Why this kit
Because:
- I’m a big MiG-21 fan... now that’s a good
reason :) !
- The Fujimi MiG-21 MF "Jay Fighter"
isn't accurate: The spine is a "Bis" spine, the wheel bulges
aren't on top of the wheel wells
- I believe that if raised panel lines are nice
and fairly accurate, it may not be worth it to sand them and rescribing
them. Rescribing would be painful on a 1/72 MiG-21.
- I already built a KP/Mastercraft Fishbed OOB
and I wasn't satisfied with the result: Poor cockpit details, thick air
scoops,... I just had to build another KP kit but with aftermarket goodies.
Aftermarket stuff used:
- Pavla cockpit resin set, which isn’t as nice
as the ones made for the Bilek kits
- Pavla wheels and wheel wells resin set :
The front well isn’t deep enough... well, anything is better than what you
get in the kit
- Pavla vacuformed canopy as the one in the kit
fits poorly to the fuselage
- Decals by... Techmod ;)
- ICM Modern Soviet Air Armament UB-16 rocket
pods : They aren’t great but they’re better than the ones supplied
in the KP kit
Landing gear
The first thing to be done was to remove the
wheel wells of the kit in order to replace them with the resin ones. I've been a
bit over-enthusiastic about cutting the plastic and dry-fitting showed that I
had gaps between the fuselage halves and the resin wheel wells. A bit of
puttying and Testors Clear Parts Cement glue did improve things but I'll be more
careful next time when installing resin parts.
The landing gear legs wells weren't deep enough so I cut them out and replaced
the bottom with plastic card. I also added the structure with plastic card
strips.
The kit front gear leg and wheel come as one piece. The Pavla wheel being
too large, scratchbuilding a new front gear leg was necessary. Wire was added to
represent the oleo plumbing. The kit main gear legs were used but have been
reworked with some putty-acetone mix to try to cope with one of the most
irritating feature of KP kits: Mold misalignement... ARGH ! I HATE THIS ! :(
"Trapezes" were added to
the main gear legs. They’re made from stretched sprue. "Trapezes"
are link-structures made to keep the wheels almost vertical while the
undercarriage is folding in or out.
Cockpit
The Pavla cockpit set contains a tub, a seat, a
control stick and an instrument panel. There are no locating slabs to position
the tub in the fuselage so I didn't manage to make the tub floor perfectly
perpendicular to the fuselage. I added plastic card strips on the edges of the
canopy fairing as the wall panels don't go all the way up there. I brushpainted
the tub with Aeromaster Russian Interior Green, painted the dials, did a wash
and drybrushed the very few buttons. Top of the wall panels didn't perfectly
match on the strip when I closed the fuselage. The instrument panel didn't fit
so I had to sand the fuselage a bit. I finally closed the fuselage but I didn't
like the dash-board board (I mean the cover that hides the instruments wiring ;
in French, we call it the "casquette", the cap): It wasn't cluttered
enough like in the real MiGs. I made a new dash-board from Tamiya Epoxy Putty,
plastic card and wire.
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Main parts assembling
The KP kit doesn't contain parts to represent the
afterburner duct and nozzle. I built the duct using rolled plastic card, the
nozzle came from the MiG-21 PFM kit by Bilek. If you’ve built KP kits, you
know that fit isn't great so I had to putty the kit a bit, specially in the
wing-fuselage junctions. But first of all, I protected the raised panel lines
with masking tape before sanding. Puttying was done again with the usual
putty-acetone mix applied with a brush. The windscreen was glued with superglue:
I waited a bit and blew on the windscreen while the glue was setting in order to
avoid frost on transparent parts by cyano fumes. The seam was improved with
Clear Parts Cement.
Wing fences were thinned down so have been the plates below the additional air
intakes on either sides of fuselage (they’re opened when the plane takes off).
These plates were installed to prevent gun smoke ingestion by the additional air
intakes. Air scoops where thinned down a lot : The Fujimi ones are a lot
nicer !
The circular intake lip was thinned down too as the nose looked too " cylinder-like ".
MiG-21s may look as cylinders with triangles pasted on them, but they’re
cylinders with a bit of finesse :) !
Painting
The model was primed with acrylic gray paint in
order to see the most obvious scratches. Putty-acetone mix and careful sanding
removed them. After that, I pre-shaded the raised panel lines with black paint
and I sprayed several coats of Future wax in order to protect the pre-shading.
Wheel wells were paintbrushed and masked with paper tissue and Maskol.
I wanted to make a three-tone camoflage. I had a
Techmod decal sheet with markings (including plenty of stencils) for a Russian
MiG-21 SM that served during Afghanistan War. Color directions referred to
Humbrol paints and I tried to find close matches with Gunze and Tamiya paints. I
sprayed the camoflage free-hand, trying to let the pre-shading a bit apparent.
Pylons and tanks where painted at the same time. Future was sprayed and he wheel
wells plumbing was paintbrushed afterwards… yeah, I know, you’re supposed to
paint these beforehand ;).
The whole model was then very lightly sanded with 1500 grit sanding paper to
show the black panel lines. The result wasn’t perfect as some black paint came
off. Corrections were made by drybrushing.
External store where pasted.
Decals
Not much to say here. I’m not sure the stencils
color are correct but who cares ? There was a bit of silvering, specially
with the stencils, but nothing too serious. Techmod decals are pretty thin and
they stick well.
External detailing
Antennas and probes were made of stretched sprue
(radio-altimeter dipoles under the wings, IFF antennas under the nose and on top
of the fin, static dischargers) and very thin plastic card (AoA probes on the
PVD boom and on the left side of the nose). All those are extremely fragile but
I think they add something to the model.
Final stuff
Plumbing inside the canopy was made of plastic
strip and wire. Bits of decals were added. The seat was painted and glued,
Aeromaster Flat Clear was sprayed and the canopy was installed.
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What should’ve been done
- If you look at MiG-21on ground photographs,
you’ll notice that the rudder is rarely aligned with the fin
- The additional air intakes (the ones opened
during take-off) are always opened when the plane is on the ground. There are
always FOD covers over them.
Conclusion
This kit is my first in many ways :
- It’s the first time I used resin aftermarket
- It’s the first time I used a vacuformed
canopy
- It’s the first kit with an opened canopy
- It’s the first time I used aftermarket
decals
The final result doesn’t look too bad. It’s
not really superdetailed nor a contest winner. I have other 1/72 MiG-21s to
build someday: a Plastyk (Polish company) MiG-21 SM/MF, at least two Fujimi
MiG-21 Bis (Bulgarian, Angolean or Ukrainian). Meanwhile, I’ll do a 1/72
Dassault Mirage 5F (Heller kit with Hi-Tech resin conversion set). And, no, I
won’t rescribe it. Let’s just hope it won’t turn out worst than the
Fishbed…
Thanks to Matthias Rabiller, Stéphane
Hodin and "les gratteurs de plastique" of Paris for their
support.
Laurent Stern who makes a fool of himself
because he doesn’t like to being photographed
Laurent
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