Trumpeter MiG-3

[spitfire]

In 2014 I only managed to build two models which is not very impressive as modelling is one of my main hobbies, so for 2015 I really want to improve my productivity.

So instead of my usual practice of having two kits on the go at a time I’m starting off 2015 with three, as I usually finish whatever I start I should be guaranteed at least three finishes for the year !

The first three kits will be Soviet WW2 (GPW) subjects as I really like the look of them but have always been put off by the lack of mainstream enamel model paint for kits of this period. It’s a shame that the WEM series of Soviet paints are not accurate as I have a drawer full of them and they airbrush beautifully.

I am a dedicated enamel user and I do not like acrylics as they are (to me) too fussy, I tried using them once and did not enjoy the experience.

So I bought a selection of AKAN paints (enamels) which are generally accepted as the most accurate model paints for WW2 Soviet subjects, however their formula makes them very smelly and I could not use them in the house.

So I made up paint chips using the AKAN paints and matched them against easy to find enamel model paints that have a more acceptable smell. Acceptable that is to my wife who has a very keen sense of smell !

The first of my 2015 projects will be Trumpeters 1/32 scale mig-3 which has been living in my loft for years.

This will be a very basic build using what is in the box without worrying too much about the kits faults, and with only a couple of aftermarket items.

So here is what you get with the kit.

The box

And the contents

And the PE

Decals

Cheers

Dennis

[spitfire]

As this will be a basic build the aftermarket will be limited, it is anyway by availability ! Here is what I have

And as I like to paint markings I bought these, "my" MiG is the top one

References for the MiG-3 are not exactly thick on the ground, these are all that I have, but I have got some great information from here http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/mig3/mig3.html

I started the build as I usually do by cutting the cockpit parts from the sprues and mounted them in clips or onto plastic labels using Blu Tac or Tamiya tape ready for painting.

I did buy a Quickboost seat which although looking very nice did not have a very secure means of attaching the seat back to the seat base, as the kit will be handled quite a bit (sanding seams etc) I went with the more sturdy kit seat.

The cockpit walls were painted with MM2126 Russian Topside Blue, as there is a surviving Mig-3 section in a Finnish museum showing a similar colour.

http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=1806.0

The cockpit floor, pedals, tubing etc was painted to represent A-14, I obtained some AKAN A-14 and matched it against some Humbrol greys. H27 was the recommended colour in the conversion charts but it was a bit darker than the AKAN A-14 so I went with H140 which is closer to the AKAN colour.

The instrument panel on “my” MiG is a light colour in the available photos, this was identified as AE-9.

While looking through a lot of modelling sites I came across a reference to Humbrol 147 Matt Light grey as being a good match for AE-9, but as this is matt I went with the satin version which is Humbrol 196 Satin Light Grey. Once the panel was painted some switches were picked with Humbrol 33 matt black using a toothpick.

Note the kit seat back cushion which is nothing like the real thing.

The switch boxes on the frame tubing and sidewalls were painted with H33 Matt black, some dry brushing was used to bring out the detail. Some instrument and placard decals (Luftwaffe !) were added using cockpit references as a guide.

The control column was painted with H140 and the gun switch picked out with first H56 Aluminium then H33 matt black, again using a toothpick. The interior of the aft fuselage and the radio “parcel shelf” were bare wood on the real thing, so they were painted with Humbrol 110 Matt Natural Wood.

This is not speed modelling, I don't do that, I've just been saving it up !

Cheers

Dennis

[spitfire]

The instrument panel was then detailed using a mixture of MDC and Airscale decals and placards, there are no Russian ones available so I used a mix of RAF, Luftwaffe and US decals.

I used the photos and diagrams in my MiG 1/3 book to choose the instrument dials picking ones that looked the closest was the best that I could do, some dials and placards were also place on the cockpit side wall boxes.

I was not happy with the artificial horizon instrument decal that I had used so I changed it to a Luftwaffe one from MDC which looked more like the one in the photos.

Now that the bulk of the internal painting was finished, the cockpit had all the small parts attached and then the “tub” was assembled, this went very well though I had to open out the locating slots on the floor a bit.

The seat belts were bodged together from bits and pieces of Eduard RAF Sutton harness parts using a picture in the Mig-1/Mig-3 book.

I made a new padded section for the seat as the kit one looked nothing like the real thing, I cut two holes in this for the shoulder straps. This and the headrest were then painted to simulate brown leather with Humbrol 133 satin brown.

The seat back was a green colour, for this I used Humbrol 226 Matt interior green.

The cockpit “tub” was then assembled, the holes for the headrest on the back of the seat were too prominent so were covered over with some thin plastic sheet.

