Sukhoi T-4MS

[Mossie]

Okay, I going to bite the bullet & attempt this!  I've never attempted a resin kit before (at least nothing more than a bit of cleanup), so it's going to be a challenge.  Any pointers will be greatfully received!  I'd like to do it for Telford, so that's about eight weeks.

Here's the box top:


I'm also going for broke as I particularly want to do the final design with the extended streamlined nose & horizontal tails... which means some scratchbuilding!!!


I can hear nev groan from over the river.....

[chrisonord]

Well there's a novel thing if ever I heard one
The words " never built before" "resin kit" and "have it done in 8 weeks" all in the same sentence.
You would not catch me even thinking that never mind saying that Mossie.
Good luck and may the force be with you on that one
Chris.

[thedarkmaster]

Good god man 8 weeks, Just paint it in Anti flash white put on full colour roundels and you'll be welcome in the New Commonwealth       

[nev]

I can hear nev groan from over the river.....

Only at your ambition!  I'd leave the scratchbuilding for another time, but then again I'm a coward who'll do anything for an easy life

In-service markings I take it?

*settles down and watches with intrest*

[Mossie]

Well, here goes nothing!  Dunc, I've cleaned up resin parts before which helps a little.  I found that they sand much easier then styrene, so you've got to go easy on that too, as well as the brittleness of smaller parts.  The upside of this is that I find resin quite easy to work with.  I'm sure they'll be some swearing along the way!  With the new nose, I can either use balsa, or do a Thorvic & use sheet styrene, I'm tending towards the latter.

Finish wise, I've got a handful choices if I want to make it believable.  NMF, as with development Blackjacks (& early service), or anti-flash white.  The kit shows a grey scheme, similar to Backfires, which is a possibility, although my leaning is to one of the other two.  Mike McEvoy finished his T-4MS in white (which I'm guessing will make an appearance), so I'm thinking of NMF, although that might be a step too far, but I think I could pull it off with Citadel Color metallics.  Decals, either the kit Russian ones (I've toyed with the red-white-blue stars but probably not) or possibly Ukranian.  I want to keep this as 'real' as possible, so unfortunately, no New Commonweatlh roundels!

Here's Mike's build, along with the PAK-FA 'bonus kit', scroll about ³/₄ of the way down the page:
http://www.grumpyoldmodeller.com/vault.html

Ambition, me???  Pulling out an old cliche, if you don't try, you don't get!  I've got a back up, if I have trouble with the nose, I can always finish it oob.  I think I can do it, I've done some shaping before & found it not too difficult.  We'll see, it might just be a spectacular failure, hopefully not!

[Captain Canada]

Very cool....good luck and look forward to seeing a few pics !

[thedarkmaster]

Good luck with it mate, keep us all informed 

[Thorvic]

How about 'Black' as a schme to rival the USAF B-2 ?, should stand out compared to standard Grey or White bombers.

What shade and style of black is another matter, be it standard matt black, a very dark grey, or maybe even the metalic gunmetal as used on the T-4 and Firefox.

G

[Mossie]

Geoff, I hadn't thought of black.  That dark gunmetal shade they used on the tail of the T-4 is very tasty.  Do you know if there were plans to use that on the whole airframe?  This might be the route to go for a Sukhoi built aircraft, I was assuming a Tupolev built machine.  Or I could mix & match.  Lots to think about!

First pics before I start work:


Major parts.  I shouldn't be using the two nose parts, fingers crossed.


All major parts posed, except engine pods.  This is how it should look if your clever & stick to the instructions.  This shows that apart from the casting defects, fit looks pretty good.


Both fuselage parts, this shows the casting defects that present on several of the mating surfaces & my first job will be to remove them.

I've only got a few hours this afternoon to start on this, I'm off to Headingley stadium in Leeds later to watch Hull KR versus Leeds Rhinos in the Super League playoffs.  If we win, we only have one more game to get the final.  If we lose, it'll be a much more difficult route.  It'll be very difficult to beat Leeds (League leaders) today, but not impossible & a chance of glory if we do.  Kind of like this build I guess!

[Mossie]

Whoops, forgot to put this in the Aircraft child board, can one of the mods shift it over for me?  Ta in advance!

[Sauragnmon]

Watching this one with interest, she looks like quite the monster indeed.

[Nick]

Looks good so far, might have to get myself one of these. I take it you got the plans I scanned for you?

[General Melchet]

Nice choice Mossie,been meaning to get one of these for a while, personally I would do one in multi panelled NMF and white undersides, (if I were to choose black I would use many different shades to break the thing up a bit, lightening a few of the larger panels).
As for working with resin, for goodness sake use a respirator if you are going to sand it as the fine dust is an irritant and can affect your breathing  though it's a lot safer than the old yellow stuff!
When gluing large parts together, tack the corners then run thin CA into the gap using a cocktail stick, watch for sticky fingers.I use accelerator to speed things up, but be careful with it as it's pretty perminant.
I've built over twenty resins and personally I enjoy them more than IM as the material is a lot more forgiving and pliable than hard plastic.It smooths and shapes beautifully.Sadly Anigrands quality control isn't all it should be and you probably have quite a few air bubbles on the surface.I use Mr Hobby liquid putty to fill these as it grips the resin nicely and wont fall out like many of the 'ordinary' fillers..Remember to wash the model thoroughly with warm water and a bit of detergent before priming it as gresy fingerprints will affect the paint.
Anyway, look forward to seeing what you do with it....A scratchbuild 1/72nd of this aircraft has been on my to do list for some time..



Andy

[Mossie]

Thanks guys!

Saur, it is quite a size, it would have been slightly larger than the Backfire.  It was designed for the role of the Blackjack & could carry the same payload over the same distance in quite a smaller package than the Tu-160.  It's lift to drag ratio was fantastic, not a surprise that it won the competition.

Nick, I'm not sure yet!  I had to give you my work e-mail & I don't get back until Monday.  I'll let you know then!

Andy, thanks for the tips!  I've been using a dust mask to keep the dust at bay, along with wet & dry sandpaper to keep the dust to minimum.  Thanks for the tips!  I've had a couple of problems with air bubbles, do you know where I can get Mr Hobby?  I've had another problem too, corner broke off a piece with barely any pressure, I guess there was a crack somewhere, it'll have to be built up again.  Looking forward to that 1/72 beast!

[Deino]

....
I'm also going for broke as I particularly want to do the final design with the extended streamlined nose & horizontal tails... which means some scratchbuilding!!!
.....

Hey ... that's an interesting build ... But actually I don't know if that statement above is correct. IMO this "extended streamlined" nose is more a fan-art or an early model. The final model had the nose as shown in the kit.

But maybe You ask here:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,419.0/highlight,t-4m.html  (esp. page 3 has in interesting development chart)

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1665.0/highlight,t-4ms.html

Deino