Czech MiG-15 (one down, one to go)

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

I bought the Eduard Czech dual combo cheaply from HLJ recently and it seems to have ended up getting built! I don't build many planes (too scary) and I don't think I've built a 1/72 plane at all. So this is a bit of an adventure

The version I have doesn't have the little bobbles on the sprues which indicates that there's apparently something wrong with it. Eduard haven't been very forthcoming about what that is (some problem with the forward fuselage?) but they'll replace the sprues if you post them all back. I did a dry fit and thought I'd just go ahead and build it. Hopefully this won't bite me later on!

So far I've assembled the wing halves, made up both cockpits, and joined the wings to the fuselage halves. (I know this is a bit odd but I was waiting for something else to dry...)

To my great delight I got all the etch fitted without losing anything but the smaller throttles. I still need to adjust the washes, check it for mistakes (looks like the top of the console has popped up) and give the etched bits a wash and a coat of matt varnish, then add some gloss to the dials.

The wing halves didn't fit brilliantly but some sanding has mostly fixed that. I took a lot of care cleaning the roots to get a tight join to the fuselage, but I ended up with a step, which other builders have mentioned. I'm not sure if I want to sand this and lose the rivets, or keep it.

Cheers,

Will

[Val]

My word, that cockpit is rather brilliant!

[philtn]

I only come "close" to providing this kind of details and paint job to a 1/48 cockpit... great job! Really looking forward

to this build

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind comments, I must admit I think they look nice in real life but these close-ups can be pretty demoralising. Ginormous fluff, paint scratches, etc. Hopefully they're dirty enough that this will blend in to the background a bit.

I weathered and varnished the etch today, painting the intakes, then removed paint from the mating surfaces with a combination of scraping and lacquer thinner so I could put the cockpit modules together. Once that was done I found I needed to do a little bit more scraping on the outside edges to get an easy fit into the forward fuselage.

Weathering was with MIG washes and a little bit of MIG pigment :D I shall continue to milk that particular pun until it is well past dry

I also re-primed and painted the jet pipes now that the seams are done, so the next step is to commit to gluing up the fuselages. Ulp.

I realised that I have actually built a 1/72 plane before, but stopped before finishing, so hopefully these will buck the trend and make it to completion.

Will

[Col.]

Stunning work on those 'pits Will

[MikeW]

Wow, works of art, both of them. Can't believe it's 1/72

Cheers,

Mike

[modelling minion]

Excellent work! I am now in danger of dropping my current project and starting one of these myself.

[Will Vale]

Thanks all, I wouldn't have bought an etched set for a 1/72 cockpit but seeing as it was in the box I thought I should use it. I was quite impressed by the seatbelts, they were easy enough to pose and they look really sharp.

I've assembled both airframes now and they look quite MiG-ey.

However I have a longish list of fixes as you can see. Some are my fault (glue mark on nose) but most seem to be the kit (wing steps, tail planes.) I was trying to avoid sanding since it'll kill the rivets but I think I'll have to do it and reinstate or ignore them later.

Seams on the fuselage were quite well behaved though - maybe a tiny touch of filler needed. The two glass covers stand a bit proud, I don't know if this is right or not so I guess it's time to find a walkaround

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

Here's the bis airframe filled, sanded and primed. There's a bit of scribing required still, and I might need to do more to the nose ring join?

Looking at the close-up I think I didn't get the nose ring insert snug enough into the ring, and that might be why I had fit issues (you can see a gap.) If I can do this better on the other plane I might be able to improve the look a tad.

I wasn't going to fill the wing roots to preserve the panel line, but I'm glad I did. Going to be tricky to scribe though!

Will

[EagleOnyx]

Wow! I really like how well those are turning out. I had that kit in my cart a few times but just didn't hit the buy button for some reason. What is that stick holder set-up you have in the engine? Is it a bamboo food skewer with some tac and tape? I need to use something like that

[Will Vale]

It is exactly as you describe - a skewer wrapped in tape. Might be better a bit shorter as my small foam block is a bit unstable with the plane stuck in it for drying.

