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Bit late starting, but as it's Easter coming up I thought the Bunny Fighter edition of Eduard's lovely little MiG 21 would be rather seasonal. I picked this up last year at Eday, together with the etch set and mask set.

Here's what I got:-

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Over the weekend I made a start, as usual with the cockpit, where the raised detail on the instrument panel and side consoles has to be removed so that the etch overlays can fit in place. The main undercarriage bays were built up on the one piece wing, and the rear bulkhead with afterburner ring moulding added to one fuselage half, as well as assembling the fin/spine.

Yesterday I started adding the etch, which went fine in the morning, but after luch one of the seat shoulder straps went "ping" out of my needle nosed tweezers - cue the rest of the afternoon on a major search and rescue mission! Three hours and a very tidy modelling room later the errant belt was found and in place.

Here's the weekends work (minus the tidying up!)

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And a close up of the cockpit parts

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The jet pipe was rolled around a hole punch. Eduard give you a strip to glue over the join, but as this is hidden inside I think mine will remain wrapped in masking tape.

Anybody built this kit know whether it's a tail sitter without noseweight? there's not a lot of room up front!

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Some progress over the last couple of days

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The bright blue plastic seems to be taking the paint OK

Canopies were masked using the supplied Eduard masks, a boon in this scale, the windscreen quarter lights are masked with two pieces each, approx 3mm x 2mm. Cutting these by hand would have been "interesting"

Cockpit area, wheel wells, intake and exhaust, wheel hubs and undercarriage legs all cleaned up & base coat painted.

The upper wing fences were shaved off and replaced with etch, and the missile pylons cleaned up and fitted. Whether this was a good idea prior to fitting the wings to fuselage remains to be seen... The etch sheet provides nice looking launch shoes for the pylons, but as I intend to fit the missiles I didn't bother fitting them. The missiles themselves have dinky little etch rocket exhausts fitted to the back.

Some of the etch has been prepainted on the sheet, parts for the canopies which I didn't want to pull off with masking, and the pipework for the wheel bays and legs which will be a different colour to the bays.

As the etch set has a boarding ladder, fod guards, wheel chocks (two styles!) and a drip tray I've prepared a small piece of hardboard for the base, and found and printed out some concrete hardstanding to stick on it to display the model on.

Next up detail painting and decalling in the cockpit, masking wheels and painting tyres, and out with the orange paint for the missiles, fuel tank and intake bullet!

Oh, and I went to the opticians yesterday, I need new glasses. I kind of knew that, and the difference with the new prescription was quite noticable, but what surprised me was the prescription is actually weaker than before!

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A bit more progress last night, detailing the cockpit, painted the tyres, and the orange bits sprayed:-

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And a close up of the cockpit

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The decals went on OK, bedded into puddles of Klear, finer detail than I could hope to paint. I might give the ejector seat & lower consoles a bit of a water colour wash to pick out some of the moulded detail, then I can button up the fuselage.

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Thanks for watching and the comments guys. The basic airframe is now together, joints tidied and windscreen added. The etch instrument panel is a bit wider than the injection one , and this pushed the sides of the windscreen out which required a bit of careful fettling to fair them in, and a respray of cockpit turquoise. Intake, exhaust, and cockpit were then masked and the wheel wells given a touch up, plus a couple of orange panels added underneath. these need to be masked next before the main colours go on.

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Thats all for a week or so due to family comittments.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I'm back from the family holidays and 10 days to go so better get the finger out. Before I left I sprayed the upper light blue, which has revealed a few flaws along the top seams that need a touch up and respray. Note the nose cone masking dropped off during spraying, I didn't spot it until too late, something else to respray!

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As you can no doubt see from the photo below, this one's not going to cross the finish line in time :-(

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I've had a dose of Kev1n's flu which knocked me for six for a few days, then once I was up to some modelling I got the problem seams sorted and re-sprayed and the paint took ages to dry. Managed to get the green masked up and sprayed yesterday, but removing the masks today has shown more area's of blue that need touching up again.

My next deadline is a club meeting in a couple of weeks time, so fingers crossed! I'll post some more in WIP/RFI for anybody thats interested.

Thanks to all the folks that were watching, sorry it didn't make it in time, and a big thanks to Antony for hosting and encouragement.

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