Voir et Savoir PLUS 1/144 - Polikarpov I-16

[strobez]

Why limit yourself, right? Hergé and friends may have only done 60 chromos as part of the Voir et Savoir "Aviation War, 1939-1945" collection, but there are a lot more WII-era planes (give or take) that could be featured.  So, basically I just decided to expanded my Voir et Savoir 1/144 project to fit whatever I like.

Take the... Polikarpov I-16 for example... I just love the look of this box, that's why I bought it.



As a snap together kit, there's really not all that much to worry about.



And that's it... 5-6 pieces and we're done... or are we?



To stick a small DC motor in there, some modifications are required to the propellor...



As well as drilling out the interior.  A snug fit, is good as long as it fits!



All wired up and glued in place.



Hmmm... the drilling seems to have pushed the left side of the fuselage out of alignment a bit.  It's already glued, so we're going to have to work with a bit of filler and sanding.  Pulling it apart would likely destroy this tiny little model.



Love that Soviet blue!



Disaster... one of the wires broke and, as expected I wasn't able to open it up again without destroying the motor...



Ok... round two... fight!



The nice thing about making a mistake is that the second attempt is usually better than the first.



A couple of coats of paint go on quickly in 1/144 scale.



Decals on... now... to paint the cockpit and we're all done!

[Old Wombat]

Those are ridiculously miniscule &, yet, you still put motors in them!

Kudos, man! Lots & lots of kudos!

[Scotaidh]

What Old Wombat said ... The last time I attempted to motorize a model it was in 1/32 scale ... I will mercifully draw a blind over that disaster and just say it didn't go well.  To see your work is at once encouraging and disheartening ... It's good to know you can do what I could not - but I still can not do that.

But please don't stop doing what you do - I do like seeing your results, and it encourages me to try, try again.     

[zenrat]

1/144 I-16.  Small enough to fit inside a jar of extra thin glue.

[Tophe]

Very interesting, thanks!

[Scotaidh]

Now I'm kinda thinking about how a B-17 would look ...

[strobez]

Thanks guys.  It was indeed one of the smallest planes I've been able to get a motor into.  The I-16 was okay because it's a pretty round and fat little guy, but I'm worried about the Fi-156 Storch... now THAT is going to be a challenge.

A B-17 (probably two!) are in the works.  So you'll get your wish, sooner or later, Scotaidh.

[strobez]

A quick final update.  I added final glamour pics and a short video showing the prop in action on my blog - http://strobez.ca/wp/index.php/2020/02/19/p02-polikarpov-i-16-ishak-1934/

[Captain Canada]

So very cool. Thank you for these posts and all of the pics on how it was done !

[TheChronicOne]

Hopping on board again. 

[NARSES2]

Wonderful