Interflug Iljushin IL-62M

1
July 30, 2024
At first glace fit of the major parts was good. Unfortunately I didn't manage to glue the window parts level with the fuselage. So I had to fill the windows that lay too deep. I used plastic putty. A decision I was to regret
2
July 30, 2024
The basic parts of the cockpit were just glued together as I didn't want to have the cockpit windows transparent but use the Authentic Airliners decals.
3
July 30, 2024
This decision significantly lessened my hesitation to sand the illfitting cockpit window piece into submission.
4
July 30, 2024
5
July 30, 2024
Another layer of putty with Mr. Surfacer 500. When wet sanding the Plastic Putty partly dissolved thus those areas needed a redo - or two - or three.
6
August 1, 2024
Actual state after blending in the cockpit windows. I bit of rescribing to be done. Otherwise I am quite happy with it.
7
August 1, 2024
The air intake at the wingroot is quite a prominent feature of the IL-62.
8
August 1, 2024
The kit parts are pretty crude and it was clear right after cracking open the box that adjustments were wanted.
9
August 1, 2024
It took several attempts to come to a result I could live with.
10
August 1, 2024
While the upper and lower wing halves went together easily, quite a decent gap remained between fuselage and wing even after forcing them together with various clamps and glues.
11
August 1, 2024
All gaps were carefully filled with superglue. Care was taken to minimise the need for sanding and thus the risk to loose fine details.
12
August 1, 2024
Starts looking like a plane. Another coat of primer will follow, then rescribing and polishing.
13
August 2, 2024
I was surprised to have a sand color suggested for the wheel hubs while the rest of the landing gear was grey. But checking the references confirmed this recommendation and so XF55 it was.
14
August 2, 2024
Here with the finished basic paint job and the PE parts that are supposed to represent the brake disks. Well - the real stuff looks quite differently.
15
August 2, 2024
Alignment of the wheels was annoying. I only managed to achieve a decent result after I inserted a brass tube stubb into the wheels and another brass tube stubb onto the axles onto which the wheels were slid.
16
August 2, 2024
Looks ok to me now.
17
August 7, 2024
The engines. I put a bit of effort into them. Starting with the removal of a prominent mold line at the intakes.
18
August 7, 2024
I wanted to use the PE parts but they weren't easy on me. The engines have a grid in front of the compressor blades and I wanted to show them as separate parts. After the blades were twisted a bit to represent the natural angle they have I needed a spacer between blades and grid. Some styrene circles provided that.
19
August 7, 2024
Paint is on.
20
August 7, 2024
The grid in front of the blades has a decent depth which is not represented by the PE parts. So I sanded the blades off the kit part until only the grid was left and used this. On top you see the flat PE grid and below the blades the modified kit parts. At right the turbine stage.
21
August 7, 2024
Annoyingly the diameter of the blades was a few tenth of a millimeter too big to fit into the cowling. Sanding the blades would most likely have twisted them. So all four cowlings had to be enlarged to house the first compressor stage. Here this is done. The fan blades are assembled and ready to be mounted.
22
August 7, 2024
Final appearance and test fit.
23
August 7, 2024
The inside of the cowling is painted grey and then masked. The stainless steel edge of the cowling were sprayed next. More paint stages to follow
24
August 30, 2024
Rescribing lost details and fixing flaws of this procedure
25
August 30, 2024
Polishing is next
26
October 24, 2024
Done
27
October 24, 2024
Colored the steel leading edges first.
28
October 25, 2024
The last details to paint and add. The fuselage needs two lights and a couple of drills where antennas ought to be. Landing gear needs some touch ups too as the Montex masks didn't perform well. Apart from that I obviously lost the part where the front landing lights attatch at the nose landing gear. So I fashioned a replacement from rudder pedals from my Bugatti racer build.
29
December 18, 2024
The lights at the rear wing root were cut out and replaced by chunks of clear sprue.
30
December 18, 2024
Sanded to shape the were blended in again. Doesn't look like much of a difference though. Maybe it'll look a bit better when polished and with the wings painted.
31
December 18, 2024
Another detail I wanted to improve was the exhaust of the APU. For that a syringe was cut, trimmed and sanded to shape. Final positioning will be near the end.
32
December 18, 2024
The IL-62M featured two lights at the side of the fuselage (red arrow). Only one was represented as an engraving. I wanted to replicate both.
33
December 18, 2024
My trusted tools for that. A piece of 1.8 mm syringe was cut and filled with a piece of Evergreen rod. A lens was fashioned from thick soft aluminum sheet and the glas was punched out from transparent sheet.
34
December 18, 2024
Here are the parts and a finished lens.
35
December 18, 2024
Inserted into the fuselage
36
December 18, 2024
37
December 21, 2024
Using 0.1 mm wire to replicate the lighting deflection stripes (or however they are called) of the radon nose
38
December 21, 2024
Bought KV Models' masking set for the leading edges. To my unpleasant surprise it came without instructions. Obviously KV Models deems the modeller to be intelligent enough to figure the whereabouts of the masks out by himself.
Well, I stuck them somewhere but it would have been much more convenient with a little sheet explaining where to put them. Furthermore the masks entrenched my already deeply routed scepticism towards plastic masks. They just don't perform as well as Kabuki paper ones. Here too.
39
December 21, 2024
After I finished the details I had wanted to add, a layer of Mr. Color GX-2 Ueno Black forms the base for the paint job. Which hopefully can finally be started.
40
December 25, 2024
Gloss black is merciless. So in for another round of filling and sanding. The tip of the right wing broke off and a piece of styrene was glued in to fill the defect.

