Dazzled's Mig-21PF - DONE

[shangos70]

Hopefully, I'll get some Akan paints soon. That'll reduce the stress a bit

Heritage do them £17.99 for 6 covering WWII through to modern Soviet / Russian. They will be at Tellford, plus they are on Ebay. I have a set that covers USSR 1978-1989

Hopefully I'll be at Telford and will check them out. I have three 1/48th Soviet kits in the stash, SU-7, MiG-15 and MiG-21, that are all gagging for the right coloured cockpit paint.

The cockpit colours are -
73005 Emerald green
73006 Emerald green ( faded) Mig 17-31 mil 8-24 and the first Mig 29
72040 A14 Steel Grey
73068 SU -24 interior grey
73069 blue/grey interior for SU-27 -34/35/37
73145 grey blue Su-25 interior
£2.85 a 15ml pot
Hope this helps

[Dazzled]

That is helpful to know. Thanks.

I have a list of Akan paints from Coastal Craft Models and am about to order a 6 pot set from them plus some A14 Steel Grey (£17.99 for the set and £2.85 for the separate pot). A sound investment, I hope. I'm going to Telford too so I'll keep an eye out for Akan paint there. I was under the impression that CC Models were the only UK supplier.

In the meantime, a little more Mig news

I finished foiling the fuselage.



Plus, the rear of the fuselage and intake ring got a nice coat of Humbrol Metalcote polished steel that was duly....polished. And a jolly nice finish it gives too.

I'd also managed to cover the ventral fin



Nice and shiny now .

There was a small issue with the tail planes (or horizontal stabilizers as Boeing keep referring to them at work)



This is the "after" picture. I'm sure I took a few before shots but my camera, or at least the memory card, seems to be throwing some kind of paddy (paddy = "sulking fit") so they are nowhere to be found. Anyhow, the issue is that the parts supplied by Fujimi feature tip nodes pointing forwards. These are common on -21bis and MF variants but I can't find references to a PF of this period carrying them. I found that the braking chute housing on the lower fin (NOT vertical stabilizer)was optional but these tip nodes were definitely missing. So, a couple of minutes of sanding and a modicum of rescribing saw the tail planes (sod off Boeing!) given a more prototypical shape.

Then, they were given a wallpapering with BMF and, together with the ventral fin, attached to the model. The remnant BMF in the mounting slots made all of them click into place very positively.



So here we are. My next mission is to get this baby on to it's wheels. Unfortunately progress will be hindered for the next 3 days by the modeller's old enemy....WORK . Three looong shifts that are, fortunately, followed by a few days off .

More updates in a day or four.

[Saxon]

Nice and shiny.

[ShaunW]

The cockpit colours are -
73005 Emerald green
73006 Emerald green ( faded) Mig 17-31 mil 8-24 and the first Mig 29
72040 A14 Steel Grey
73068 SU -24 interior grey
73069 blue/grey interior for SU-27 -34/35/37
73145 grey blue Su-25 interior
£2.85 a 15ml pot
Hope this helps

More than helpful I'd say Shangos, cheers for that.

[ShaunW]

That is really coming on a treat Dazzled, you are doing very well with the foiling technique I must say

Sod bloody Boeing, it's tail and tail planes, what do they know anyway?

[Chris]

Foiling looks good.

[Dazzled]

Well I got through the long shifts and have had a bit of a plug away at the Mig again.

Progress was slowed however by the necessity of having to move my modelling area due to some imminent home improvements. The area where my nice big bench was had to be cleared in order for some work to be carried out on the central heating system and for a wall to be demolished. This is my new modelling "home".



As you can see, it's a bit snug (read cramped) and has, in many obvious ways, been carved forcibly into the space under the stairs. Damage at this point is irrelevant as much of it will all be torn out eventually. At least this way I can keep modelling, and therefore de-stressing, throughout the building process and, for the first time in 4 years, I won't have to pack away my bench for the Christmas period. So despite the lack of space (good thing I'm slim ) it's largely a positive move.

As for the model, I'm at what I call the "extraneous accoutrements" stage. Undercarriage, control surfaces, weapons, aerials and various other lumps and bumps that tend to get stuck on at the end of the build to reduce the risk of snapping them off again. They still get snapped off but only 3 or 4 times usually .



This was at the beginning of the day. I'd done some painting last night after a whole day of traumatic bench moving and got everything organised into neat little groups ready for attaching when dry. It was while I was working my way through this lot, gluing bits on, watching them fall off (BMF doesn't like glue, I've found out ) and then re-attaching them that I thought I'd better have a look at the clear bits. I removed the canopy from the sprue and then discovered that it doesn't fit with the gun sight in place. OK, there has to be something of a challenge in a kit of this vintage but really, talk about a basic error. Anyhow, the gun sight is now a smear of Clearfix as that's the only way to get the canopy down.

