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Mig 15 Scratchbuild


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Hi Greggles,

 

Welcome aboard. Am very pleased you are enjoying the thread.

 

Great suggestion about the sticky labels - I had been thinking along those lines but did not realise you could get them specifically made to be removable. I think that would be ideal. I will definitely be looking into this for my next project. The only other slight complication is that I use my company's photocopier for all of this work and I would probably need permission from...well who knows who...to put anything not supplied by the 'the company' through the photocopier.  Leave it with me! <_< I'll come up with something

 

 

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Great thread! I wouldn`t even think about thinking to do it your way -  to complicated and it requires a lot of skills ;)

Even though I`m a WWI aviation fan the Mig 15 is one of my favourite planes ever, due to the fact that there`s one in front of my old primary school:

3ea6208f4d16a7ecd5d144900d3640a6.jpg

 

I`m planning to build this particular plane using the Trumpeter`s kit - it`s licensed built MIG 15bis -  LIM2 (Polish built) counterpart to be precise.  It has been painted totally wrong recently (the tactical number and the fin) but I simply love it... Should you need some good quality pics of the real thing just let me know.

Keep up this extremely interesting work!

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Wow that's really cool!! Thanks so much for the offer. Some closer shots of the arrangement of the armament blisters under the nose would be great. In fact getting views of the underside in general has been tough because when sitting on their wheels their belly is so close to the ground so any shots of underside especially any bumps and blisters would be great! 👍😀

Earlier in the thread 'VanRoon' wanted me to do a polish one but I'm afraid my heart is set on a Korean War one now.

I must say, having a Lim2 at the entrance to  a primary school shows an admirable commitment to education on someone's part!😀

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As always, thanks to everyone for showing interest in this thread.  Patrick Martin - judging by your icon you might be interested to know that I have lost sleep (actually lost sleep!) over trying to work out how to set the wings on a hypothetical scratchbuilt F104 at just the right anhedral.

 

Anyhow, as promised the tailplanes are now on the Mig15 - but they put up a bit of a fight... Here's the starting point, complete with a set that I made months ago - supposedly all ready to go.

 

IMG_3532

 

All you need to do is 'just' cut a slot in the tail at the right place and another in the tailplanes and slide the two bits together - easy huh!

This is how I determined where the slot would be cut in the tail - cut the drawings, mark where the centre line of where the tail-planes sit, work from there. Should be simple...

 

IMG_3842

 

Cut an equivalent slot in the tailplanes.  When both cuts are made to the correct depth obviously the two pieces can be made to interlock. God forbid it's almost like joinery!

 

IMG_3891

 

Suffice to say that it didn't work out quite so well.  As you can see in this photo, the process of cutting the slot in the plywood tailplane (it's pretty thin) damaged it's sharp, fronty, pointy bits.

 

Faced with the prospect of having to correct that damage I decided to start again and make another set.  The bottom set in the photo above is the start of the second attempt. This time I decided to make the slot 'up front' an integral part of the shape, in another radical development I decided to try to make it carefully. 

 

Now I have a confession to make...At this point I nearly gave in and almost decided to make this out of plastic. Yes plastic!  Some of you may have heard of plastic. It's a synthetic solid material manufactured from hydrocarbons. Several people on this forum have used it to some effect while building models. Of course it will never replace wood as the principal material for model building :mellow: but it does have some limited applications - and I think that next time I do some fiddly bits like these tailplanes I will relent and use it, if for no other reason than doesn't 'chip out' as easily as wood and can be formed into some detailed shapes more easily than plywood. In the end however I carried on with plywood - the heading on this thread says I'm going to try to use wood on this project - so that's what I did. 

 

IMG_3893

 

The razor blade / scraper tool was very useful here, makes nice straight cuts.  Note that initially I tried to cut in the trailing edge fairing for the rear anti-collision light.  That didn't work as the plywood was not strong enough to maintain such a detailed component. I'll have to add it latter.

 

Here the two matching slots have been cut - or at least I thought they matched...

 

IMG_3894

 

A lot of fine adjustment was needed to the thicknesses of the two slots to get them to interlock.  As you can see by the coarseness of the sandpaper I was starting to loose patience and some of this 'fine' work wasn't that fine. :swear:

 

IMG_3895

 

At last - the two pieces interlocked.

