Those three kits have arrived lately.
All three are pretty expensive kits that I would love to start building anytime soon.
The Citroën have instructions in french only which might be a small problem.
New arrivals 31th of August 2023
USSR Aircraft Carrier Kiev – Trumpeter 1/550
This kit have been laying in my stash for several years, and now I got an opportunity to build it in a Soviet themed group build.
This kit can be motorized and supplied are 2 shafts, rubber hosing, propellars and clips for the batteries. As I got this kit 2nd hand, I’m not sure if engines also was supplied or if they’re supposed to be bought separately. There are nothing in the instructions telling how to install the engines or wiring and switch.
Anyway, I’m not doing it motorized as I only will have it sitting on my shelf. Luckily there are plastic shafts and scale propellars included in the kit. As I don’t want to risk breaking them while handling the model in the early stages of the construction, I skipped that step in the instructions for now.
Instead I started with the radar and whatever it is that sits on top of the main structure.
Then I started with the two topmost buildings.
Assembled!
Parts to the bottom part of the structure.
The stand also needed some attention!
Some filler was needed to sort minor gaps and other cavaties on the structure buildings.
More radar parts to assemble that needed some touches of putty.
To continue I needed to assemble more small parts. I also test fitted the building parts.
The underside of the hull had a seam that needed to be taken care of.
I test fitted the main deck which contains of three parts, here the aft.
And the front.
I also did a test fit of the main building.
A dozen small Yak-38 planes took a while to clean up.
I still need to figure what colours to paint them in as well as the helicopters that I haven’t started on yet.
Radar and search lights assembled.
Sometimes clamps are useful, like when holding parts to the hull while the glue dries.
Once the internal parts like bays for the boats was in place, I could glue the deck parts.
The instructions says the mid sections should be last, which I think is due to the motorized version where this part needs to be removable. But as there was a bit of a gap between the mid and rear section, I glued the rear section last, and will push the rear part of the hull forward to close that gap as much as possible instead.
One of the reasons for this is the raised detail on the deck, which makes using filler a bit harder without destroying the details. Not sure I can avoid that entirely, and I would have prepared decals for the helicopter pads and landing/start strip.
Some plastic and filler was needed to sort some seams and gaps. I’ll see how the rear seam turns out. In the front I have a slight step that needs to be taken care of as well.
Soon I can start painting. I just need to figure what paints to use, as I don’t use or have Gunze colours.