Romanian IAR-81 C in 1/32 from Special Hobby
This was my first kit in 1/32 scale and it was a though one. It was a long run project, I started to document it since September last year in order to have as much as possible a clearer picture of what I can do. Used also some goodies: resin wheels, interior decals from Quinta Studio, paint masks for the clear parts, beside some scratch build.
About the kit: it was a long struggle of dry fitting, filing and sanding, again dry fitting and back to filing and sanding, rinse and repeat. One has got to pay close attention to every subassembly in this kit, the parts do not fit properly in like 75% cases. With a lot of patience you can get it where you want. Especially problematic is the landing gear, there is no chance of fitting it as it comes, you need to file it down and check the fitting, best to do it before you assemble the wings in order to have better access to the landing gear bay. To put it shortly: the best strategy with this kit is to take every piece off the sprue, clean it provisionally, put it in a box and then start dry fitting everything to see how it goes together and what needs to be done. But it is also a very well detailed kit and it gives you a wonderful representation of this Romanian fighter. For the scratch build: I made the brake lines from 0.5 mm lead wire and the air intake in front of the cockpit from aluminium sheet of a soda can.
Hope you'll enjoy it.
Great job all around, George.
Lots of elbow grease, but a beautiful result! Looks fantastic!
Fantastic IAR, George!
Superb looking IAR, George @georgedamian
Looks great in Romanian scheme.
Strikingly beautiful. Love this airplane, have this kit in the stash.
Very well painted, and weathered. Great detail on those landing gear legs. Fabulous all round.
Having built this kit myself, you are entirely right about every difficulty you described, George @georgedamian.
You have definitely achieved a victory of talent and stubbornness over plastic here, with a beautiful result.
All your hard work was worth it, George, it may have taken a while to complete it, but you must be very pleased with the result.
Superb build and finish George. Your persistence on getting it done has worked wonderfully 😊
@thom, @chinesegeorge, @tcinla, @billkoppos, @johnb, @fiveten, @gkittinger, @gwskat - thank you guys for your nice words, really glad you enjoyed it!