Comentários

27 30 July, 07:20

Zbynek Honzik
Taking a seat and I keep my fingers crossed that the building will be joyful and successful, Michael!

30 July, 09:33

Mr D
Really like the subject 😁👍👍 Good stuff, l built one as a boy in the 1990's

30 July, 12:13

Łukasz Gliński
Can't miss an IF project 👍
That windshield is terrible - what's your plan for it?
And most importantly - are you going to build Lady Agnes? 🙂

30 July, 14:27

Michael Kohl
Hi mates. Nice to have your interest and you on board. Thanks Zbynek. So far it took much more effort than I expected. Lets see how it continues.
@Mr D: childhood memories. I suppose you build it in scale 1:100? VEB Plasticard?
Lukasz, I bent and glued it und sanded it flush afterwards. As I will use the Authentic Airliner decals for the cockpit windows, they do not need to be transparent.

30 July, 19:16

Mr D
Hi Michael 👋,
Yes it was the Veb version, very basic....but l was enjoying building it as fast as l could.... Glue finger prints n all 🤣
Can you sort the cockpit glass ?? Surprised.... Zvezda usually very good.
Thanks for your upload..... I'm big Soviet era fan.

30 July, 20:20

Łukasz Gliński
Good choice Sir, the AA window decals are super cool.
Unfortunately some of their livery decals have some errors.

30 July, 20:24

Michael Kohl
Yeah, I was surprised by the fit issue too. On the upside are definitely very fine and consistent engravings which I hope to preserve.
And - by the way - it won't be Lady Agnes¹. I like to represent the plane I flew to Moscow with. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this particular aircraft and am thus not sure about it's actual registration. The history of some a/c is available to me, so I can rule out some. And I photographed two parked IL-62M too while taxiing which I can rule out too.
With these informations I ruled out registration: SEW, SEC, SEF, SEG, SEY and SEK. So right now I will go for registration DDR-SET.

¹ a word for those not familiar with Lady Agnes. She is obviously an IL-62M too and was flown to Stölln. After being stripped of everything unnecessary she landed on a 900m grasstrip (how on earth did they manage to get a permission for that?!) and is used now as a Cafe there in it's original Interflug livery.
You've never heard of Stölln? It is located in the federal state of Brandenburg, about 40km west of Berlin and is the oldest aviation site on earth and in the history of mankind. No other that Otto Lilienthal tested some of his gliders there.

31 July, 06:57

Robert Podkoński
Watchimg with pleasure! Of course, I remember VEB Plasticard kit very well 😉 And thanks for the interesting story!

31 July, 07:10

bughunter
Oh, a very personal project - watching! Sorry, I digged so deep into my build that I missed yours.
So I'm now in and good luck!
Regarding putty: I'm now a fan of Tamiya light curing putty which hardens quickly with UV light.
If wee meet again I like to hear more background about this trip and can provide other insights 😉

1 August, 21:14

Michael Kohl
Hi Frank. No reason for apologies. You are welcome anytime.
Looking forward to our next meeting.