Next came the task of recreating the inner line that MIg-21s have around some parts of the cockpit framing. Fujimi are very helpful here (NOT) in providing two separate and quite different paint options. I resorted to good old fashioned looking at pictures and decided to try Tamiya X-32 Titanium Gold.



However, I wasn't really happy with the way it came out so I wiped it off and painted over with XF-34 Metallic Brown (great name for a band I reckon). This looked much more like the pictures in my Mig-21 book .



When it's dry I'll remove the masking and apply BMF to the framing with well crossed fingers. This is all a bit of an experiment that could go horribly wrong at any moment.

And finally, here's the progress so far.



Control surfaces attached, some panels picked out in Metalcote for variation, wheels almost complete (the main wheel hub colour is a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Park Green and Intermediate Green) and the u/c is ready to go on. Again this was coloured from references that show the u/c legs were all metal rather than painted grey as Fujimi suggest.

So, it's at a plodding stage at the moment but progress is being made .

[ShaunW]

Now that is what I call a snug modelling area! if it keeps you going that's what's important. Nice bit of work on this Dazzled and some great attention to detail with the canopy. Your build is plodding a whole lot quicker than mine

[Sissel]

Cramped, but organised.
And lucky you not having to pack up for Christmas this time.

I see you have a 'long-table'. If you add candles, coffee mug, a beer, a plate with fruit and chocolate, that'd be a very cosy corner!

[Clashcityrocker]

Harry Potter would be pleased with what you've done with his old place.
I like the work on the Mig too.

Nigel

[fredk]

Thats a very smart looking MiG.
I presume you did well in your exams, so congrats to you.

[Ian]

Building work = lots and lots of dust! I'd keep a sheet of plastic handy to cover over your bench at the end of every session!

[Dazzled]

Thats a very smart looking MiG.
I presume you did well in your exams, so congrats to you.

The exam went very well indeed Fred. Thanks for asking.

[ShaunW]

Thats a very smart looking MiG.
I presume you did well in your exams, so congrats to you.

The exam went very well indeed Fred. Thanks for asking.

Sorry, I forgot to ask you about that Well, I'm glad it went well for you as I'm aware from your other posts that you've been studying hard!

[Dazzled]

Thanks Shaun. It was a lot of work but it really paid off. I don't remember finishing an exam with a grin on my face before. I'm usually sobbing .

Anyway, back to the Mig. With an awareness of time marching on a little and bearing in mind that I'm going away for a few days starting next Monday, I had another session at the bench this afternoon and evening.

I got the canopy finished to some degree, following much fiddling with scalpel and Bare Metal foil, and attached it.



Unfortunately the fit isn't the best. if I'd been building this conventionally, i.e. with a painted finish, I'd have blended this in, given the edge a quick rescribe and been away with the airbrush. This was a bit more of a poser. I settled on attaching thin strips of BMF over the gaps with Clearfix to stick them down. They still need a bit more burnishing and fettling but the result is a lot better than the original fit. A note to self for future builds of the other Fujimi Mig-21s in the stash is that this is definitely a canopy open model.

Then, after a further bout of failing BMFery and the distinct possibility of me hurling the things across the room, I decided that maybe a colour variation would be appropriate for the pylons and missile rails. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!



The rails are painted in Metalcote and the pylons in Alclad II lacquer. The photo fails to do them justice but they have a rather nice complimentary metallic sheen to them.

Then, with work progressing nicely and things drying, it seemed an appropriate time to put a few decals on.



The Print Scale sheet I bought is a bit lacking in stencils. Fortunately Fujimi are pretty generous in this aspect and, register problems with the main markings aside, the decals are very nice indeed, coming away from the backing sheet easily, being very nice to handle and going down nicely straight on to the BMF surface with a little Microset.

My intention was to just do a few as I have to be up at stupid o'clock in the morning but I was having so much fun that I got carried away and finished all the stencilling. So I thought.... Why not finish the decalling off while I'm here?



Print Scale's sheet has quite a few options that will be useful for future projects but, as I mentioned, there are no stencils. It's also good that I intend to get more use from them as I only needed to use a total of ten decals from this rather expensive sheet . It has given me some encouragement to get on and learn to print my own though, so it's not all bad .

One thing that was bad was the wrestling match I had to go through to get these on to the model. On the plus side they are very thin and have terrific colour accuracy and density. Unfortunately, handling them is like wrestling with an octopus on acid . It took quite a few attempts to get the things down flat and involved a lot of poking and prodding plus a couple of goes at floating them flat and laying them off from a scalpel blade. NOT FUN. The only good thing was that these decals are pretty strong so I didn't actually break any. Another quality these decals showed was that of quickly grabbing on to the surface so copious amounts of water and Microset were necessary.

But, eventually, I got them on.



I have that happy feeling that the end of this one is in sight