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1/48 Trumpeter MiG-15, Korean War, with CWS tail correction


MeneMene

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Hello!

 

As I'm now wrapping up my Stuka build, I've begun to work on the Trumpeter MiG-15. Along with it, I have the Eduard zoom PE set, Aires ejection seat and engine nozzle, Master brass gun barrels, and the Cold War Studios correction to fix the angle/profile of the tail.

 

X06KXgm.jpg

 

I'll start this by asking for some advice: the Trumpeter kit seems a mix/match of different Mig-15bis variants. It has the larger airbrakes but they're one-piece instead of two halves. It has both the landing light in the nose intake splitter as well as the one under the left wing (it should be one or the other, with the nose light on the earlier examples and the wing on later versions). Lastly, it has the two seperate cannon blast plating instead of the larger one-piece example of the later Mig-15bis. The aircraft I am doing is from February 1952, serial number 2315263. I don't know at what time point the changes separating an "early" from a "late" Mig-15 would take place; based on the photographs I've seen most of the Korean Migs lack the intake splitter light, so I'm assuming they would be late-model Mig-15bis. Here is what I plan to do for the model:

 

1) Scribe a new line down the middle of the airbrakes to represent the later two-piece brakes

2) Install the clear part for the nose intake splitter light, but sand it smooth and paint it, leaving only the underwing landing light.

3) Take some thin styrene sheet and join the two gun blast panels into the single-piece example used in the later versions.

 

 

Again, I would appreciate any help/corrections.

 

First up is the cockpit. I started by painting the plywood floors:

 

cQQKDY9.jpg

 

I used Tamiya XF-23 to represent the blue/grey cockpit color. Here is the cockpit after an application of XF-23, chipping to reveal the plywood underneath on the floor, as well as some detail painting and some of the photoetch set.

 

TrruKR9.jpg

 

Slightly better lighting, as well as a view of the Aires ejection seat with the Eduard belts attached. I needed to cut off part of the seat handles to get it to fit in the cockpit, but it's hard to tell once everything's in place.

 

yK0chXY.jpg

 

Eduard instrument panel with Tamiya gloss over the instrument dials.

 

RURdVr4.jpg

 

And here is the final cockpit before installation. My apologies, I got carried away and didn't take too many in-progress pictures.

 

RQHzreW.jpg

GunvBV9.jpg

7uldrsx.jpg

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Some new information after tracking down a new book:

 

For s/n 2315263, I will be using the nose light and deleting/filling the wing light, and using the air brakes as supplied in the kit.

,

Does anyone have any information about Mig-15 drop tank use in Korea? Would they primarily be the conformal slipper tanks of the later pylon-mounted larger drop tanks?

Edited by MeneMene
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Intake splitter with landing light

 

mizSs2O.jpg

 

The fuselage comes in four parts, front and back halves. I've decided to join the components lengthwise before putting the two halves together. I've also filled some very large sink marks on the intake sides.

 

XGAg4n1.jpg

Edited by MeneMene
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On 12/7/2019 at 6:16 PM, MeneMene said:

As I'm now wrapping up my Stuka build, I've begun to work on the Trumpeter MiG-15. Along with it, I have the Eduard zoom PE set, Aires ejection seat and engine nozzle, Master brass gun barrels, and the Cold War Studios correction to fix the angle/profile of the tail.

Apologies for my ignorance, but what exactly is this kit? is it some wedge/filler to tweak the angle or a whole new component? 

https://the48ers.com/mig-15-15bis-15uti-vertical-fin-correction-set.html -  is this the part? 

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7 hours ago, Kushan_Farsight said:

Apologies for my ignorance, but what exactly is this kit? is it some wedge/filler to tweak the angle or a whole new component? 

https://the48ers.com/mig-15-15bis-15uti-vertical-fin-correction-set.html -  is this the part? 

 

Yes, that's it. The kit's tail is based off of incorrect drawings and the vertical tail is at the wrong sweep angle.

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Test-fitting showed a pretty bad fit between the fuselage halves and the section of the lower-rear fuselage containing the airbrakes and ADF antennas. I've started carefully attaching it to one side to start, using CA glue and reinforcing strips.

 

q9iww5y.jpg

 

I took out the saw and started removing the tail for the CWS correction set.

 

HsYT22E.jpg

 

Here is a comparison, you can see that the CWS tail is at a more raked angle. It's a bit subtle when seen this way, I don't know how apparent the difference will be after installation.

 

dVyJ29H.jpg

 

And now for the big problem of the day: The resin tail doesn't fit! It's much too narrow to fit the kit.

 

hWLJYC0.jpg

yaJXDOq.jpg

 

This is very discouraging. Why go through the effort of making a resin correction and not taking care that it actually fits the kit it says it's designed for!? I'm coming to the conclusion that the tail correction is a waste of time and money.

 

My options:

1) Add the resin tail, and sand down/remove a bunch of plastic to get rid of the step between the fuselage and the tail before rescribing all the rivet detail.

