A tale of two trainers pt. 2

Decals are on! They looked good on the sheet, and it was very clear that they were quite thin. And yep: They did cause problems.



The wrong head rests (see previous installment) are very visible!



Two different versions of Sylvester the cat on the tail. I see now that control surfaces are not very visible, especially on the rudder. Too late for scribing so I'll try accentuation with pencil later.



That "N" looks odd... this was one of the decals that gave me problems. Can probably be solved by some very careful touching up with paint.



The national marking on the lower wing is slightly too large. I ruined it (it folded up and exploded into a zillion pieces when I gently tried to seperate the folded layers) so I had to consult my decal bank for a replacement.

I should box in those wheel wells. Dunno how I could forget that.



Some progress has been made on the Iskra as well.

There is no sidewall detail in the cockpit area and I didn't add any, as I expect it will not be visible through the rather thick canopy anyway. The kit does supply cockpit floor, sticks, seats and instrument panels but the panels are without instrument details (completely flat). The decal sheet does not supply instrument panels either so I made my own using pics found on the internet. They were taken at an oblique angle but the perspective correction tool in my graphics package warped the panels into the correct shape. I them just printed them in the correct size on plain paper (I had run out of decal paper) and glued in place. The only other additions to the cockpit were seatsbelts.





This is a short run kit and it shows. The surface is slightly rough on most parts (similar to old Heller kits), probably intended to help paint adherence. The moulds are a bit worn, however, so there are completely smooth areas on some parts such as the wings. I will have to sand down the entire surface in preparation for the natural metal finish.

Panel lines are quite nice, though.




And speaking of the finish... I wanted to do the Indian option on the decal sheet. The painting and decalling instructions didn't match the decals themselves, so I decided to buy the Indian boxing of Master Craft's Iskra from ebay. At £3.30 it was slightly more expensive than my first Iskra, bought at Jadar Hobby for €2.40.



The Indian boxing proved to be even more enigmatic. According to the box it included four decal options - Polish as well as Indian. On opening the box I found a decal sheet with just one Indian option - but with a load of stencils not present in the other boxing! Strangely the instruction sheet (including painting and decalling instructions) are identical in the two kits. Decals from the Polish boxing on the left, Indian boxing on the right.



As expected fit of the major parts were so so, but nothing that a bit of putty and sanding can't take care of. I'm still optimistic about this one.





As I bought the Indian boxing just for the decals, I have one complete Iskra kit with Polish decals that needs a good home. Any takers?





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CD