 

IMG_3906

 

Except - the damned thing was crooked now - note how (in the photo below) the trailing edges of the wingtips are both lined up fairly closely with row 10 - but the trailing edge tips of the tailplanes are not equidistant from row 1.

This means that the tailplanes are not going on straight and are facing slightly towards the port side.  That's no good. I'm no perfectionist but as I've said before - I want this model to be as symmetrical and 'square' as I can manage, so this will not do. :nah:   I did fix it - but a bit more on that latter.

 

IMG_3914

 

I used the old red paint around the perimeter trick.  If you aren't sure what this is about, go back to page one and have a look at the post on making the wings.

 

IMG_3910

 

Whittle and sand, whittle and sand, whittle and sand. You know the drill - keep the red line visible and all should be OK.

 

IMG_3932

 

No photos for the next bit, but suffice to say I spent some time working on the slot on the tailplane, carefully widening and adjusting it to give it some more 'give' so that the part could be set square to the rest of the airframe. No bad language was used, honest!   At the end though it looked a lot better - you can see in this view how it sits a bit more square to the airframe. Also note that the panel lines and control surfaces have been scribed on - so we are finally ready to go!

 

IMG_3948

 

Whew, tailplanes fixed with some good quality (aquadhere) PVA glue. Job done for this weekend.

 

IMG_3944

 

So - next job?

 

Well next up it might just be the job that I have feared the most from the start of this project. In the last posting I mentioned 'armament, cine camera and tailplanes to go' but I forgot to mention a critical detail that I'm still not exactly sure how I'm going to tackle - the four wing fences (two on the top of each wing).  I've got some thoughts on what to make them out of and how to do it but this is new territory for me.

 

I'm thinking 'just' cut some slots in the wings and fit some thin appropriately cut metal sheets (say flattened aluminium from a coke can) into the slots.  I'm a bit worried that four deep cuts into the wing will weaken it and that getting the cut metal fences in the correct position will be difficult without damaging either the fences or the wing.

 

Any thoughts welcome.

 

Regards,

Reconcilor.   

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Hello,

 

It's a very quick update this one - because as it turns out -  I've already written it in the last posting!

 

"I'm thinking 'just' cut some slots in the wings and fit some thin appropriately cut metal sheets (say flattened aluminium from a coke can) into the slots."   Well - that was exactly what I did - and it worked! - and I didn't accidentally cut the wings off or anything, so it's all good. Here are some photos.

 

I used a set of dividers to carefully mark out where the slots were needed.  This shot might look like a saw - but it's actually a contour gauge. I'm using it to record the exact shape of the top of the wing.

IMG_4060

 

Find an aluminium soft drink can, cut off the top and the bottom and split it long-ways to form a bent sheet of aluminium.

IMG_4067

Remember - Real Taste, zero sugar!

 

Use the shape from the contour gauge to mark out the shape that the fence will need to conform to. Cut this shape out of the aluminium so that the slot in the wing doesn't have to be too deep.

IMG_4084

 

Now, protect the wing either side of the marked cutting point with dymo tape,  borrow a razor saw off one your modelling buddies (thank you 'Van-Roon') and saw a shallow slot in the required spot.

 

Note that this is exactly the type of tool that DMC recommended of page three of this thread and he's absolutely right -it's a great tool and I need to get one.

IMG_4069

 

See, just like DMC says - a beautiful straight line - would be very good for panel lines. Anyhow, this is the slot that the  fence will sit in.

IMG_4071

 

The slot holds the fence nicely - in this case the wing fence is slightly out of scale, a touch too large...Looks like something that should be used to advertise 'Red Bull'.

IMG_4072

 

Better cut it down to size a bit...scissors are ideal for this.

IMG_4086

 

That's looking better...

IMG_4077

 

and a bit more perhaps...

IMG_4079

Ah-ha!  I think we have it...

 

Repeat process three more times.

 

Result!

IMG_4091

 

 

IMG_4093

 

I must say that I am very happy with the outcome. I have never used aluminium sheeting in modelling before, but it's quite pleasant to use - and very cheap.  The fences are not yet glued on but, in the meantime sit in the slots quite nicely. I won't be gluing them on until just before painting as I fear they will always be a little fragile sticking up like that.

 

Next time - if all goes to plan - the Mig will get some teeth.