Test fitting of the cockpit tub in the fuselage showed a very good fit, most impressive Mr Trumpeter. Just to make sure all was well the nose top sections were cut from their sprues and test fitted with the cockpit installed, again this was a good fit.

The tail wheel struts and the tail wheel hub were painted Humbrol 65, the tail wheel tyre was painted with Humbrol 67.

Once the paint was dry the tail wheel mechanism was assembled and some touch up carried out.

The tail wheel parts were test fitted in the fuselage and the fit was good though the assembly is a bit fragile.

The cockpit tub was fitted into the fuselage along with the radio shelf and tail wheel, fitting the latter was very fiddley but eventually it all went in. The fuselage was then glued closed and left on the shelf for the CA to go off fully.

I then started to assemble the flaps, ailerons and tail planes using the rod and PE hinges, this went fine and was not as hard a job as some reviews make out. As I wanted the rudder to be detachable to enable me to detach the rudder to either apply a decal or paint on the star as it overlaps the rudder and fin I omitted the Trumpeter PE hinges when I glued the two halves together. I made up some plastic card hinges to attach it after the markings have been applied.

The wings were next to receive some attention, the flaps and ailerons were glued into the lower wing section using the PE hinges, this was a three handed job, but eventually they all went in fine.

The top sections of the wings were then added, they were also a good fit, and the completed wings were left on the shelf overnight for the CA to cure fully.

Cheers

Dennis

[spitfire]

The next job was sanding and filling seams on the wings and fuselage, this went very well, and the fuselage engine covers and nose disc were added, these were a very good fit and did not leave any seams to sand or fill.

The leading edge slats were cut from the sprue and cleaned up, I managed to snap one during this process and had to glue it back together very carefully. After some trimming the slats were successfully fitted, and some clean up taken care of

Next up was the wing air intakes, these fitted well but with a slight lip, before sanding this down I used a very fine drill to deepen the “rivet” detail, this worked well and the detail was still visible after sanding.

Then I came to the part when a kit build that can turn into a disaster, joining the wings and fuselage, test fitting showed a good match up so I went applied the CA and joined them together.

The tail planes were test fitted and as there was only a very small gap visible they were glued in place.

Cheers

Dennis

[spitfire]

After the CA had been allowed to cure I ended up with some very thin gaps to be filled. They were all on panel lines, as I wanted to fill the gaps but leave the lines I decided to fill them with Mr Surfacer 1200. I applied the Mr Surfacer with a toothpick and then ran a cotton bud soaked in Mr Color thinner along the joint, and hey presto I had a filled gap but with the panel line still showing. A few of the indented rivets were filled in the process but the ones most visible were repaired with a very fine drill bit.

The under fuselage air intake was then fitted, this was a snug fit that did not need any filler at all.

The air inlet trunking sections on either side of the nose were attached, and again they were a nice fit.

I did notice that the clear part of the gun sight had vanished during the fuselage closing , this was the third one I had lost, the original kit part disappeared into the ether after pinging out of my tweezers, followed by a replacement I had made from clear plastic sheet. Another was made and attached to the gun sight.

The undercarriage came next, I decided to paint the main undercarriage oleos blue, for this I used Humbrol 65, the legs appear to have had gators so these were painted with H33 Matt Black. More information indicated that the gators were leather so were repainted brown with Humbrol 160.

The wheel hubs were painted with Humbrol 150.

Attention then turned to the rockets, after reading some information on the sovietwarplanes site I went for a green nose and fins with a black body and green rocket rails, for the green I used Humbrol 150, the black used was Humbrol 85 satin coal black.

The propeller was the next area to receive some attention, the prop blades in particular look very thick and had some sink marks on them. So some sanding was called for, this thinned out the blades slightly and also got rid of the sink marks.

The prop blades were then painted with Humbrol 85, from photos the blades did not have yellow tips so they were left all black.

The Quickboost exhausts were detached from their casting block and cleaned up, a test fit showed a nice fit so they were made ready for painting and put to one side as I usually fit exhausts once the main painting is done.

The clear parts were detached from their sprues, cleaned up and dipped in Kleer, the frame lines on the windscreen of the real thing were in fact joints. The kit part shows them as panel lines but I did not attempt to eradicate them as I have had problems with breaking windscreens on my last few builds.

Now that the airframe was complete it was time to paint the undersides, as “my” MiG had the earlier paint finish rather than AMT-7 I will be using two colours on the underside to represent the different paints used for metal and wood areas. For the wood areas (AII Blue) I will use Xtracolor X601 and for the metal areas Xtracolor X602 (A18), these were good matches for the AKAN paints.The metal sections of the undersides were masked of and the outer wing panels and underside of the rear fuselage was airbrushed with AII Blue (Xtracolor X601).

