Hey guys (and girls),

I have bin away here, far to long. I like to share with you my Lavochkin La-5F build. Its the La-5F from Ivan Kozhedub. This is the aircraft that he scored his most kills with (although most people think he got his most kills flying the La-7). He got this plane in may 1944. It has tex written on the sides. This text was put there due a gift from a farmer Vasily Konev. His nephew , a fighter pilot died at the front. His name was Gregory Konev. The number on the plane was 14.

There is only one kit of the La-5F, from Vector resin. This kit is approx 80 euro's, and hard to get. I have chosen to do a cheaper solution by combining Zvezda's La-5 and La-5FN kits. Even when i bought the True details wheels, AML decal set, Eduard flaps and interior set, it was still cheaper than the Vector kit. The cherry on top is that the Zvezda kit is detailed better than the Vector La-5F. To combine these two i had to dig deep into the evelution and design of the La-5, and the Zvezda kits. In a nutshell, you need the La-5 nose, upper wingroots (without the protective plating on the wing) and La-5FN fuselage and lower wing section and upper wingtips. Photo's wil follow soon...

Regards,

Remco

Some photo's...

Here we have some pieces of the nose section we need to make the propper ajustments. The needed exhaust and exhaustcover are in the AML decal set,as extra.

Also i wanted to open the maintanence hatch.this i had to scratchbuild myself. Also the interior has to be extended. This stops right next to the hatch.

A little bit more detailing than usual has been done to make it nicer.

Regards,

Remco

Nice progress so far Remco, I'll be following your build as I have both the Zvezda kits and the Eduard boxings of them.
One day I may get around to building them

Hey Luciano,

Wel, if want to build them straight out of the box, the Zvezda's wil be good. Some minor tweeks here and there, and your'e fine. The Eduard is a bit disapointing. Not much detail, and some errors.

I can recomend the Eduard upgrades and weighted wheels for taking the Lavochkins to a level they desereve. For approx 40€, you have a real nice representation of the Lavochkin. I go even further to have the Karaya M-82 resin engine in them! The only thing is that the kit is designed, to leave the engine exposed. If you want to close it up, you have to trimm some of the engine off. Don't worry, you won't see it.

Regards,

Remco

Here are some photo's off the work in progress

The seat doesn't have a cushion at the back. I made it myself with a piece of evergreen, and carved the profile in it. This is made of some artificial leatherlook fabric.


Here i made some internal details that are not in the kit. oxygen bottles, battery case (in front of the maintanence hatch). The strange white things on a wire are the fuel filters. I use the MBI books of the La-5 and La-7 for information. I saw they made a error with the location of the oxygen bottles. In the MBI books they state that the oxygen bottles were on the same location as the FN and La-7 series. On other drawings they are located on the right side, standing under the radioshelf. They were later relocated. Also the radio is posisioned different than on the drawings.

Regards,

Remco

Remco,
Certainly a very interesting conversion that I'll be following closely. Your scratch built additions do add quite a lot to the already well detailed interior. the opened up fuselage access panel is very well done.

Looking forward to your next update.
Joel

Joel,

The fuselage access panel was very easy to build, to my surprice. I used two sheets of evergreen, punched a hole in it with my punch set and glued this thoughetter. I punched a smaller round out, and put it in the hole. The ''grid reinforcemend'' i made from the smallest evergreen sprue and glued the grid on the back. All work was done in two hours (including drying time). I do a lot of overdetailing here, because i want to build all wartime Lavochkins. I simply don't know what you see and what not to see...

Regards,

Remco

Here i have sprayed the interior of the plane. I used Vallejo primer, Akan A-14 Grey, a brown filter from mig and some highlighting with WEM Soviet navy grey colors.













I hope you like it!

Regards,

Remco

Now that everything has been weatherd, i put the interior thougetter.