 

Hope to see you then.

Reconcilor.

 

 

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9 hours ago, hendie said:

it's really coming to life now Reconcilor.. I think this is now officially a mixed-media kit

 

the razor saw is a must-have tool for any modeler

Agree with your comment on the impact those fences have had on the build Hendie. They have made a big difference to the model's overall appearance and I really like them. I can't wait to get a uniform coat of primer over this model now, but still have a few more steps to go until then.

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And another weekend has been spent - more or less - on this project.

 

This time I'm trying to give this little jet some armament - or at least some blisters into which the armament can fit. There will not be any gun-barrels fitted until after painting.  Here's the underside view of the nose that I am using to ascertain the shape and position of the armament-related blisters. 

 

All of a Mig15's internal armament is mounted under the nose. It consists of two 23mm and one 30mm cannon. In the photo below the (broken) tip of the knife blade is pointing at the large housing for the 30mm cannon. 

 

IMG_4099

 

I managed to find some brass tube at my local hobby store that was exactly the right calibre. It's hollow and everything!

 

IMG_4103

 

Following Hendie's observation that this was now a 'multimedia' project I chose to use 'Evergreen' 2mm plastic card for the 30mm cannon housing.

As per usual start by cutting out the required shape from the plans and stick it on. Then cut around the shape - one thing I have noted during this project is how often a decent pair of scissors comes in handy. They cut this card like butter (not that I generally use scissors to cut butter).

 

IMG_4107

 

As an unexpected benefit of using scissors the card was bent slightly along the long axis of the cannon housing.  This was exactly what I needed as, as shown in the photo below, the profile of the card now perfectly matched the profile of the fuselage. Sweet!

 

IMG_4106

 

Now just clean up the cut-out with a scalpel and some sandpaper and its starting to look OK.

 

IMG_4109

 

Cut a slot in the front of the housing to hold the cannon's barrel latter on. The front of the cut-out looks a bit rough here but when the cannon's fitted I reckon a dab of filler will tidy this up sufficiently for my purposes. In this view the housing looks a bit asymmetric - a bit fatter on one side than the other, that's actually the correct shape, but it does look like a mistake. 

 

IMG_4110

 

Repeat the steps above to make another 2mm thick layer and cement the two bits together - one on top of the other. Hold them for a while, while the cement sets to maintain that curved profile that matches the fuselage so well.

 

IMG_4112

 

I now wanted to start completing the full 3D contour of the housing so I drew these plan view contour sections onto another piece of 'Evergreen' card. The new bit of card was only 0.25mm thick though, so my three layers of 'contouring' only boosted the thickness of the piece by 0.75mm at the thickest point.

 

IMG_4113

 

Here's what the five pieces all stuck on top of one another, glued together and matched up with the underside of the nose. Not too bad. The contouring method seems promising but was a bit of waste of time using 0.25mm card.

 

IMG_4114

 

Now I needed to shape the plastic piece into a rounded shape. I just treated it like a piece of wood, shaping it by carving, whittling and sanding. This process was dead easy - the plastic is soft and of course has no grain so can basically be carved or sanded in any direction - beautiful!   While I was at it I also carved a plastic 'tail bumper' - one of those things that stops the rear fuselage getting damaged if the pilot rotates too hard on take-off. There's no photo of it here as there's not much to see and it only took about 5 minutes to make.

 

IMG_4119

 

Here's the result. It looks a bit like a fossil tooth! But anyway the shape and size seems about right so I'm happy. A few dabs of 'Perfect Plastic Putty' soon smoothed out the last remnants of the layering that can still be seen in this photo.

 

IMG_4124

 

I also cut out a plate for the cannon housing to be mounted on - these plates quite visible on the original jet so I felt I had to include it. It's pretty simple, just cut out the correct shape from some of that 0.25mm 'Evergreen' plastic, cement it on the base of the housing and use some putty to blend the housing onto the plate. 

 

I also had to make the 23mm cannon housing.  This was comparatively simple - just needed to find another suitable gun barrel (in this case some more brass tube) and find something to make the gun fairings out of.  As it happened I had some strips of 'bass-wood' in the shed that were just the right width.  Bass wood is one of the finest softwoods for this kind of work (very popular with American wood-workers) so I was not expecting any problems.  First job was to drill a very small hole in the end of the wood, this is where the gun-barrel will ultimately sit. No problems encountered drilling the two holes each of which went in about 15 mm.

