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Zvezda 1/72 MiG-21 Bis


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My entry for this STGB will be the very nice 1/72 Zvezda kit of the MiG-21 Bis.

The plan at the moment is to build a Croatian aircrafts in the green/green/grey over light blue scheme. Decals will have to come from a Begemot sheet for the national insignia while I'll print my own codes... hoping that the begemot insignia are of the right size, something I've not checked yet !

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Phil, the Zvezda kit is very nice, sure the best MiG-21 in this scale. At least until Eduard will decide to scale down their 1/48 one...

I'll add pictures of the box content later !

I also have a Zvezda PFM with a great PE sheet from Part that I'd like to build in Vietnamese markings, but I don't know if I'll have the time to build that one... the Bis will be pretty much OOB, so a quicker build.

Edited by Giorgio N
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Let's say that the choice of the subject hit a problem from the start: the decals I have are not really accurate for the subject I have in mind. The roundels are too large and there are some differences in the tail markings. I can live with the second problem, not with the first. Moreover the scheme I want to depict uses quite a lot of white stencils that I don't have. For a while I toyed with the idea of changing the subject, but then I found a dedicated decal sheet in a German online shop. As they also have some decals I've been hunting for ages, I'll send an order to Germany today and start my MiG in the meantime.

The obligatory box art, not bad but nothing really too impressive:

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After opening the lid the modeller finds this:

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A very robust cardboard box, that will sure be useful also after the kit has been built. While the boxart was not great, the packaging sure is !

Opening the cardboard box, the sprues become finally visible:

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4 sprues of light grey plastic plus a small one of clear plastic include the parts needed to build our MiG. The box also includes a very robust stand. I'll not be using this, but it will be useful for some kits that I'm planning to build as desktop models.

The sprues include all the parts for the MiG-21 Bis but also some carryovers from the previous PFM box

IMG_0755_zpsa5db85a9.jpg

This picture shows first of all that I should learn to take better pictures, then that there are plenty of parts. It also shows that the decal sheet is small, with very few stencils and is not of the same quality of the plastic. The Finnish roundels in particular are pretty bad with very poor alignment. As I'll be using aftermarket decals anyway, this is not a big deal to me.

Speaking about the plastic, this picture of the wing shows that panel lines are finely recessed, not as sharp as the best Japanese kits but still quite good

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And here's a picture that shows that Zvezda did look at a MiG: the wheel wells are not identical on both sides and this is reproduced in the kit parts:

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All in all I'm quite impressed by the plastic parts and I'm looking forward to making a start on this one.

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The sprues include all the parts for the MiG-21 Bis but also some carryovers from the previous PFM box

I assume one of them is a different nose cone. I am building a PF and a PFM from this kit and have been a little puzzled by the inclusion of two nose cones.

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I assume one of them is a different nose cone. I am building a PF and a PFM from this kit and have been a little puzzled by the inclusion of two nose cones.

Yes, this is one !

The original PFM kit had a nose that was not great, with the fuselage too narrow at the front and a radome with the wrong angles. Zvezda corrected this in the Bis by giving the fuselage the proper shape and adding a new radome with the correct angles. All this information was given to me by Laurent, who knows a lot about MiG-21s and which I have to thank for the useful information

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Yes, this is one !

The original PFM kit had a nose that was not great, with the fuselage too narrow at the front and a radome with the wrong angles. Zvezda corrected this in the Bis by giving the fuselage the proper shape and adding a new radome with the correct angles. All this information was given to me by Laurent, who knows a lot about MiG-21s and which I have to thank for the useful information

Aha! Thanks Giorgio and Laurent. In that case I won't use the additional nose cone for my builds.

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The problem with all that information is that now I can clearly see the problem with the nose of the PFM kit ! Fortunately I have a Mastercraft MF I had bought for €5 to use the wings alone on a vacform Ye-8 kit, its nose will replace the Zvezda parts. And the other details will go on the Matchbox kit... I used to do this kind of mix 'n match on Spitfires, but the 21 gives plenty of opportunities too ! :lol:

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Not started yet as I have another couple of models to work on (the Hawk for the trainer GB and a Zero for a GB on another site), but I've started checking a few things and a couple of ideas have come to my mind.

