With the fuselage, wings, and tailplane complete, the next step in this
conversion was the reconnaissance nose. I purchased an out of production
Red Bear item on e-bay, but it didn’t match the drawing well. So, I set
out to scratchbuild the nose.
Using my drawings, I created a 0.040” styrene side and top profile. The
profiles were cut and assembled into a frame. I copied the cut-way
fuselage shape to create a rear bulkhead. About midway down the nose, I
added 0.040” stiffeners. I also added stiffeners near the point of the
nose to create the perfectly round cross section. Lead weights were
superglued in between the frame work. Then, the frame was completely
filled with Milliput and allowed to dry for about a week. Once dry, excess
was carefully removed with a sharp knife and repeatedly sanded to achieve the
correct shape. Note that there is a small humped area on the lower nose.
Panel lines were then scribed into the new nose. The nose was grafted on
to the fuselage with superglue and putty.
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While the Hasegawa kit matches the drawings very well and provides an excellent
starting point, the exhaust nozzles are not even close. The MiG-25 has
extremely complex nozzles, which are joined at the center by an ‘I’ shaped
structure. The outer cylinders of the nozzles were made by heat forming
.020” styrene over a glass contact lens bottle in boiling water. Those
outer cylinders were test fit and trimmed. I made the ‘I’ structure
with 0.010” styrene, gluing both outer cylinders to the ‘I’. At this
point, I had a decent outer exhaust shape, but still lacked the distinctive
pedals for the inside and outside of the outer cylinders.
For the outer pedals, I cut long strips of 0.005” styrene in two widths
(‘wide’ and ‘narrow’). Then, I glued the strips around the outer
circumference of the outer exhaust cylinder, sandwiching one wide strip between
two narrow strips, leaving about a 2mm gap between each sandwiched trio.
References show the ‘narrow’ strips overhanging the aft end of the exhaust.
So, I made sure that the ‘wide’ strips were even with the aft end (leaving
excess at the forward end), and the narrow strips were allowed to overhang at
both ends. I trimmed the forward ends even with the initial cylinder.
For the aft ends, I used a toe-nail clipper to cut the strips leaving about 1mm
overhanging.
The inner pedals were a little simpler. Again I used 0.005” strips, but
this time just one width. The strips were glued on the inside of the
cylinder, intentionally underhanging the aft end by about 1mm. I glued the
strips so that every other strip overlapped the two adjacent strips (see
drawing). Excess was allowed at the forward end. The excess was cut
away once the glue had dried.
Inner nozzle cones were vacuformed from another kit’s exhaust. The inner
cones were then glued inside the completed outer cylinders. The detail for
the turbine area was originally from a modified HO scale train part. I
made two resin copies and glued them to styrene tube. The turbine and tube
assemblies were then attached to the inner cones. The whole assembly was
painted with varying shades of steel. I also applied an oily black wash.
The inner portion of the nozzles shows an odd green color (maybe from the
methanol injection). I airbrushed this over the metallics. I also
used some pastel chalk powder in brown and dark grey to finish the area.
I painted the kit with Tamiya acrylics, hand-mixed. Decals were from Hi
Decal (purchased from Linden Hill Import). For the wheels and tires, I
used the excellent set from Equipage (also available from Linden Hill Import).
Finally, I added the antennae and the pitot—which was a piece of fine tubing.
If I had this one to do over, I would definitely start with the Condor kit
instead of the Hasegawa. Reviews and pictures of the Condor offering show
that this kit addresses my greatest error, which was the shallow main gear area.
I would also get the resin cockpit and vacuform canopy now available from Pavla.
The pit is hardly visible inside the canopy, and Pavla’s offering is superior
to my scratchbuilt parts. There is also a wider selection of decals which
became available since the release of this kit. I would also use the wide
range of reference photos on the internet to good advantage—particularly in
detailing the gear bays.
Despite that, this kit was a great learning experience for me. To date,
this is the only time that I completely scratchbuilt an exhaust to this level.
Also, this kit was my first experience using Milliput. I now find myself
regularly using Milliput, especially for smoothing and shaping intake trunks.
It was fun converting old Hasegawa kit into a version which you don’t see
often.
Tom Berres
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