Mav's Cold War Builds

[ShaunW]

That looks great Adam. If there's one thing that bugs me with models of jet aircraft it is the stencils. Usually there's loads of them and after applying about a dozen I've had enough!

[IronMan129]

Yeah Decals can be a pain but they do bring the model more to life.
I built the ordinance today before going to work, there's no point posting a pic as everyone has seen the MiG-31's ordinance.
I plan on putting a layer of Klear over the decals tonight then I'm going to use some really dark grey for the wash as black might be too dark against a light grey.

[IronMan129]

Well at the start of tonight I was very happy with the MiG-31.......that ended when I tried to weather it.
I'm going to try and save what I can but im not gonna be trying to weather a model for a long time to come.

[shangos70]

Shame it's not worked for you bud. I never weather mine, for one I don't really have the skill and two I don't want to ruin it when it's taken a good while to get there.

[ShaunW]

That's bad news Adam and I hope that you can salvage it. I weather military vehicles as a matter of course and have a good enough idea of what I'm doing to be reasonably confident. With aircraft though I find that it's a very different ball game and I have none of the confidence that I have with vehicles. I've lost count of how many times I've bottled out of panel washes and I applied some exhaust stains by airbrush to the Airfix new tool Lancaster that I built the other year, a modelling technique first for me and found it stressful and very hard going!

[IronMan129]

Thanks guys, it is very stressful, what I'm working towards now is a very "Russian" dirty look so it involves a lot of washes and oil runs using an airbrush mainly to hide were I've messed up trying to take off the wash and its started to effect the paintwork.
I'm beginning to get a little happier with it so I'll post a pic later on tonight.

[Dazzled]

I'm afraid it tends to be trial and error with weathering mate and Russian equipment is very hard to judge, so there's quite a bit of leeway with regards to dirtiness and dodgy paint. I'm sure some Soviet aircraft came from the factory pre-weathered .

[IronMan129]

Here is a pic of how she looks now:

The lines on the nose cone are reflections.
There aren't very many good pics of a weathered MiG-31 so I'm basically guessing but I'm happier than I was so its getting there.

[Dazzled]

It looks pretty good to me

[IronMan129]

Thanks Daz, if you look closely at the second panel line on the right(nearest) air intake there is some wear on the paint work, I may spray both panels again and see what it looks like afterwards what do you think?

[Dazzled]

I think a respray would need to be extremely delicate in such a small area. Perhaps you could match the paint damage on the opposite side and present it as normal wear?

[Stuart]

Looking good that

[ShaunW]

Looks like you've managed a good salvage job Adam. I agree with Darryl, touching up those panels would be quite a task now that the decals are on - you would have to be very careful with the masking. I have done similar touch ups in the past and carefully covered the decals with tissue as masking tape would have lifted them straight off. Looking at your MiG I'd say it's doable with great care.

[IronMan129]

Thanks guys .
I'm unsure how I'm going to do it, I may just really dirty up the top of the fuselage asif its one thats been either stored and bought back into service or not cleaned in years and go with that but who knows at this point .

Her tires have been painted and the nose gear has been finished, I just need to klear coat it before I glue it into place.
I'm going to finish weathering her and salvage the top paint coat then the final stages of finishing the ordinance and canopy can begin.

[IronMan129]

Ok so a lot of Cold War stuff has arrived in the last month.
Here they are:

All of these bar the Hawk 200 were Christmas gifts, note they're all 1/72 aircraft.

First up is a kit I had before but she met an unfortunate end due to a crazy ex.
The Matchbox Hawk 200.
I swapped this little beauty for a Hasegawa Harrier GR.3 that I didn't need.

Next is an aircraft that I've always had a fascination with because its unusual which is also why I love the X-32.
So because of that I decided to buy the Hasegawa X-29.


This is one of the harder to build kits I have acquired.
Its a Vacform YB-49 which has always interested me but until my Mum bought me the Horten she didn't really fit into my collection.

Finally these last 2 kits are my last two Russian bombers and 2 of my holy grail kits.
First is the ESCI Tu-22 Blinder.

And last but not least is the Italeri Tu-22M Backfire.

More to come hopefully very soon.