Eduard MIG-21 SMT

[Skinny_Mike]

Hi everyone!

Its been a little while since my last post. I’ve finished up a few things on the MIG and am ready for the paint. Here’s today’s update.

First off, the Quickboost seat (more on this in a future post) and the Master Models Pitot Tube have arrived. Here is the brass pitot next to the kit one. There really isn’t anything wrong with the kit pitot but I have a bad habit of breaking such things during painting and since this one sticks so far out in front of the nose I decided to protect myself from, well, myself! :facepalm

To install the pitot, you cut the kit part from the mount housing and drill a small mounting hole. Then insert the pitot and bend it to the correct shape. The tip with the vanes is a separate piece, which will help with assembly and painting. Plus I can add that part at the end.

Once the pitot was installed, I masked off the cockpit, wheel wells, and the metallic areas, then gave the airframe a coat of Tamiya primer straight from the rattle can. There where some ghosts seams that needed to be cleaned up and then re-primered. Here it is.

Well, not a huge update. I was hoping to get a pre-shade done and the dielectric panels sprayed in green today, but alas SWMBO had other plans. I have a month left to get this one finished for my model club’s March contest. I expect its going to be close!

Thanks for looking!
Mike

 

[ij001]

Hi Mike
Good to see you back at this project - I'm still sittin'-on-the-fence trying to make a decision as to when (not if) I'm going to buy one of these. Been looking at other folks builds and salivating.... unpleasant image, I know.... But just like everyone else, I really need to finish a few more before I can justify schelling out the scheckles :pinch:

Keep up the (very) good work, matey.

Ian

 

[lupanzer]

...well done...like the primer coverage

Luiz

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Thanks for the compliments guys! Time for another update.

After the primer had dried I next did a pre-shade using Tamiya black. This is a technique that I have yet to master. And looking at the finished work, I realized that I drink way to much caffeine!!! I also painted all the radomes in the Akan RF panel Green.

After masking all of the radomes using the masks provided with the kit, I painted the bottom of the jet in Akan’s undersurface blue-gray. It’s a lot more gray then blue, but it looks ok. The pre-shade on the bottom came through really well, especially on the wings. One weird thing to note. Edward provided masks for all the RF panels, except for the one on the lower fin. Not sure why. But nothing a little Tamiya tape couldn’t fix.

Next up, the camo. I spent a lot of time trying different paint combinations and worked between two of the camo patterns to decide which aircraft I wanted to paint. In the end I chose Blue 15 from the kit options, mostly because I like the big blue number over the white outline and the yellow ones. Plus I am still nervous about trying a NMF aircraft.

Ok so settled on a scheme I chose to use the Gunze Mr. Color Paints called out in the instructions for the “Sand Camo” scheme. I don't know alot about Russian aircraft, so I am trusting the manufacturer here! First up was Light Sand (Gunze 51 actually labeled Flesh), then Sandy Brown (Gunze 19), FS34102 (Gunze 303), Brown (Gunze 43 actually labeled Wood), and last Russian Green (Gunze 136). All the colors were thinned using Mr Color leveling thinner at a ratio of a little more then 1 part thinner to 1 part paint. I sprayed all the camo freehand using my Iwata HP-C Plus at 20 psi. The pattern is not exact to the instructions but I think I got the spirit of it down.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the camo pattern. Unfortunately the greens are not the cleanest of lines and I kind of obliterated the pre-shading on the top of the airplane, but I’ll keep trying until I eventually figure it out. Anyone with advice, I am always happy to listen!

Next step is future and then onto the 5 gazillion little decals! :gogo

I looked at the calendar this weekend and realized that I need to have this done by the 15th of March for my in-club contest. I still have a long way to go! I better get a move on.

Thanks for watching folks! See you all soon!
Mike
:drinks

 

[jknaus]

James

 

[SA Dave]

I love these eduard Mig 21's

Great job on this one so far

 

[lupanzer]

Beautiful squeme!...very well applied

Luiz

 

[moon puppy]

Sorry Mike, nothing from me on the preshading. I always obliterate preshade. Only thing I can think of is come back and fad out the green around the panel centers.

