Internet Modeler : Features : Aviation RSS News Feed

Amodel 1/72 Ilyushin Il-40-2 "Brawny"

By Bill Osborn

I was cornered at the last IPMS Seattle meeting to a build article on the Amodel 1/72 Il-40. Probably because I was the only one to have built one and I've built more Amodel kits than anyone else in the club. So, here it is.

The kit is really very basic. Part fit is good for most parts (more on this later). After cleaning up the flash and sanding the mating surfaces comes the gluing! Starting with the nacelle assembly, there are no index locators so all body parts are butt-jointed. The top of the double nacelle pod is also the floor of the cockpit. I did not put the cockpit parts on until I had the pod completed. The aft engine face is not quite right and a cap shows up when the part is glued in. It's the same story with the forward turbine face, with gaps on the inboard side. Now that the power pod is in one piece the nose or main body can be started. Or, if you're like me and don't follow the instructions, the main body could be put together.

There are five parts to the body (if you don't count the aft gun barbette): two sides and three bulkheads. The bulkheads separate the two crew compartments. The crew must not have gotten along very well as there is about six feet between them. If you assembled the seats and other components in the cockpits, check the placement of the forward bulkhead for clearance with the seat. Now would be a good time to paint the interior parts and add any scratch items you feel are needed. I did not attach the gun barbette until the model was completed and painted. The reason was that with all the handling still to come I didn't want to break off the gun barrel. Also, that gaping hole made a great place to insert a rod to paint the model.

Now comes the nose section. Two sides and a wheel well for the nose gear, no problem. With all these parts aligned properly and glued down, I then ran into a problem. The canopies are too large; they sit high and wide on the body. I guess I could have worked the mating surfaces down, but that would have removed the whole lower frame of both canopies. The framing is rather heavy due to the armored glass, so what I did was to make a saw cut down the top of each one almost to the clear glass. That allowed me to squeeze the canopies together with super glue and hold them in place.

After putting the canopies in place, they were better but still oversize, standing proud on the sides and tops. Then the fun began, with lots of filler and sanding. I masked the canopies with a wide strip of Tamiya tape so the sanding stick wouldn't scratch them, then spread filler with a thin sweep, sand, and repeat until it's either straight or you just want to finish the model to be rid of it.

You will notice that I did not mention the wing assembly. They are made of three parts: upper, lower, and wheel well floor. I worked down the trailing edges so that they were only a couple of scale inches thick. Stuck in the landing gear support and glued the two halves together. Not putting the wings on until the fairing of the canopies is a good idea; wish I had thought of it before I glued the wings on.

For some reason the vertical  is comprised of three parts: the entire left side with the upper right side half, the lower left half, and a small chunk that must be a fairing of some kind. It all fit well, but the lower left panel lines did not match the upper panel lines. The horizontals are one part per side and have index locator pins.

After you are satisfied that everything is square, it's time to do the landing gear, unless you would rather wait until the model is painted. The gear doors just butt up to the body, so I glued a couple of tabs on each one to make a better bond. The box art shows one antenna mast, while the assembly drawings show three masts. The kit gives you the three masts and I chose that route because they look like horns. In any case I didn't use the kit parts. Any time there are any kind o small things that protrude enough to get knocked off I make them out of brass and bury them as deep in the model as I can.

After a couple of coats of primer and light sanding, I sprayed two coats of clear automotive lacquer as a base for the color coat.  There are no built-in antennas shown, so the whole thing was sprayed with two light coats of Alclad II semi-matte aluminum. On with the decals, wheels, antenna wire, wing lights, paint the two recesses on each side of the nose, stick on the rear gun barbette and this ugly critter was ready for the back of the display case.

For those wanting to tackle this kit, the Amodel Il-40 is available from Scale Model Kits.