Century scale S&P Yaks

**CMDRTED** · #1 09-10-2018, 07:51 AM

It's been awhile for a series of builds and this months subject, WW2 Yaks.
This has been one confusing series of aircraft, mostly because of the Soviets overcomplicated series designations, or our interpretations of it. The Yaks were arguably one of the best small fighters in the great patriotic war. They used a lot of plywood and non precious materials, had tolerances that smacked of garage built one off production methods yet turned out a sleek capable fighter. The Russians viewed all the fighter models of Yak as one model of fighter, from the i26 to the capable Yak9. when viewed as that type of of designation it was probably the most produced fighter in WW2 some 36000 plus.
The first model by Bruno is what I will simplify as Yak 1 early. This is one of the heros of Stalingrad a female pilot and ace Lily Litvak, the white rose of Stalingrad, with 12 overall victories...

**Texman** · #2 09-10-2018, 07:56 AM

Nice job Ted

**CMDRTED** · #3 09-10-2018, 07:59 AM

The kit by Bruno is one of the 1st gen kits and is one of the more difficult as designed to build. You wouldn't think it by the finished pics but there were some minor glitches. The original has a one wing construction with the signature air scoops on the inner leading edge built in. I tried twice to build it as is but could not get anything close to a good representation. so I edited a little. I took out the scoops and made them separate parts... and redesigned the wings as the are separate, in my mind made it a bit easier. here are the attempts at the ist kit...

**MichaelS** · #4 09-10-2018, 08:36 AM

Great job young fella.

That is one sleek aerioplane for plywood!!

**CMDRTED** · #5 09-10-2018, 08:39 AM

Rata has asked a few times about landing gear for the earlier S&P kits. I can't figure screen shots so I just took "poor" pictures of my laptop screen with captions of "how I did it". This process is easier if you have some photo editing skills, but it can be done by hand.
I have many vector programs, inkscape, rhino 5, corel draw, illustrator, but I still suck at vector image manipulation. I use an older paintshop pro that has rudimentary vector tools.
So here goes... Ist I change the pdf to a bitmap image. most programs do this easily. Next go to the wing bottoms, most kits have the gear doors modeled on, and remove them. clean up the edges around them and save them, they will be doubled up with card, the interior color being the doubling piece. Then blank out the well completely, by hand you would have to have at least 2 copies of the wing, one if you are very careful 2 would be better. by hand carefully cut out the entire well/gear coverings.

**CMDRTED** · #6 09-10-2018, 08:52 AM

Next up is what to do with the wheel wells. You should have by now researched the landing gear for the kit you are modeling by now. Some of the best sources are the plastic modeling sites. Large scale planes, IPMS sites are great sources. Those guys are particular picky about details and have researched their subjects ad nauseum.
If you don't have a good view of the interior the least you can do is to draw in some wing spars across the well. edit in the well details, by hand you have one of 2 choices. the simplest is to hand paint out the well to start with, then draw in the details on top of the painted out well. the other is more elegant and in my mind may be a better representation for even the printed on part. This is cutting out a piece bigger then the well opening, drawing the well parts then pasting that on the inner aspect of the lower wing. this can also add some depth to the well, but be careful, in this scale it can interfere with folding the wing over.
I'll have to try it someday....

**CMDRTED** · #7 09-10-2018, 09:05 AM

Next up is the wheel. probably the easiest part. Most kits have the wheel printed on, simply lift this out of the image and complete the circles. add hub details if you like. By hand simply measure out the wheel and draw the circles needed. Brunos landing gear kits have a simple drum shaped construction which is fine as is. But we the paper modeling 1/100 crowd have found some nifty punches that add a taper to the part that when stacked gives a slightly more realistic wheel. The basic formula for wheel thickness is done by doubling the discs to card then stacking them. for fighters the basic diameters are 6-7 mm and 4 laminated discs thick. some smaller fighters I used 3 doubled discs and 1 single card thickness. the rear wheels are usually 2.5 to 3.5 in diameter and no more than 2 doubled discs thick.

**CMDRTED** · #8 09-10-2018, 09:29 AM

Next up is the actual strut that connects wheel to plane.
This is actually simple but elegance makes it harder than it needs to be.
1st make a simply tubular structure from the mounting point in the well to the top of the tire. this is the basic distance for gear that have that little "L" shape or 1/2 horse shoe to mount the wheel. for some aircraft the strut goes all the way to the center hub of the wheel and the end has some connector to the wheel hub. that level of detail in 1/100 scale is lost so just make it a tube that goes to the center of the hub.
Now the tube needs some basic diameter and detail. most struts have reinforcing bands , here is where research/detail meets practicality. I like to have a band near the mounting part to act as a stop for the insertion into the wing and support. the other bands are just window dressing and make the part more realistic. you have to experiment with your design. leave a little extra on the non detail part to roll up for extra support for the tube to be wrapped around. the pics show some awful parts in the process but the end result, either edited or hand drawn needs to be tweaked in the building process. the little half horseshoes are the little oblong parts seen in Brunos kits.

**CMDRTED** · #9 09-10-2018, 09:39 AM

now we have the wheels and the struts to be rolled, formed and finished.
I use typewriter 22-24 lb paper for the rolled parts. it is easier to roll a tight tube that way. In one of the earlier JSC ship kits they had suggested delaminating the parts that were printed on card to get this thinner stock for rolling. It can be done, you have to repeated roll the part until some delamination occurs then peel the layer carefully. I ruined a lot of parts doing in that way so I copied the parts and printed them on the already thin paper.

**CMDRTED** · #10 09-10-2018, 10:57 AM

last on the gear list is the tailwheels. these are usually done well by Bruno, the only difference is making the wheels separetly. on the yaks the non retractable gear have little fairings. Brunos kits I simply closed off the fronts. on the retractable wheels I made a modified u piece to hold the wheel and a small tube for the strut.