This all started with a rather vintage (and perhaps quite collectible!) 1/72 Novo Lavochkin La-7. Mine was bagged, so there's no box art as such, but the header card is rather nice.
It even comes with a helpful painting guide on the back that I once again totally ignored except for appreciating the drawings and surprising quality of collectivized printing.
The rest of the kit is simple like the packaging.
Just in case anyone doubts its commie credentials, this bit of sprue will put that to rest.
Of course there was no way I was going to build it straight. I wasn't sure what I was going to do and then I noticed a prop problem.
Probably not a hard fix, but it gave me the idea to convert this baby to jet power.
I started by swapping out the busted kit prop for a large spinner I found rattling around the spares box. Then I blanked off the fuselage exhaust carve-out with pieces of card.
Since the kit canopy fits a Monogram P-36 (with a bit of kludging), I replaced it with a drop tank half. A spare 1/144 U-2 nose was used for the tailpipe.
Here's how it all looked before paint.
I forgot to mention that I amputated a small belly radiator and covered it with another slice of card.
Speaking of paint, acrylics and the old hairy stick were used, Model Masters Medium Gray mostly.
The canopy was tinted with Flat Black and then a couple of coats of Liquitex Artists' Gloss Medium were used to get it nice and shiny.
A bit of Model Masters Aluminum was used on the fan blades up front.
Lastly the exhaust end was painted in Model Masters Jet Exhaust.
The decals were all swiped from an Encore Polikarpov R-5.
It only took me a week to build this model but it took a while to get it posted because things have been busy at work. I'd like to thank Bill for his kindness in sending me this little gem of a kit!
I hope you enjoyed the Lavochkin La-13 Flambé and reading about yet another aircraft that ended up in the ash heap of history.
Brian da Basher