Ayacucho Maquetas 1/72 Yakovlev AIR-7 Russian speed record breaker

Gallery Article by Gabriel Stern on Nov 27 2009

 

   As stated in the In-Box article previously posted here in ARC, the detail of the parts of this resin kit is outstanding and the instructions are very clear.
   As per photos you can see that the parts were liberated from the casting wafer and then some further cleanup was done. Just be careful and take a little time. Beware that the rudder has its control horns molded, and the Pitot, given its scale finesse, will need extra care when separating it from the wafer.  The fuselage sides show a small part of the structure close to the front cockpit that should be carefully cleaned. The shield and base of the engine need a thin wafer removed from their centers. There are a number of parts that are indeed just tiny rods, and you may possibly opt for replacing them with wire of the adequate diameter, but I separated them anyway from the backing. I didn’t break a single one in the process, which speaks for the robustness of the casting. But, again, be careful.
   Since the kit is molded (at least for this batch) in polyester resin, there is certain time that the parts need to fully cure once cast, as explained in the instructions. A certain minor stickiness remained in the bigger parts, like fuselage sides, wings, tail and wheel pants.
   I lightly sprayed these components with some automotive grey primer (I used a Rus-Oleum spray can from Home Depot). That sealed the surfaces and allowed for a much easier handling.
Since the interior is fully depicted and very well detailed only painting was needed here.

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   The dedication on the making of the parts becomes evident when you see that the cushion, a separate part from the seat, has a teeny tiny arrow in the back pointing the right direction for its position, since the cushions also have some relief depicted.
   Although some components (fus sides, wheel pants) are keyed (they do have pins and correspondent tiny holes) I opted for sanding the fuselage mating surfaces carefully flat.
The guiding pins are very useful though regarding the tail surfaces, wings and other pieces that need alignment.
   You get about 60 parts.
   Construction started with the engine, cleaning the parts with a toothbrush, gluing the intakes, painting and adding pushrods cut from wire. The prop was painted at this stage, for the heck of it.
The cockpit followed, and either primed or unprimed parts took well acrylics and enamels. The front instrument panel -which should be attached to one fuselage side via a recess before closing the fuselage- may need just a tad of trimming on the corners to fit perfectly. The only additions were photoetched seat belts. Once the floor and the front instrument panel were attached to one side of the fuselage, the other fuselage side closed it up. As I was dry fitting first I discovered I had to sand a bit the floor for the fuselage to close tight. Then some bracing that backs the front seat and holds the aft instrument panel was glued. The joint was puttied and sanded. The detail on the parts is very fine, so be cautions when gluing, puttying and sanding, in order not to erase panel lines or minute details. The transparencies were carefully cut, and, swipe by swipe of the sanding stick, adjusted to their positions and left aside.

   Wheel pants followed. I removed the pin that allows the wheel to rotate, because I had once a runaway model that ended up landing –not very graciously- on the floor. Besides it is sort of uncomfortable to paint the wheel inside the pants or mask it. So the wheels were painted and left aside to be glued later inside the pants after general painting (they almost touch their bays’ roof so there is a positive locking). The pants were drilled to provide for the rigging (you will see those tiny reinforcement plates on the pants, that’s where you have to drill). The joint line wasn’t covered, since the original pants were also made of two halves and had a separation line shown on plans.
   At that time the rigging holes were drilled too –with a fine drill bit- at the fin, wings and fuselage, since I planned to use monofilament for that task.
The wings, rudder and stabs were glued to the fuselage, using the dihedral indicator on the plans.  A word regarding gluing: Superglue seems not to cure as fast on polyester resin, which gives you a few more moments to adjust, but also calls for a longer waiting time before manipulating. I believe epoxy could be used too, sparingly of course.
   The rudder was painted white and the stripes masked. An enamel gloss black coat was then given to the model, followed by Model Master’s non-buffing aluminum, Future, and then masking and the red coat. During this process wheel pants, struts and the engine-related parts were kept separated.
   Secondary assemblies were then glued to the mainframe, rigging was done, and using leftover photoetched parts some extra details were added (rigging fittings and fuel caps). Rods were placed over the rigging where indicated.
   Transparencies were cut and Future-bathed. Beware when you trim the canopy, you may need to leave some extra material at the front, or otherwise it may fall short. Side windows presented no problem but, as said, they are handed, so be careful.
   Once the transparencies were glued their frame was depicted with painted decal, cut in thin strips. The last detail was the Pitot.
   Although I like to leave the transparencies until everything else is done and painted, sometimes, no matter how much you previously adjust it, you may notice a discontinuity. In this case that was at the front, which could have being solved if I had chosen to glue the transparencies, mask them, and then blend them with the surroundings before painting.
   No decals for this hot rod, since the original had no marks, which comes as a relief.
Exquisite kit of a delightful plane, a true pleasure.
 
Ayacucho Maquetas can be reached here:
matihagen@gmail.com

Gabriel Stern

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Photos and text © by Gabriel Stern