 

2) Re-assemble and re-attach the plastic tail and live with the incorrect angle, at least the join with the fuselage will look somewhat presentable.

 

Any suggestions?

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2 hours ago, MeneMene said:

My options:

1) Add the resin tail, and sand down/remove a bunch of plastic to get rid of the step between the fuselage and the tail before rescribing all the rivet detail.

 

2) Re-assemble and re-attach the plastic tail and live with the incorrect angle, at least the join with the fuselage will look somewhat presentable.

 

Any suggestions?

As a 'looks OK from three feet away' type modeller, personally I'd go with re-attaching the kit one as your 'least worst option'. I'd have to say that while I'm all for correcting obvious errors, to me the difference between the kit fin and the CWS one is pretty minimal and not worth the trouble of correcting (though I'm sure that's heresy to some who frequent these parts!). As my mum used to say, 'a blind man on a galloping horse would never notice it!'

 

As always, your mileage may vary, to coin a phrase.

 

Either way, I'll certainly be following your build - while I don't have the Trumpeter 'bis' kit (I went with the Tamiya one), their 'UTI' is sitting in my stash.

Edited by hopkp
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Might I suggest adding a triangular wedge of plasticard to the bottom of the kit fin you removed to increase the angle of sweep? Hard to tell from your photos, but if you do that, will the chord of the two fins match up at the top and bottom? Just a thought.

Mike

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17 minutes ago, 72modeler said:

Might I suggest adding a triangular wedge of plasticard to the bottom of the kit fin you removed to increase the angle of sweep? Hard to tell from your photos, but if you do that, will the chord of the two fins match up at the top and bottom? Just a thought.

Mike

 

Good idea, but I think that will result in the horizontal tail being angled back as well. The resin correction as the more swept tail but keeps the attachment points for the stabilizers horizontal.

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Hadn't thought about that- you are right! It's a lot of work and a pain in the a-- but since the area where the horizontal stabs attach on the kit is given as a raised panel, you could cut that section out, modify the base of the fin to give the correct sweepback, then re-attach the horizontal stab attachment and the section of the fin above it. Easier way to me would be to just sand the fin fairing that is part of the upper fuselage to match the cross section of the resin fin. I guess it depends upon how  much work you want to do for a few degrees of sweepback, but my best friend and modeling mentor is a retired dentist and a 1-2 mm error in shape or dimension looks like an inch to him! (What is it about modelers who are dentists that  always makes them such perfectionists?)

Mike

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9 hours ago, MeneMene said:

 

Any suggestions?

 

I used this set back in 2015 on the two-seater and found exactly the same problem. I wrote about it here: https://jonbryon.com/mig15uti-html/

 

In the end I used Milliput Superfine White to smooth the transition and it looked like this when done:

 

mig15uti_017.jpg

 

mig15uti_019.jpg

 

I agree that it's not worth the effort.

 

Jon

Edited by Jon Bryon
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Just now, Jon Bryon said:

In the end I used Milliput Superfine White to smooth the transition and it looked like this when done

 

That picture looks great! There is hope after all.

 

Just to clarify, you glued on the new tail, and then laid down the milliput in the gap along the step and sanded smooth? Any technique tips?

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Just now, MeneMene said:

 

That picture looks great! There is hope after all.

 

Just to clarify, you glued on the new tail, and then laid down the milliput in the gap along the step and sanded smooth? Any technique tips?

Yep, that's what I did. Only technique tip I can offer is to rescribe in the Milliput using a razor saw.

 

My modelling has improved a lot since then, so the final model was not great, but that joint did tidy up rather well :)

 

Good luck!

 

Jon

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36 minutes ago, Jon Bryon said:

Yep, that's what I did. Only technique tip I can offer is to rescribe in the Milliput using a razor saw.

 

My modelling has improved a lot since then, so the final model was not great, but that joint did tidy up rather well :)

Do you remember if you ended up having to take away much of the plastic on the fuselage side of the join? Or were you able to do the whole thing with the milliput? About how far up the fin did you go with the milliput, if you remember?

 

Thanks

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10 hours ago, MeneMene said:

Do you remember if you ended up having to take away much of the plastic on the fuselage side of the join? Or were you able to do the whole thing with the milliput? About how far up the fin did you go with the milliput, if you remember?

 

Thanks

I did not remove much plastic and just did the whole thing with Milliput. I don't think I went that far up the tail. In the subsequent sanding I would have removed some of the plastic base.

 

Jon

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Nice work. 

I built one of these when they first became available and I was impressed with the finished model. Didn't know about the fin back then though...🙄

My only recollection of any significant difficulties was some badly placed sprue attachments, which encroached on to the joining surfaces and needed to be dealt with carefully.

John 

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Painted the Aires engine components. The detail around the tail pipe exit was a bit better, but in hindsight you probably only need this particular aftermarket if you're having the engine displayed. Looks nice though.

 

WIzSF7O.jpg

 

Here are all the internals in place, including some nose weight, before I close up the fuselage halves.

