La-7 by Gavia. First
I saw a review of this model - it looked like the "only" right 1:48
La-7 on the market... so when I saw a three-cannon profi-pack - I didn't found
any reasons not buying it! Later I found with help of some La-7
experts few faults and most noticable and unfixed by me - thin fuselage of
this model. This fuselage better suit La-5FN, than La-7... when I
found it with help of few experts help, it was too late to fix without total
destruction of previous work, so I decided that I "can live with
it". Propeller's cock is also more like La-5FN and that is wrong for La-7.
I fixed it with help of some scratch built skill. Resin cockpit is NeOmega
with photo-etched panel from that "profi-pack" kit. Few scratch-built
items like exaust pipes (from stainless steel tubes) added mere of realism to
the model. Elf wheels are spinable ( tail wheel needed completely redone fork
with axe made from guitar string to be spinable). Guns and gear hidraulics open
metal tubes are made from stainless steel tubing too. I always replace open
tubes of all hidraulics with ones made from steel - looks much closer to the
real thing... it needed to replace all bottom part of main gear with
construction made from various tubes too to make it strong enough for model
weight. Antenna's wire is also Elf's wires - very good thing for wiring. FM
antenna scratch built from plastic and thin stripe of "beer metal"
(ordinary beer can You meet in local store). Navigation lights are Elf , pitot
tube made from solid stainless steel wire and brass from photo etch where
it mount to the wing. There are also one thing on Gavia's model - dust filters infront
of main gear bays on the underside of wings... there are not present at
all, but are a must for all mid/late production La-7s and especially for three
cannon beasts. I made scratch built ones from photo-etch and yoghurt-stirol for
their frames. Look carefully all, who wants to make a "real La-7"!
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
All decals are used
from the kit . It has few mistakes in Russian language, as well as few signs are
made like straight translates from english - russians never write 'em this
way on aircraft... but aftermarket decals I saw had no detailed stencil at all,
so... no way to fix it . At least I didn't
found any...
Paints are used by my usual way -
all plane was covered in Tamiya TS-17 for metal parts and Humbrol 72
for wood parts (wood parts paints may vary in my method). I use only
enamels on plastic as underpaint... than few stop-colour for "chipped
paint" on metal and then acrylic paints for main camouflage. After
applying decals - a lot of weathering work with watercolours, pastels and lot of
"between" lacquer covering, 'til it's done and covered with final matt
coat.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
Not bad model at all, but there's
still no correct La-7 model on the entire 1:48 market. Maybe I will build
one more Gavia's La-7 kit - to make a La-5FN from it )
it would be more correct if I'll find any way to fix wing-to-fuselage section on
the nose, that's very different from La-7 ... other stuff in such conversion sounds
quite "fixable" for me . It's my
first article on ARC, so maybe later I will cover My other previous builds
as well as my current and future projects, if it would be interesting for all
aircraft freaks as me of course .
Meesha
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|
|