Interflug Iljushin IL-62M

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 

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. 

This decision significantly lessened my hesitation to sand the illfitting cockpit window piece into submission. 

 

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.  

Actual state after blending in the cockpit windows. I bit of rescribing to be done. Otherwise I am quite happy with it. 

The air intake at the wingroot is quite a prominent feature of the IL-62. 

The kit parts are pretty crude and it was clear right after cracking open the box that adjustments were wanted. 

It took several attempts to come to a result I could live with. 

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. 

All gaps were carefully filled with superglue. Care was taken to minimise the need for sanding and thus the risk to loose fine details. 

Starts looking like a plane. Another coat of primer will follow, then rescribing and polishing. 

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. 

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.  

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. 

Looks ok to me now. 

The engines. I put a bit of effort into them. Starting with the removal of a prominent mold line at the intakes. 

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. 

Paint is on. 

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. 

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. 

Final appearance and test fit. 

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 

Rescribing lost details and fixing flaws of this procedure 

Polishing is next 

Done 

Colored the steel leading edges first. 

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.