The wheel section is also ready



Regards,

Remco

The fitting of the fuselage was oke. Due to my own scratchbuilding, the left part of the fuselage, by the cockpit, was a bit off. I filled it up with a thin part of Evergreen.
The plane is airbrushed with Valejo primer black and grey. Black for the wooden parts and grey for the metal parts. The basecolors are Akan AMT-11 grey for the upper side and AMT-7 blue for the underside. The flaps are hollow and i decided to paint them first before closing them up.











Regards,

Remco

Remco,
The cockpit and interior with your added details looks fantastic. Those PE flaps really look quite good.
Joel

Hey Joel,

I can reccomend the flaps. It definetly adds somethingbto the model. It requires fewer work than i thought. I have also the flaps on the mig-3, but thats a horrible job and a lot of sanding, trimming and cutting... The cockpit was a real joy to do. Info (i have the MBI books) was good. All the wires are made from one part. I bend it all over the place, like the real thing.

Regards,

Remco

If you have the AML two seat conversion, and if the canopy of La-5F is the exact same as La-5FN, note the AML conversion has TWO full excellent vacu-form canopies, and the forward two pieces are much more accurate on AML than Zvezda (horizontal bar height, windscreen shape etc): I would not consider building a La-5FN without it (Hannants may still have them)...

Gaston

Hi Gaston,

I personally don't have the AML uti set. I have seen it, but its low on my Lavochkin list. Wartimers first. Maybe i build one later. Its also expensive for only the vacuform hood. This set is € 20,-. You also have a La-7 uti conversion set. I have used the Rob Taurus canopies for the La-7. This set is € 2,-. I think Pavla has a set dedicated Zvezda set. When i started buying the Lavochkin family, the Pavla set was not existing. You can use the Taurus set for the Zvezda kits. The only thing you can't use, is the rear part. This due the narrow spine fuselage of the Eduard La-7. But the rear part of the Zvezda kit is perfect. Also Loon Models has a nice conversion set to build a La-5F. The only thing is that its one euro more than a Zvezda La-5. So that is why i build it this way. And i have some spare parts for other Lavochkin projects.

Regards,

Remco

here i have painted the plane in the basecolors. I used Akan acryllics for the first time and it was works great! You can mix the normal paint with Tamiya X21 thinner for airbrush use. The bottom was painted in AMT-7 blue. The upper side was painted first in AMT-11 grey, and then AMT-12 dark grey was used to paint the camouflagge bloches. When i was done i sprayed the whole plane in Alclad 600 acrylic laquer. This was done to protect the basecolor from weathering.













I have never build or painted a plane, so this is my first...

Regards,

Remco

Hi Remco,
That all looks very nice If you go into the edit for your posts and remove the word "thumbnail" from the picture titles (don't forget to remove the / as well otherwise you will end up with // which will not work).

Remco,
Your build is excellent to start with, and even more so since it's your 1st aircraft. Very impressive.
Joel

Hi Mal,

I will have a look how it works. I am not so good with computers. I always wanted to start a campaign here, but i just don't know how the whole computer thing with the banners and maintanence the whole thing.

Hi Joel,

Thanks for the support. I like it very much. Mainly i build armor, and this is sort of a vacation.

Hi Remco,
I've had a look at the picture info (right click and choose "view image info") and there is no "thumbnail" tag within the code this is what you get:

http://s20.postimg.org/ex8ufcp4p/La_5_F_001.jpg

It actually acts as a link to the larger picture and when the picture is clicked on you get the larger version which is very big, the image info for this is:

http://s20.postimg.org/csohe9ni4/La_5_F_001.jpg

You can see the difference, so that piece changes but there is no obvious correlation between the 2, I checked another picture and there doesn't appear to be any logic, so probably randomly generated. You might try clicking on the picture to make it larger before posting? However they are pretty big and need to be around 800 pixels wide.

No worries, just info

Mal,

Thanks for the help! That why were here on this forum. I will have a look and start experimenting.

I did some experimenting on the photo's to make them bigger, but without result...
Here i have put on the AML decals. They went on perfect.







...and some other parts ready



Regards,

Remco