Thanks Guys
,
Time for an update on my Su-34 Sea Flanker. From the start, I was planning to put vector thrust nozzle on her. Amigo Models has a beautiful set of nozzles for Great Wall Su-35. But it’s going to take some work to get them to fit the Hobbyboss Su-34 kit.
The Amigo nozzles consisted of 5 parts. I needed to get part RP03 to fit the Hobbyboss kit. Moreover, this area on the kit had far less detail than the Amigo part. And I did not want to just add the resin swivel part of the kit. And after cutting away the kit area and checking how close the Amigo part is to the kit. Yeah! It wasn’t going to be that easy. The diameter of the kit where I cut it off at was 30.33mm and the Amigo part was 26mm. The length of the cut off kit part was 11mm. So, I need to make a part that goes from 30.33mm to 26mm in the space of 11mm.
For my blank, I measured 11mm in a small disposable cup and glued a short piece of brass tubing at the center of the cup. And poured in some resin up to my 11mm mark. Once cured, I popped it out of the cup and mark a 30mm circle on one side and a 26mm on the other. I then chuck it into my cordless drill and sanded the angle from 30mm to 26mm slowly. Once I was happy with both sides, I had to remove the brass tubing as well as open the hole so that inner part of the Amigo nozzle (RP05) will fit inside of it.
With my Dremel, I open the hole in my blank so that the Amigo pass through it. There is a gap from my part to the Amigo part but once together, you cannot see it.
Here you can see my engine part and the Amigo part on the model. As well as great straight cutting abilities.
Got to fill in that gap! I then molded my engine part and cast a copy for the other side.
I did not like how the horizontal stabilizers of the Hobbyboss kit came together. There is a small open/vent? At the base of it which after gluing the two halves together, required a bit of clean up. The horizontal stabilizers from the Kinetic kit had much better surface detail and was molded in one piece and the rudder is positionable. So, I molded and cast a set of stabilizers to use on my Sea Su-34. With her new resin stabilizers, I didn’t want a simple butt joint on the stabilizers to the body. Some pins of some sort going into the body would be much stronger. Locating the pin in the stabilizers as well as in the body can be tricky. So, I made a jig to mark the location of the pins in both the stabilizers and the body.
Once marked and drilled in the stabilizers, I can them place the jig on the body and do the same knowing the holes will line up. I super glued some tubing in the stabilizers and larger diameter tubing in the body. The tubing in the stabilizers slide inside the tubing in the body.
When I mock it all up, I ran into a few problems with the new tail planes. The tail planes are from the Kinetic Su-33 kit and I have to recreate the way they mount on the Hobbyboss kit. Which means filling and reshaping the area and drilling a hole in the correct location so the pin in the Kinetic tail plane will work on the Hobbyboss kit.
I also have to trim a bit off the inboard part of the plane so my new engine part fit.
Here you can see the area that was filled, reshaped to fit the Kinetic tail plane. I also filled, sanded and rescribe panel lines where the resin stabilizers and body meet.
Here she is with her custom engine accessories, tail planes and resin stabilizers in place. I noticed that I didn't post about how I got her folding wing parts on.
Opp! Next post I guess!
Thanks for stopping by!
Steven L 