2 August, 14:10

Spanjaard
a bit late, but I am in. nice detail added in this intakes

3 August, 20:50

Ben M
💺

3 August, 21:01

Mr D
Looking good, really nice shaped Airliner 👍
Do you use the black to find imperfections?? Or is it a pre-shading??
I'm in process of building the Veb Be-6 Soviet flying boat, and may help me to do similar.
Thanks for your uploads... Like anything from Soviet era n russian.

3 August, 21:12

Michael Kohl
Welcome mate. Always nice to have you around.
Yes, Mr D, I use the black primer to identify imperfections as the grey one is too close to the plastic color and with the white one, flaws are not that visible. The downside is that it takes a lot of color to cover the black. So next time I will most likely go for a lighter primer color.

4 August, 10:19

Shar Dipree
Following!

4 August, 10:39

Mr D
Thanks 👍👍 for letting me know, l built the Yak-3 made by Zvezda, lit was quite nice to build, some of the fine parts were really accurate, but then it was bit gapy around the wing, but otherwise pretty good.

4 August, 11:08

Michael Kohl
Welcome Shar.
Construction and first paint stages of the engines done.

7 August, 06:59

Mr D
Nice to see the update on this one 😀.
The PE parts give a more crisp realistic effect.
Good stuff 👍👍

30 August, 20:03

DuperScale
Awesome, i'll follow

30 August, 20:45

Michael Kohl
Welcome. Another set of blemishes is fixed and the primer coat repaired. A light sanding with grid 1200 ensured a good base for the polishing steps which will be next. No pics as all looks more or less the same.

3 September, 16:23

Landlubber Mike
Hey Michael - really beautiful subject you are modeling here and it's looking fantastic! I thought the fit issues on my JRS-1 made for a complicated build - this kit makes my JRS-1 look like it's a Tamiya kit! You did a really great job getting around that canopy issue and the PE engine fans are a really nice upgrade. Well done!

11 September, 15:48

Alexander Grivonev
Oh man, two steps forward one step back. What, a grind, keep it up!

11 September, 16:22

Ben M
I just finished this book, might be interesting to you: a.co/d/c2WPeYB

11 September, 17:07

Mr D
Good work take's time, it's coming along nicely, good subject.... worth getting how you want it.
Like it 👍👍👍

11 September, 18:53

Michael Kohl
Welcome mates and thanks for your encouragement and tips. Hope to continue in about a week.

14 September, 08:04

Michael Kohl
One round of polishing didn't result yet in the desired effect. So, in for another one.

27 September, 11:44

Michael Kohl
Started the paint job with the leading edges of wings, vertical and horizontal stabilizer. Started with Alclad stainless steel after another two rounds of sanding and polishing the wings. Unfortunately even a very thin mist of this color ate at the primer, dissolving it partly. Second attempt was done with Mr. Metalcolor 213 steel. This worked but gave a much less nice finish. As you can polish this color range I did that and got close to the Alclad finish by this. But with polishing I partly lost coverage at the trailing edges. These defects could be restored with the application of UvdR pigments Steel. Next will be the grey lower parts

24 October, 22:54

Zbynek Honzik
I'm glad to see, Michael, that you're making good progress with the project.
What primer did you use? I've had very good experiences with Alclad, so I'm surprised that Alclad has eaten into the primer.
Fingers crossed!

25 October, 12:56

Michael Kohl
Not all the Alclads do it the same way. I found stainless steel and airframe aluminum to be particularly aggressive. Primer was Mr. Surfacer 1500.

25 October, 13:28

Zbynek Honzik
Oh, that's some stuff! 🧐
Admittedly, I've never sprayed Alclad stainless steel and airframe aluminum on surfacer, but always on polished Mr.Color C. And I've never had a similar experience. I usually paint the metallic leading edges and air inlets last before decalling. But I wouldn't say at all that these paints will behave that way.
I've used Alclad on a polished Mr.Surfacer before, it was fine, but I haven't used these Alclads.
So I learned something important again. Thank you, Michael!
Well, I hope things are going well for you now without any tricky surprises. 👍

25 October, 18:45

Łukasz Gliński
I think there might also be a difference between these old Alclads and the 2nd generation (not mentioning the MiG rebottlings). I have a sample of each and the older it is the more agressive it seems.

25 October, 19:14

Michael Kohl
In my case the two shades mentioned were aquired last.
I was pondering to do the metallic parts first or last. I think masking is easier this way. Let's see how it further progresses. I actually was highly motivated to go for the grey but had then to realise that a bit of detail stuff is required first.
Thanks guys for your input.

25 October, 20:33