52 MODEL AIRPLANE INTERNATIONAL - September 2019
KIT BUILD
The level of detail in both the front and main
landing gear bays, is comparable to most
aftermarket products. With only careful detail
painting required to bring it to life.Being of a complex shape, several parts make up the intake trunking. The seams being dealt with by means of fi ller and
plenty of careful sanding.paintwork to be done, just to ease things when
it came to the main paint scheme application.
Primarily this was area inboard of the engine
intakes, the intake lips and the under sides of
the LEX’s, which would be extremely diffi cult to
reach or mask once the nose was fi tted.
Because I wanted to show all the intake
doors open on the top section of the fuselage,
a little lateral thinking was also required here
in relation to paint application to avoid some
really tricky masking of delicate parts, so I
chose to also deal with them early on.
Prior to the top fuselage section and intake
louvres being fi tted, painting commenced.
I applied paint around the area of the four
intakes, extending it a good distance out from
them, so that when they were all glued to their
To ensure a perfect alignment of the two intake trunks, along
with adding some more rigidity to the structure, a small piece
of scrap plastic was added between the compressor faces,
onto an already existing alignment tab (Circled in red).respective parts, a sharp paint demarcation
line was achieved between the camoufl age
colours and the white of the intakes, with
no need for tedious, intricate masking.
Consequently, I did not need to now spray
directly up to the intake, and only
needed a loose mask in this
area when the main paint
scheme was applied.
Construction of the
main body of the
fuselage from this
point onwards, is
swift and without any
problems, with the
parts clicking soundly
into place. Even the
airbrake, which I chose to
show closed, is a drop fi t. The
lower wing section is a near perfect
fi t, needing no fi ller at all where it meets the
fuselage.
The only area which did need some
adjustment were the LEX’s, which required
some scraping on their inner faces just to
ensure a snug, level fi t. It is worth taking
some extra time in this area, as the LEXs
also incorporate part of the cockpit sills. So
any work done here to
improve the fi t will pay
dividends later on.Painting, Decals and Weathering
Deciding on the fi nal paint scheme wasn’t
hard. The two blues and grey is a striking
scheme and with the Russian fl eet of Yak-
130s now wearing it, I knew that was the one.
As luck would have it, Mr. Paint have also
released the three colours specifi cally required
for the YAK, these being: MRP 296 Light Grey,
MRP 297 Light Blue and MRP 298 Blue.A lot of preparatory
painting was done
prior to completion
of the fuselage
structure to ease
construction and
minimise the
masking of diffi cult
areas.Cockpit tub masked, the side
consoles are ready to be
painted.