 

[phantom II]

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[ij001]

Hi Mike.
Great progress and your pre-shading looks fine, as you said the underside worked very well.

In my experience, a three or four colour camo is a real bear to pre-shade unless you are willing to do the whole spray a colour/mask/re-apply pre-shade/repeat routine. I've done it and it is really difficult to keep the momentum and enthusiasm.

The way I would tackle it now (or when I eventually get around to buying and building my own MiG 21), would be to post shade. Suffice to say I really like the way yours has turned out. Good luck with the stencils.

Ian

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Hello everyone! I am finally back with a post on the MIG. Thanks to everyone’s encouragement along the way.

So on to the decals. Here is a shot of the decal sheets for this airplane…

Yes there are a ton of little stencils to put on the jet. As the saying goes, “How do you eat an elephant? – After a coat of future, one bite at a time.” :tomato I broke up the decaling into small groups and worked on them one section at a time. It basically worked out to be roughly an hour a session. In the end I spent about 7 hours over around 10 days getting the decals on, including the weapons pylons. I will admit, some of them are upside down, and some are in the wrong place. I even used the wrong one here and there, but over all I didn’t have any issues. These decals were very finicky however. They only needed to be in the water for a few seconds and were very thin. I lost a few because they stayed in the water to long, or I ripped a few because I was a little too rough with them. I used some MicroSol on them and they all snuggled down nicely. On to the photos!

Here is a shot of what’s left of the decal sheet. It seems like there were almost an extra of every decal and there are separate sets for the camo birds and the NMF ones. The stencils are different colors depending on which finish you choose. The bottom of the sheet is for all the weapons.

I did have a mishap during the decaling. After the big fuss I made about using the brass pitot tube for its strength, I went and broke it off anyway. I waited until I finished decaling to fix it.

First step was to mask off the area and then I filling in the area with some CA glue. This was to fill in the break and to give a good solid bond.

Then I sanded it all down to shape.

Then I re-sprayed the green.

And after a coat of future, It all blends nicely.

Phew, saved it! :woohoo: Next step is to get some future over the decals to blend it all together and then a light wash on the top of the airframe. I also started work on the gear today - should have her standing on her three legs soon.

I do have a question for the group. I assembled and painted the EB32 rocket pods. I used the Brassin ones included with the kit. The exterior is painted in Alclad paints, Dark Aluminum for the front launcher tubes and the rest is painted in white aluminum. I thought there would be more contrast then there is between the colors and now I’m not sure how they look. What do you guys think? Should I try something different?

Thanks for the help! And as always, thanks for watching.
Mike
:drinks

 

[phantom II]

Good save

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[moon puppy]

What Chris said.

 

[jknaus]

Very very nice Great repair on that pitot tube too.
James

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Thanks guys! Future coat is drying right now. Hopefully I'll get wash on tomorrow.

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Hey everyone! I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since my last post. Not sure what happened there! Well I’ve been building a lot; I guess I just haven’t been posting much. Here’s the progress on the MIG. This is going to be a bit of a long post so I’ll break it up into sections.

Those Fiddly Bits!

I got all the fiddly parts painted and decaled. I used Tamiya RLM Gray for the landing gear and all the hydraulics. The pylons and the gear doors are all Akan underside blue.

Here is a shot of the wing pylons decaled. Eduard provides a single decal for each pylon, it saves a ton of time, but none of them lined up just right. Next time I’ll probably cut them up and try doing the decals individually.

Then everything was installed.

