if I'm brave enough to try it! 

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi,
maybe one could try to suggest the effect of this by painting by hand the pipes with different shades to sumulate a 3D effect. Better than nothing...
Massimo