AVIA B-534 IV serie

[Wolfpack]

After building the Greif, I decided on this for a rest. As is the norm with Eduard's latest kits, the quality of the moulding is superb. As a bonus and fast becoming the standard for Eduard kits, you also get canopy masks and a colour etched fret. I'm hoping to finish this as a Luftwaffe aircraft, otherwise it's an OOTB model.

Box and contents

Progress so far. The interior is well on the way. It would help if I had some decent superglue for the etch, but we work with what we've got.

One thing though, the kit suffers with Eduard's habit of minute locating points for smaller parts. As there isn't a reasonable glueing area, they tend to fall off with monotonous regularity. The 'V' frame behing the radiator being a case in point.

The cockpit is basic for an aircraft of this era.

Wish me luck.

W

[MikeC]

So I'm not the only one who's built one - I've done a III serie and have another two (one of each) in the stash.

You'll enjoy it - it's looking good so far.

[Wolfpack]

Muchos modelling time finished, SWMBO has returned from her trip, so here's the latest.

Cemented the fuselage halves together. The tail section is fine, but from the cockpit forward, sheesh! The radiator, that fitted so well to one fuselage and looked fine during the test fit, is keeping the lower fuselage in step mode. This has had a knock on to the top fuselage. I held it together whilst drying and it's about as good as it gets.

As there is some filling to do at the lower wing roots, I added those as well, a simple jig to get the 12.9mm dihedral angle worked fine. Sorry about the glare, but I get early morning sun onto the modelling desk.

W

[InFlames]

I hope you'll overcome that bad fit with some putty and sanding paper without much hassle... 534s are really cool looking planes

[Dric]

I love Czech aircrafts

I will look forward for your work.

Dric

[Wolfpack]

Progress to date.

As you can see, the lower wings, tail empenage and cowling are on. The latter needs some work to fit, it's slightly narrower than the fuselage!!!!!

There are raised fasteners on here, some of which were removed during the fitting. Looking at enlarged photos of the cowling, they are recessed anyway, so have been represented by small recesses drilled into position.

The tail pieces required a touch with a file and that's it.

A serious look at the struts tomorrow if I get time and the rigging positioning.

W

[Wolfpack]

Home from work on Saturday evening, a little relaxation, some kip and was greeted by this on Sunday morning :

So on with the Avia say's I. Putting on the undercarriage, I determined the best way to go, because of Eduard's almost minute locating pegs for said , was to build the struts off the model.

Even so, some superglue was required to get them to STAY in place. Same problem for the wing struts. Starting with the fuselage (are these 'cabane' struts?), the damn things would not fix firmly enough. Same went for the wing struts. They are all nice and thin and look bloody marvelous, but try cementing them on. Anyway, when they were as rigid as they were going to be, the top wing was fixed into place to my baseboard (upside down of course) and the fuselage moved carefully into position. Every strut fell off, some more than twice. So having cursed the cat and all other animate and inaimate objects around at the time , perseverance paid off .

Adding a small amount of superglue to each struts mating surface, has given me a good, firm join. I used the extra canopy, masked just in case I ruined the open one, as a cockpit mask for priming and painting. Works a treat but does fall off when the model is upside down. Watch those feet .

Anyway, this is the scheme I have chosen to do:

The original artwork reckoned it was in the Czech scheme of khaki and light grey. The Czech publication by CMK shows it to be a very different shade when compared to the khaki. So, I'm going for RLM 02 over light grey, much nearer a match to the CMK illustration. The two colours can be seen here:

Thanks to the snow, I have now reached the 'Sticker Stage', having printed the devil emblem on some white inkjet transfer sheet and sealed it with Mergelbeaver.

For the rigging, I intend to use Aeroclub's fine brass wire, hand cut by J.A. himself with sales assistance (and much more) from the lovely Claire.

W

[MikeC]

Looking good.