Here are the paint chips that I made up to match the AKAN paint

Masking complete

This went really well (50:50 paint/thinners at 12psi)

However I realised that I had made a mistake masking off the metal sections as when I mask off the AII blue to airbrush the A-18 I could end up with a strip of bare plastic if I made a mistake. So the masking was removed and the airbrush was loaded again and the edges of the metal parts were painted as were the ailerons that I had mistakenly masked off.

And that brings us bang up to date, I am at this moment masking off for the second colour

Cheers

Dennis

[spitfire]

All masked off and ready to paint the A18 (metal paint) for which I will use Xtracolor X602 which is a good match for the AKAN A18.

And the finished article which I was not impressed with, it may be accurate but I did not like it at all and airbrushed over the A18 with AII Blue (X601)

And on to the main event, the upper surface camouflage of AMT-4 (Green) and AMT-6 (Black) for this I will use Model Master Interior Green FS34151 and either WEM WW2 VVS Black or Xtracolor X800 Schwartzgrau, I will have to paint a test piece to see which looks best. But first it is time to mask off the undersides, the demarcation on the lower fuselage section on the tail is soft so paper masks and White Tac were used here.

And a wire handle was worked into the lower masking using Tamiya tape.

And after the green was airbrushed.

Here is the test piece with the two AMT-6 (Black) candidates I chose the Xtracolor Schwartzgrau because I thought that black would be too stark, but looking at the results I will go for the WEM black, I did use it on a Special Hobby I-16 and it looks a lot more faded with a matt coat on topl.

As I was making up paper masks ready for the AMT-6 to be airbrushed I became less and less happy with the green, it was far too patchy, I had thinned it 50:50 which is what how I thin WEM and Xtracolor but it seem to be too thin for Model Master enamels, so I gave it another coat this time thinned to 1.5:1.0 paint to thinners and all went well, looking back on other builds on which I used MM enamels I did up the paint to thinner ratio, so a lesson re learnt.

I will leave it on the shelf for a few days for the paint to fully cure, luckily I have other builds on the go to keep me amused.

Cheers

Dennis

[spitfire]

Well back to the MiG after being distracted by the Yaks and holidays, as usual I am using paper masks and Blu Tac sausages to mask off the green, this was very time consuming, more so because the camouflage pattern was a bit more complex that normal, I did not have a right side profile so I had to get inventive and tie it into the profile for the left hand side, below is a link to the page on "my MiG" over on Massimo's site.

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/mig3/zarodinu.html

Here are the masks in place

And here is the finished paint job, for the AMT-6 I used WEM Colourcoats ACS04 AMT Black and it came out really nice, once again my camera showed the green as a pretty vivid colour so I had to dampen it down a bit, the green is Model Master Interior Green 34151 (1715)

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

Time to bite the bullet and decide on either masks or decals,for the subject that I want to build I have to use a mask (Montex) for the slogan on the side of the fuselage, this overlaps the fuselage red star so unless I do some nifty cutting of a decal after applying the slogan, the mask would pull a decal off.

Here is my subject, the profile is from here http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/mig3/fall.html

As I am not that confident of pulling this off I will go the mask route and paint the stars on, however for this time period the stars might have been red with a very fine black border, as this would be difficult with masks I am going for all red stars, the black outlined stars would be better done by painting the star location black and applying the mask before painting the main paint scheme.

So on with the masks, the slogan and masks are from a Montex mask set, mistakes are all mine.

And on with the paint, for this I used Xtracolor X14 Red Arrows Red

 

The rudder fell off but not before the paining was complete

 

And that is all for now I will let the paint fully cure before masking off and painting the slogan.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[AdrianMF]

Camouflage pattern looks very good. It is more complex than just stripes across the wings like some of them. Looking forward to seeing this progress.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[spitfire]

Well I finally got around to the big one, the mask for the fuselage slogan, but despite knowing exactly were it should have gone, marking the mask with pencil marks and using masking tape to keep the individual letters in one piece I still got it wrong, it ended up too low and did not overlap the fuselage red star. The plus point was that it came out great, but I am not going to attempt to sand it down, repair the camouflage, buy another set of Montex masks and do it again so it will stay as is.

And in a frantic burst of speed I finally finished it off

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

2 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Camouflage pattern looks very good. It is more complex than just stripes across the wings like some of them. Looking forward to seeing this progress.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian, this is an oldie that I updated with new photos after the Photobucket fiasco left it messed up.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Stew Dapple]

She turned out a beauty Dennis, if I ever get round to doing mine I shall be bookmarking this  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[spitfire]

1 hour ago, Stew Dapple said:

She turned out a beauty Dennis, if I ever get round to doing mine I shall be bookmarking this  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Thank Stew, this is one of my favourites, I do like the VVS aircraft with the slogans.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis