Marek Junkers JU-87B 'Stuka' 1/33

[dansls1]

Well, being the impatient one I am, I couldn't wait until I finished the current project to print out the next one. This kit is a download from Barnett's. It comes with a cover sheet, an information page about the plane, 7 pages of parts and 2 pages of diagrams. The plane is very colorful and seemed to print very nicely - although I had to reduce to 94% with my printer to print on 8.5x11" paper.
The diagrams are pretty sparse, but I think there's enough there that I can puzzle it out - but I certainly wouldn't recommend this model for a beginner to planes. Also it appears that the parts to be laminated have their numbers in red - but the kit doesn't actually mention to laminate them (the other Marek kit I got at the same time does).
It's also a 'butt join' fuselage with no joining strips - so hopefully that will work out ok, I've never build a plane with this type of fuselage yet.
Here's a sampling of the pages:

[Don Boose]

I will be VERY interested in this build, Dan. Bill Geoghegan has two excellent construction reviews of Marek models at his site: (PZL 11C at http://www.geoghegan.us/p11c_new/p11c_review.html and CSS 10A at http://www.geoghegan.us/css10a/CSS10A_Review.htm.

I have been thinking about preparing to begin to start a Marek Yak-3 and your construction of the Stuka may inspire me to get started.

Don B.

[dansls1]

For what it's worth, there's a build thread of this particular model here. Unfortunately the pictures are lost. I've both posted in the thread and PM'd the builder to request them - but no response thus far.
i will definitely share this when I start building - but I'm going to try and finish the current build before I start cutting - so please be patient

[Fozzy The Bear]

I have to say I'm not personally that keen on the Marek kits, although I have bought two of them. I'll be very interested to see how this one goes together. The one that I tried, didn't have the best fit I've seen. Those butt joint fuselages are a beggar to get right. I had to add some strips to pull them into line a bit. You might need to do the same.

They're good kits in the sense that they scale really easily, because of being vector drawings.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[cgutzmer]

Agreed about those darn butt joints! The strips do help a ton. I forget who gave me this tip, it was either Carl or Dewayne - when you have the two but joins that go together (the kind that have a former at the very end of each section and you glue the formers together) use pins and pin them together so you can sand them to the exact same shape. Some of Mareks kits come this way. Hope it helps.
Chris

[Lex]

Agreed with Chris and Julian, whenever I'm confronted that situation I'll opt to using strips... --Are all Marek planes designed in this way though?

[member_3]

Nearly all of Marek's designs use bulkhead-bulkhead butt joints. Parts with the number in red are intended to be laminated with .5-.8mm card (the 1:33 scale are better with .8-1mm card). Converting them to thee bulkhead+strip type joint is fairly straightforward if you prefer that method and don't mind laying out your own strips (allow for strip thickness when cutting/sanding the bulkhead). You are correct in that his designs have no written instructions and somewhat sparse diagrams. On the positive side is that once you have built a couple and gotten used to his methods, the rest are pretty simple.

[dansls1]

Heh - well after a bit of review, this kit does indeed have joining strips for the fuselage sections. I was reading the info on the website and not looking at the kit close enough - doh!

[milenio3]

So, Dan, do you think you're gonna finish this one before the 109?
Or are you going side by side construction?

[dansls1]

Originally Posted by milenio3

So, Dan, do you think you're gonna finish this one before the 109?
Or are you going side by side construction?

The plan is to finish the BF109 first.