Will

[Will Vale]

This has been waiting for me to pluck up courage to fill a few more spots and scribe some lines. I did, the scribing is not fantastic but I have mostly cleaned it up.

So I thought I'd prime and paint the Bis airframe:

The top surface is pretty tidy I don't have (and wasn't able to locate locally) a template for circles and things so I've just left the ones along the spine which got a bit sanded. The surface detail, where I didn't obliterate it, is really nice!

I rescribed the wing joints, various panel lines across seams or around leading edges, and the diagonals on the wing which run to the wing joints. Not much space to work in and I find it tricky at the best of times - what do other people use/do in 1/72?

On the underside I filled and sanded the seam where the under-wing joins the upper (since it was really gappy) and then re-scribed the panel line near the trailing edge afterwards. I thought this looked better before paint, but it's on the underneath so it doesn't really matter

The two panels on the belly, and the seam on the exhaust surround have come out nicely.

I'm happy with it overall - not done a shiny thing before and it's good practice for filling and sanding!

Need to do the dangly bits soon and apply some decals - I suspect I need to varnish over the metal to do this?

Cheers,

Will

[Darby]

Keep going and I'm sure this Iron Curtain icon will be just fine in the end

[modelling minion]

Looking very good so far. What markings are you going to finish it in?

[Will Vale]

Thanks! This one is going to be the plain metal bomber scheme with the green patch - 3037? I think it's I in the instructions.

The other will probably be the red over silver display team option - C or D?

I'll hopefully manage to mask and spray some other shades today - 3037 has a tail section which is rather a different colour to the rest. Then I need to figure out a recipe for decalling over metallic paints.

Will

[Will Vale]

Sorry that should be 3137 - this one:

http://images.frompo.com/0d7ac1b25846e5a18302fcf5c109ad3d

[snapper_city]

Looking good so far.

[Will Vale]

Thanks Mark! I had a big masking and painting session this evening, ending up here:

I managed to get a mark on the port wing (top and bottom, so I must've had something on my glove when I picked it up to spray the green) so I'll need to clean that up tomorrow, otherwise it went quite well.

The tail section in the photo is a warm colour compared to the forward fuselage, so I mixed a tiny bit of Pale Burnt Metal with the Duralumin and misted that over. I also masked the thick section of the fin where the stabilisers attach and sprayed that Aluminium, I don't know if that contrast has ended up strong enough though.

The airbrakes and gun pack panels were done with Stainless Steel, which doesn't really come out right over the base metallic layer but does have the right hue to it at least. The masking for the gun pack was a bit wrong and I had to touch up one side.

The non-metallic bits are decanted Camel Yellow, Rubber Black and a leaf green I mixed up from Tamiya acrylics. They all had a couple of coats of Klear Flat over the top to seal them.

I gather from my local aircraft expert (thanks Mike R!) that I should be OK to apply the decals straight over the Alclad, so I'm going to try that with one on the underside and see how it goes. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

Hi all,

I did some re-touching (fixed the mark, painted the wingtips in Aluminium) and got the decals on today, mostly stress free. The Eduard decals are really thin and the carrier film is invisible when applied straight over the Alclad.

Two problems to report - the red is out of register, which doesn't show except for the roundel on the vertical tail port side - and I crumpled up the 3137 code for the starboard side and failed to rescue it.

I tried to Frankenstein together a new code (I have 31 and 3, but no 7) and failed but have enough bits to try again. The typeface will be very slightly different (more rounded) but given that you can't see both sides at once that could be OK. I'll need to make the 7 from bits of 1 and 4 I think.

If that doesn't work, time to order a new decal sheet...

Cheers,

Will

[Sir T]

Well dispite your issues with it it looks supurb! If this is your first stab at a 1/72 aircraft then I think you a good future in the scale. The cockpit is very nice.

