1/72 KP/Mastercraft MiG-21 MF

by Laurent Stern

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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.

Click on images below to see larger images

 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.

Click on images below to see larger images

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

 

Photos and text © by Laurent Stern