The center line airbrake is a bit of a problem. First of all, it’s really fiddly to get it attached to the belly of the airplane and to align it correctly. Then I found out that with the airbrake open, none of the external fuel tanks fit on the centerline pylon. Eduard makes no mention of this in the directions when you are picking the parts you want to install. :vmad

Since the closed airbrake is a different insert in the belly, there was nothing I could really do. My choices were to not install the pylon/tank, fill the mounting holes in the fuselage and try to get a good finish or I could separate the tank from the pylon and install the pylon. I chose the latter option. :angry:

Landing Gear Wheels

I bought the Eduard resin wheels for this kit but was a little nervous about using them. I have tried to use the Eduard wheels in the past as the detail is fantastic but I have found that the fit of the wheels inside the tires is always terrible. The wheel is always smaller than the hole it’s supposed to go into, leaving a gap. These were no better. I debated which to use and finally decided to give the Eduard MLG wheels a try. I was very careful installing the wheel hub, trying to minimize the gap. The detail was that much better than the kit parts, which are really good for a plastic kit. Here is a comparison shot.

And here are the wheels finished. The nose gear is from the kit. I didn’t know it when I was building the NLG strut that you need to substitute parts from the Eduard wheel set if you plan to use the resin NLG wheel. Oh well, it look good enough. The tires are painted with Gunze Mr. Color Tire Black and the wheels are Xtracolor Russian Wheel Green. They were given a wash with MIG dark wash.

And installed

Finishing the Cockpit

I wanted to use the Quickboost ejection seat. I always replace the ejection seats with resin items when they are available because the detail is so much better and I don’t think the photo etch seat belts look very convincing. Just my opinion.

Then I ran into a problem.

As you can see in this photo, the Quickboost seat is smaller than the kit part and the back is angled differently. The shots on the side show how much lower the AM seat is in the cockpit compared to the kit seat.

I performed a little surgery on the seat to fix the angle issue. Fist I cut a groove in the back of the seat, near the base of the backrest and then I dipped it into some boiling water until I could gently bend it to the right angle. I also added some plastic shims to the bottom of the seat until it seemed to fit better.

I was concerned that if the seat came up to high it might sit above the side panels of the cockpit. I dry fitted the seat and it turned out pretty good. :dance

Next step was painting. I checked some references online and found that there were many different combinations for this seat. I settled on Vallejo Blue-Gray for the overall seat, Neutral gray for the arm rests and the head rest and light ghost gray for the seat cushion, both from Lifecolor. The remaining details were picked out with the appropriate colors.

Then the seat was installed, the side rails were touched up and the canopy and support were added, finishing off the cockpit.

The Pitot tube

Next up is the tip of the pitot tube. I used the Master pitot tube and the tip required the 4 vanes to be added from etched parts.

I got it all assembled, and yes I lost two of the vanes! Good thing Master included extras!

Then painted and installed. I primed the assembly with Tamiya gloss black from the rattle can, then Alclad chrome for the tip and Semi-matte aluminum for the rest.

Weapons

The last thing to do is the weapons. First off I used the Brassin UB32 rocket pods. It’s a Russian jet – It just HAS to have these! Mine were painted with Alclad Dark Aluminum and regular Aluminum. Then I gloss coated with Alclad Gloss, decaled then Alclad Flat. I’m happy with the way they turned out. It was my first time decaling over a NMF and I think it looks pretty good.

I debated over what to put on the outer pylons. I was going to go with the FAB250 bombs included with the kit, but these didn’t look very good. Then I settled on a set of FAB250 M54 bombs supplied from Aerobonus. These have that distinctly Russian utilitarian look.

Assembly was pretty straight forward. I painted them in light ghost gray and then used the kit decals for the FAB 250s. These decals aren’t accurate for this weapon, but it added a little detail to it.

Once completed, the weapons were installed.

With the weapons being installed, this one is done. The Eduard MIG-21 isn’t an overly tough kit but there are a few places that need some attention. Overall I think mine turned out pretty well. I hope you all enjoyed the build!

Thank you all for your support and encouragement along the way. Now – where did that Paladin go????
Mike

 

[SA Dave]

DAMN thats nice

 

[ij001]

Taking all sorts of notes, here. Since you started this thread I bought m'self the recce version and will be using your build as a guide.

End product looks fantastic, Mike. One to be proud of.

Ian

 

[moon puppy]

Oh man that looks great! Well worth the updates

I seem to remember that speed break problem with the revelle kit years ago.

 

[jknaus]

Looks great
James