 

IMG_4130

 

From here there's no need to bore you with repetition, just cut out the right length of wood, trim it to size, whittle and sand until it's the right shape for each blister. The Bass-wood is magnificent to work; the grain is so straight and of such even density that there's practically no grain at all, the wood is soft and sands very smooth very easily. Nice!

 

And here's the state of the nose underside right now.  It can probably stand a bit more of a clean-up and some more detailing, but the idea's there.

 

IMG_4136

 

And here's the same thing from a more 'racy angle'. If you look very carefully at the rear fuselage you can just make out the white dot that is the tail-bumper. If you take a look at the front of the gun fairings you can see the holes where the barrels will be fitted.

 

IMG_4135

 

So - we are getting closer and closer to getting the first layer of grey primer on this thing. I'm looking forward to that because I think it will be the first time this will look like a 'coherent whole' rather than a blotchy bunch of stuck together bits. All going well the primer will go on next weekend, but there are still several details to go including a very prominent cine camera housing above the air intake.

 

Thanks for looking in.

Reconcilor

 

 

 

 

 

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another master class in scratching Reconcilor.  I can't wait to see this in primer.

 

I find myself more and more using the back edge of the blade when shaping styrene.  I found that when using the front (cutting) edge I would invariably start taking off a sliver at one end and ended up taking a few gouges along the way as I could never control the blade closely enough.

Using the back edge of the blade, as if I was de-burring the edge, I found that I always get a uniform amount of material removal, and I can vary the pressure quite considerably to remove differing amounts of material.

 

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22 hours ago, hendie said:

another master class in scratching Reconcilor.  I can't wait to see this in primer.

 

I find myself more and more using the back edge of the blade when shaping styrene.  I found that when using the front (cutting) edge I would invariably start taking off a sliver at one end and ended up taking a few gouges along the way as I could never control the blade closely enough.

Using the back edge of the blade, as if I was de-burring the edge, I found that I always get a uniform amount of material removal, and I can vary the pressure quite considerably to remove differing amounts of material.

 

Perceptive point Hendie - this is one of the more significant differences between shaping wood and styrene. Using the back edge of the blade on styrene does exactly what you say - removes an even skin, a bit more aggressively than sandpaper. Doing this on wood just tends to smooth the surface and does not remove much material.

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Sorry to post tech support stuff in the middle of this thread but does anyone know why I cannot use the 'reply' function on certain random pages. It's pages three and four on this thread but I've noted the same problem in other threads too and it's becoming frustrating.  I'm having to write this on page 2. I've written a more comprehensive outline on the Help and Support page but have had no responses at all. The issue only affects this PC - not my IPhone. Any thoughts welcome.

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4 hours ago, Reconcilor said:

Sorry to post tech support stuff in the middle of this thread but does anyone know why I cannot use the 'reply' function on certain random pages. It's pages three and four on this thread but I've noted the same problem in other threads too and it's becoming frustrating.  I'm having to write this on page 2. I've written a more comprehensive outline on the Help and Support page but have had no responses at all. The issue only affects this PC - not my IPhone. Any thoughts welcome.

 

You're not alone.  I don't have any kind of answer for you suffice to say that this version of the board is as bug ridden as a cheap motel room

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Thanks for the encouraging comments everyone - they must be keeping me going because for the first time in a long time I have a mid-week update.

 

And what an update it will be! This post will contain:

  • The completely unnecessary use of a flamethrower!
  • 800 degree centigrade temperatures!
  • I will nearly loose an eye!
  • I will use (possibly) carcinogenic chemicals without any protection!

All in the pursuit of...a 1/48 cine camera that you can barely see at all in the end.

(Please note that the content of this thread may vary from that which is advertised above)

 

OK - it's all Hendie's fault - I was going to use a piece of wooden dowel to make the cine-camera but he said that this was now 'officially' a multi-media project. So I decided to use yet another media - clear styrene sprue, in this case from an old 1/48 Hobbycraft Hurricane. The use of clear styrene will allow me to claim one more material type used and will hopefully allow me to have a nice clear lens on the front of the camera.