I hope you get your decal problems sorted.

Cheers

Stuart

[Will Vale]

Thanks Stuart! I've made a stab at the Frankendecal, I think it's probably good enough?

The 1 is from two 1s (I had to cut one up to make a different serif) and the 7 is from two 4s. If I did it again I'd try and get the middle 3 a tiny bit to the right, but it's down now. Thankfully the real serials aren't dead level so I didn't have to align everything, instead they rise a little bit from rear to front.

Cheers,

Will

[Col.]

Looking good Will. The frankendecal is a great save.

[Sir T]

Looks good to me!

[Will Vale]

Thanks guys! I've not done much on this one this week as I was finishing my ghosts off and editing/sending out the club newsletter which always takes a while. I got back to it today and spent an hour and a half masking the two-part canopy.

Why so hard, with the pre-cut masks? Well the bits were quite small and stretchy, plus the die-cutting wasn't very good and nearly every piece needed to be trimmed instead to stop it tearing. Got it done in the end though. I'm in two minds about Eduard masks - they're almost harder to use than tape and a scalpel, but you do get nice rounded corners!

I also spent a good few hours preparing and mounting all the remaining bits, including the Brassin rockets. The resin pylons were a poor fit to the wing so I tried the plastic ones, which are much better albeit less detailed. I flattened the bottom surface of the pylons where the bombs attach and fitted the etched plate and the resin rocket rail which hopefully makes for a decent-looking hybrid.

I broke one of the ultra-thin rocket fins while removing the casting block, but managed to find and re-attach it. I also pinged off one of the etched nozzle detail plates and amazingly found it a good way away, so I have four pylons and four rockets ready for paint, as well as all the u/c, canopies and so on.

Given the delicacy of the rockets I thought I wouldn't wash them (they didn't feel greasy) but I did give them a very careful wipe-down with a cotton bud soaked in lacquer thinner. Hopefully that plus a lacquer primer will turn out OK.

Sorry, no picture as it's a. unexciting and b. late! Hope to get this painted up and put together over the weekend though.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

I've primed and painted everything now, and started on the washes:

This is MIG (ohohoho!) Cold Grey wash in the panel lines, and a bit of Dark Wash in the wells. The grey is maybe too light on pigment, I'm not sure if it really shows the panel lines anymore than the glinting edges to, but hopefully it looks OK?

I also worked on the landing gear. I needed grey primer on the tyres to see the seams and clean them up, but I should've gone over it with black since the Tamiya Rubber Black is having adhesion issues on the ribs. I'm hoping that sealing it with varnish will allow some better touch-ups.

Incidentally the separate hubs don't fit all that well, I had to scrape quite a lot of material off the rear edges and then managed to get them to slot home. Although in the pic it looks like one is out of true.

I also painted the weapons but they need a flat coat. The yellow is decanted Camel Yellow since it's easy to mask over, and the pylons are done in a warm red mixed from the pinkish GW Mechrite Red and Vomit Brown.

Finally the canopy and gunsight have been unmasked. I spotted a possible error on the front canopy and shifted the centre panel mask so I could respray and widen the left-side frame. I think the rear canopy could do with a remask of the front hoop using straight tape to clean up the edge, and the glazing needs a little bit of polish.

I drilled out the holes in the canopy base which was easy and I think looks good. I'm probably going to leave out the vertical bracing piece though - not especially visible and I'd have to make one to replace the clear part.

I'm currently unsure about whether this should have a top coat - it's still maybe a bit too shiny. I didn't apply anything over the decals which has meant being incredibly careful not to damage them. I did make a hole in one of the lower roundels when test-fitting the pylons - next time I'll do that before painting!

Quite close to final assembly though - the airframe needs more weathering effort, but otherwise (scary close-ups aside) I think it's looking okay. Bit frightened of putting the main gear together though - the wheels are loose on the pins, and the multiple doors are really complex although they should fit since I did some trimming before painting them.

Cheers,

Will