First I've decided to use a Pavla resin cockpit. This actually is for the MF and is meant to be used on the KP kits, but I think that in this scale it will pass for a Bis cockpit. A first cheks showed that the cockpit fits the Zvezda kit quite well

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Don't ask me why but I can't rotate the pictures....

Detail is much better than the kit parts, although the pavla set is not on par with say Aires.

Since I'll be adding resin, I've decided to add some more detail in areas like the wheel wells. This will be done the old way using plasticard and wires of various size

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  • 4 weeks later...

Finally started the Bis ! The first step was to prepare the resin parts so these primed and airbrushed in the infamous blue/green colour used for the cockpit of these aircrafts. The paint I used was a mix based on some vallejos I have in the stash.

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I then started adding some detailing with a very small brush and everything was going well... until I realised that the instrument panel could not fit ! Ok, what did I do wrong ? Well, for a starter I should have checked this before priming and painting.... then I realised that the whole cockpit tub must be farther back compared to the position shown in the pictures above. So I started hacking the fuselage behind the canopy line to bring the bulkhead in the right place.

With this done, the IP still didn't fit.... so I had to make this narrower at the top in order to fit between the windscreen. Here are the parts with some paint on and the modified IP. This might still need some little modification but it's almost Ok.

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At least the seat didn't have these problems, although the two ejection handles broke... they'll have to be replaced with thin wire.

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The seat still needs a good wash and a couple of red bits and then it will be ready to accept the new ejection handles

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Very nice.

Out of curiosity: why is nobody building one of 'first three' Croatian MiG-21bis?

Two of them had some quite colourful markings, incl. unit insignia, names etc. ('Osvetnik Dubrovnika', 'Osvetnik Vukovar') and a third quite a big tricolore over the fin:

MiGs Over Croatia

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Nice work on the pit Giorgio!

Tom to answer your question it's probably a combination of factors, such as availability of decals and build we already had planned, most of is will have been planning and collecting parts for months prior to the GB starting! Personally I find the Arab Migs more interesting but I don't really know why....

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Thanks folks ! Work has continued yesterday evening in preparing the are to let all the parts fit nicely. Now it looks like everything should be ok, hopefully the pit could be finished by tonight so I can start on the other bits that go inside the fuselage.

Tom, to answer your question I can say that personally I simply find the later scheme more interesting. This probably because it's quite unique on the MiG-21, while the overall grey and the green/brown schemes are more common. I have to say that among the decals I have are those for "Osvetnik Vukovara", so I could actually built this one (assuming the Begemot decals are accurate, something I now doubt). However I'd rather build an overall grey Bis in the original Yugoslav markings.

Of course the schemes you linked are historically very significant, especially for me as the war in the former Yugoslavia was fought quite close to my home and I've met many people who've been directly involved.

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While I enjoy building plastic kits, I am not really one of those who can deal with small details. Painting small bits for example is beyond my skills, and for this reason when it comes to instrument panels I always try to avoid having to paint anything.

Since I'm using a nice resin cockpit, it would be a pity not having some decent representation of the instruments and for this reason I'm using here a technique I use quite often: single instruments in decal form.

Now this is nothing unusual and there are a number of manufacturers of these, however I'm not using any of these sheets but rather the instruments coming with kits decal sheets.

In this case the source is going to be the Academy F-8 Crusader. The panel on the model was painted, something easier because the instruments are raised in this kit, so the IP on the decal sheet was not used..

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Now once the instrument has been chosen, it's time to cut it from the sheet. Those fortunate enough to have a miniature punch & die set should use this, me being without such a tool, I use a pen-knife:

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Once the instrument is separated from the sheet, it should be immersed in water... now the instrument would get lost in a water container, so I bring the water to the decal using a small brush

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A drop of future or in this case Klear is inserted where the instrument should go:

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And if everything goes according the plan, the instrument panel should look like this:

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Of course not all instruments work as they should and some get lost or broken during the process. This technique is also quite boring, requires care and can be nervewrecking... still, for me it's much better than painting the dials on a flat surface !

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Glad you like it, I hope now that the detail will not get lost while assembling the parts...

I've had really little time for my hobby recently, and most of it went into a 1/72 Zero I'm building for a GB on a local forum. The Zero could have been completed by now but disaster struck with some decals...