 

IMG_4137

 

Having cut a piece out I quickly realised how easy it would be to cut the remaining length to the right profile - I's actually really easy to see where to cut when you can see through the stuff! - the brown strip above is the dowel that I was thinking of using; far too boring though...

 

IMG_4140

 

 

Having cut a length off I wet and dry sanded it to give the front lens an 'optical shine'.

 

IMG_4138

 

Now I had to cut the piece of plastic down to size.

 

Fundamentally, there's two ways that can you can cut plastic - use a knife or a saw or something or...use one of these babies!

 

IMG_4163

This is a butane gas burner used for caramelising the top of crème-brulees.  It's similar to what the US marines used in Iwo Jima!

 

Clear styrene is brittle and can snap and get damaged if you try to cut it with a cold blade, so you really need to melt your through the stuff - (that's my excuse anyway).

 

OK - disclaimer time... KIDS - DO NOT TRY THIS WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION!    ADULTS - DO NOT LET YOUR KIDS DO THIS AND IF YOU CHOSE TO DO THIS BE VERY BLOODY CAREFUL!

 

I fired up the flame-thrower and got my daughter to hang onto it while I heated up the knife - don't let her drop the stupid thing or it'll be the end of the house.

IMG_4142 (2)

 

Ensure that you get the knife stupidly, unnecessarily hot - according to google steel goes this colour above 800 degrees Celsius. 

IMG_4147 (2)

 

Make the cut - it doesn't take long!  Make sure that you don't stupidly bend down to get a closer look and nearly stick your right eye in the flame.  I didn't actually get that close but I did have to stop and think once or twice!

IMG_4148

 

Reheat the blade - 500 degrees Celsius just will not do!

IMG_4154

 

Make a diagonal cut at the correct angle to ensure that the cine camera will sit on top of the nose just above the air intake.

IMG_4155 (2)

 

About 1/20th of a second later!

IMG_4156 (2)

 

And so now we have made a cine-camera.  Clean it up with sandpaper and make final minor adjustments to make sure it sits down properly on the nose - it goes just slightly to starboard.  Glue it down with two-part epoxy araldite. Two part epoxy araldite is very smelly - so I'm going to claim that it's a carcinogen just to make this post even more exciting and death-defying.

 

If you look carefully at the photo below you can just see a clear blob on the top of the nose intake - that's the cine camera! That's what all this was about. Hard to see in this photo because the stupid thing is see-through.  Man, some of those panel lines look rough. I think that they will need a tidy up prior to the NMF finish.

 

IMG_4160

 

OK, so that's that done. Given that all I actually did was use a domestic cooking appliance it's probably not that exciting - but hey - this is model building not bungy jumping so I have to try to get what kicks I can! 

 

There are still some details to go before that primer goes on but the list is getting shorter. I am hoping to be spraying primer this weekend

 

Best Regards and (try your best to) stay safe,

Reconcilor

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9 hours ago, Reconcilor said:

 

IMG_4163

This is a butane gas burner used for caramelising the top of crème-brulees.  It's similar to what the US marines used in Iwo Jima!

Those US marines, they do like their crème-brulees. 

 

Earlier, you asked for suggestions for alternatives to PVA glue for attaching the paper templates to the wings etc. You could try searching for repositionable spray mount adhesive. It comes in an aerosol can and when sprayed on the back of a piece of paper it makes it tacky, like a post-it note. 3M make some, but don't confuse it with their spray photomount adhesive, which gives a strong, permanent bond.

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Hi Churchill,

 

That sounds like a great idea! I will definitely look into that along with Greggle's earlier suggestion of printable, removable labels. The PVA works very well but it leaves a permanent messy residue that must be dealt with. Your suggestion sounds much better and was not something I had thought of at all.

Thanks again.

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talking of software glitches and this forum.   I made a post at lunch time at work and it hasn't shown up here.... wtf ???

 

anyways.... amazing death defying modeling - what could be better ?

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22 minutes ago, hendie said:

talking of software glitches and this forum.   I made a post at lunch time at work and it hasn't shown up here.... wtf ???

 

anyways.... amazing death defying modeling - what could be better ?

What could be better than this?Well your Pullman build for one thing! I've just rediscovered it this morning and will be reading in detail tonight. Miles and miles and miles ahead of what I'm doing here, but that's OK, I'm just doing this for fun and am having plenty of it!😀👍

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