Trumpeter TU-95 Bear-H
Comments
Alec KVery impressive build! Sad to hear about the kit quality. The riveting alone must have taken you weeks!
Danumurthi MahendraThanks, Alec! Thats pretty accurate on the riviting. Hardest is getting the mojo to do it. More often than not, motivation was elusive and far in between.
Danumurthi MahendraThanks, Ben. It was a PITA, but seeing the result, it was worth it.
Michael KohlYou massive effort shows. You turned this plastic junk into a show stopper. Absolutely impressive.
Danumurthi MahendraThanks, Villiers de Vos, and Michael.. you said it right on the "plastic junk" thing LOL
Thomas MayerDani, your build will be the bench mark for the next decades! I love it! One question though: where to put the finished build?
Łukasz GlińskiBeautiful build, looks like 72nd scale 👍
...ekhm 1/32 I meant of course 😄
NeulingIt is 1/72 scale. Wonderful finish, flawless result in spite of the poor kit!
Łukasz GlińskiLooks like I overllooked that part 😄 Where do you store such builds mates? 😮
Danumurthi MahendraThanks, Bernhard and all. Lukasz nd Thomas, a local model collector saw it on my socmed page and took it away. Its in a large glass cabinet now.
Danumurthi MahendraMuch thanks Neil, Neuling, and Carlo. In total, the wing measures 65cm, the fuselage 67cm, and height is 27cm
CarloNo worries Danumurthi. I thought my 1/144 Trumpeter 'Bear' was going to be big! Lovely job on your Tu-95
Gary VictoryReally impressive build Danumurthi...👍. Love the work and dedication on the riveting detail.
I have watched Phil Flory build this thing and he said fit issues with the engines especially bad.
Fantastic work on a monster build Sir.
Danumurthi MahendraThank you, Gordon and Finn. Yes, Gary - I saw Phil's video too. it was invaluable as it gave me some ideas of what to look out for!
Danumurthi MahendraI added a few more images showing the highlights during the WIP
Danumurthi MahendraYes, Alec. it was necessary. I started with 100 grams, then 200 grams gradually. Every now and then testing the balance. The landing gear was too forward so it was still tilting towards the tail until I gave it 400 grams
Ivan BctAwesome model ! Congratulation for your fantastic job ! you make me dream !
Alexander GrivonevFantastic Big Bad Bear👍 Looks amazing with the black background. 400 grams nose weight, really? wow 😄
Danumurthi MahendraHi Alexander, thx. The black sheet helped bring the details better. I think approx 400 grams is about right. I used 48 grams and smaller 33 grams conical weights. I glued five large and five smaller ones.
Album info
This is truly a "bear" of a kit. The main challenge was the massive size and it completely took over my entire workbench. the other issue was the quality of the kit: it was terrible (I am being gentle) with no surface detail and a horrible fit. Almost everything did not match up and a lot of effort was made to correct the fittings. in addition, most of the surface had a rough orange peel. The first order of business was to correct all the fitting, and the second was to 100% add rivets throughout the model (you can see them if you zoom in). The base paint was Gunze GX-1 Ueno Black gloss, and the rest of the metallic colours were AK Xtreme paints (dark aluminum, white aluminum, polished metal, titanium, burnt metal). other paints were Tamiya acrylics (flat green, dark grey, royal light grey) thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner. There was a stupendous amount of masking, never-ending masking tasks that almost drove me crazy. As this is a tail sitter, I added about 400 grams of lead weights in the forward fuselage, namely the nose and behind the cockpit. The other details were minors, adding a simple interior for the bomb bay, and lead solder for wiring of the landing gears. The final touch includes using E-Z Line to make the comms antenna near the vertical stabilizer.