For this reason the progress on my MiGs is been quite slow and resulted in the only addition of a few pipes to the wheel wells. At some point I was planning on adding more then I realised that Pavla has a good resin set that is quite cheap, so I decided to go easy on this one and maybe invest in the Pavla set for a later build.

Here are the main wheel wells after a coat of primer:

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The colour of these is usually a light brownish grey, however some users have MiG-21s with wheel wells in the colour of the lower surfaces. Fortunately my aircraft seems to have the light grey, so I can paint these before inserting then in the fuselage. The various pipes are mostly related to the fuel system and for this reason are yellow.

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Small update, but a very important result: the cockpit tub has been attached onto one of the fuselage halves!

I say important because it took me a long time to properly fix this part and without this it's not possible to progress further in the build.

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It took me a while to modify the kit parts so that the resin cockpit could fit. And as can be seen in the picture I made mistakes, for example by cutting too much at the rear end. Now this void will be covered by the spine so it's no big deal, but had I got it right maybe I'd have struggled less.

As I needed the possibility of adjusting the position of the part and I knew this would have required plenty of time, I had to use something very slow curing to fix the part and I tried a material I usually employ to fix weight in model: silicone sealant ! This seems to have worked very well as I had all the time I needed to adjust the position and the part is today in the right place. Now I'll reinforce the adhesion using the more usual 2-part epoxy, as I want a rigid grip anyway between parts. In any case, I'll use again this technique in the future.

The resin parts are relatively heavy and will sure help preventing the model from being a tailsitter, however some more weight is needed and for a starter I filled the hollow radome with bits of lead. The rear of the radome was then closed by gluing a disc of plasticard.

Next step will be fitting the instrument panel. This is not going to be easy, but hopefully, with a lot of patience, I'll be able to sort it

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That's come out nicely Giorgio, it's one of the most time consuming but ultimately satisfying parts, everything else seems to fly on from here, as long as the kit fits together ok...

That's not a bad idea using silicone sealer, just be careful not to get any where you want paint to stick though....

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not really an update but some important news nonetheless: the Balkan Models decals are on their way from a German mail order shop. I was surprised because I sent my order around noon and at 2 PM received an email saying that my order had been despatched ! Now that's quick ! Hopefully they'll be here in a few days

Edited by Giorgio N
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Small update: I finally managed to fit the instrument panel in place ! It took a lot of fettling but in the end I got something I'm relatively happy with. I've also plugged the area between the resin part and the front of the windscreen with plasticard, this will be filled after the fuselage halves are closed and then painted

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It's worth remembering that the resin set was not meant for this kit but for the KP MF, so I can't blame Pavla for the work required.

The picture above also shows the area I cut for the deicing system. This area is below a fairing and the opening is well visible. I might add the deicer bottle inside, depending on how much is visible when the fairing is in place.

In the meantime I've also completed the exhaust and started painting the nose cone. I'd rather paint this now as I'm not sure masking the part once in place will be easy

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The radome might need another coat of green paint, with this done the fuselage halves will be closed... I'd better start moving fast !

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I love those cats, it's hard for me not to get distracted... :lol:

This time however I'm trying to focus and yesterday I've found enough time to do quite some work on this MiG.

The Since all the parts going into the fuselage were ready, it was time to close the fuselage. The fit was not stellar and some sanding was needed but in the end I got what I wanted. The spine was added next.

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With the fuselage closed and the spine in place, it was time to fill the rear bulkhead and the instrument panel:

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These areas will need to be smoothed later, although parts will be hidden by the canopy.

It was then time to start gluing some of the various intakes, ducts and other bits that protrude from the MiG-21 surfaces. After these were attached, the tail could be glued. The fit of the tail was fortunately quite good.

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Tail apart, the fit is not bad but it's no tamigawa. I spent some time filling and sanding and even more time was spent polishing the plastic after each sanding session. On this kit I'm trying to have a plastic as smooth as possible before painting.

The following work on the fuselage is attaching the gun... here however I want to check a few pictures first, so in the meantime I worked a bit on the wings, in particular in the wheel wells. These are totally devoid of any detail in the kit and also have an ejector mark in the middle of each well. These were sorted with discs of plasticard and a couple of ribs were added. Later I'll add a few cables to make the area more interesting.

IMG_0896_zpsf8b52e0f.jpg

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