 

I3pUoPX.jpg

 

The fuselage was really difficult to fit together, especially with the seperate pieces such as the weapon bay cover and the rear underside with the ADF antenna. Even when trying to follow the curve of said rear piece perfectly I ended up with a large gap at the rear. The front weapons panels were almost as bad. Not sure what I did wrong, but things are now successfully held together with lots of superglue.

 

bQtML8Y.jpg

 

Here is the front section, with a particularly horrible gap around the 37mm cannon filled with some milliput. I still need to deal with some further gaps on the weapons access panels.

 

2Xac9Pq.jpg

 

Here she is on a jig I made to keep things vertical when adding the resin tail.

 

LeJ6gy2.jpg

 

And here is the resulting very large step after adding said tail.

 

BwlK5Ub.jpg

 

However, thanks to John Bryon's advice above, I think I have the solution. Milliput to the rescue!

 

nXS1saS.jpg

 

After some sanding

 

aEA97TX.jpg

 

Also used it and some CA glue + talc mixture to fix the huge gap by the exhaust.

 

R3a9nFO.jpg

 

Lots of sanding and rescribing in my future. I'm trying to work out the best way to handle the weapons panels next. Might get started on assembling the wings and detailing the wheel bays if I need a distraction from that.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This kit is a truly unpleasant build...

 

I assembled the wings- and here is the result of the test fit... atrocious. The tabs are minimal so there's very little guidance to achieve the proper wing anhedral, plus there are massive gaps to deal with. I also went ahead and filled the inside of the wing landing light, to provide support for the filler when I sand it away and fill it.

 

CfFf87d.jpg

 

Here is the result of a big milliput session. Both joins on both wings needed filling. I built a jig out of lego and tape to keep the wing anhedral close to correct while the glue dried.

 

XUkxUGa.jpg

 

e8WcQih.jpg

 

The tail joined has cleaned up nicely after some Surfacer and sanding

 

hpeoNfW.jpg

 

Adding to the misery- the two resin rudder parts from the CWS didn't even fit into the tail, leaving a huge gap. Here I've taken some plastic and used it to build up the rudder length

 

5A2nbu9.jpg

 

The bottom of the top rudder segment needed a small triangular shim, made from black plastic and hard to see in this picture. However, the huge gap filled by the white plastic on the top of the lower rudder segment is very apparent. I also managed to break off the rudder trim tab in the process, not sure if I have anything thin enough to replace it while keeping the gluing neat. Any suggestions?

 

TmxzOrP.jpg

 

A section of the kit wing had become broken at some point in the prior life of the kit before I bought it second hand, so I used more plastic card to replace the lost section.

 

4Mf7X9P.jpg

 

Finally all major parts are together. Still a bit of seam work and scribing to do, but I'm seeing daylight.

 

sDT837m.jpg

 

Installed the gunsight and replaced the lenses with acetate sheet.

 

Pi4S5p6.jpg

 

Detailed the wheel bays with lead wire and plastic rod, loosely following some reference photographs to give a more busy look.

 

oBS5pqy.jpg

 

KgtGedv.jpg

 

After some primer, also filled in some sink marks behind the wheel wells

 

z0zKoyH.jpg

 

More seam checking

 

KyZiuoG.jpg

 

Forgot to add the final elements of the gun ports, those needed lots of sanding into shape as well

 

1i5S19i.jpg

 

I'm doing Zameskin's camouflaged aircraft of a light brown and green over blue. I don't know of any conclusive evidence of what colors were used and I've seen several different profiles and interpretations. To start, I'm assuming they would have some Soviet WW2 colors on hand and started out with some AMT-7 blue for the underside, but I'm eager to listen to other suggestions/opinions. Maybe it's a bit too blue?

 

Does anyone know what color would be behind the glass of the ADF/navigation antennas in the lower rear fuselage?

 

kGEkSOh.jpg?1

2mSvaYz.jpg

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Oh boy what a lot of work but it looks like you are taming it. I have one in the stash that I started (only really got as far as cutting the fuselage parts off the sprues and filling the injector pin marks inside the fuselage before it got put away again. I must have 'got the vibes' that it was going to be a tricky build.

 

Duncan B

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  • 2 weeks later...

Big problem now, I didn't take the weight of the resin tail into account and now the aicraft sits very tail heavy, despite the weight I put in the nose.

I drilled a hole in front of the windscreen into a compartment there, filled it with "Liquid Gravity" pellets. I also filled the front of each of the drop tanks the same way. Still not enough weight, even with the canopy and resin ejection seat. I can't figure out a reliable way to add more weight. I can drill into the weapons bay on the underside, but it has gaps/cracks in it that will allow the shot pellets to fall out and move out of place.

 

I'm really at a loss for what to do, I don't know how else I can weigh the nose down without creating an enormous headache. It's a shame to just scrap the whole project after putting in all the above work into it, but at the same time all the set-backs and annoyances have really sapped my motivation. The kit is garbage, almost every single piece has needed filling/sanding/encouragement to fit, and now all of this.

 

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

 

4H9aaeg.jpg

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