Darren Rhodes Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Hi all, First completed model in three years. 😬 Following on the heels of many here, I've decided I need to tackle my shelf of doom box of unfinished bits. Here's the first completed resulted. I gave up on this two years ago. It's the KP kit, which was also boxed by RV Aircraft, the KP variants coming with no resin bits or photoetch. And as I discovered, the KP kits come with much poorer quality decals - they're suitably thin and go on well, but the majority of mine were massively out of register and the stencils are completely overscale. The bort number and squadron award decal did come from the Academy boxing. I should have quit using the decals, but I'd already lost patience with this kit - the fit is typical limited run and the parts breakdown to cater for the later ML/MLD variants makes for lots of fiddly inserts that don't fit and require much sanding, losing the lovely surface detail. I think the stance is a bit nose high - the main gear legs are in two parts with a break at the main 'knuckle', but have no key to help determine the correct angle... It seems illogical now, but I added Reskit R-23R and Eduard R-60/AA-8 missiles as the kit comes with nothing except the centreline drop tank, and my models need to be armed and dangerous! The R-23R missile fins are all separate so they took a quite a lot of time to separate the fins from the casting blocks and glue, but look amazing. The R-60 missiles are single piece with minimal clean up and look equally impressive. I had planned to rob the missiles from the Academy boxing, but the R-23 missiles in the Academy box look about as close to an R-23 as an R-23 does to an A-7 Sparrow... 🙄 I also added Reskit wheels and a Master pitot probe. The Reskit wheels included separate resin wheel centres to cater for the early or late nose wheel hubs, a first experience for me. This made them a little more fiddly, but nothing too taxing. Paints were Tamiya acrylic primer (which I quickly regretted and will stick to Halfords grey primer in future 🤦♂️), AK Interactive acrylic for the cockpit, Xtracolour enamels and Alclad for the metal areas. I wanted a dirty, heavily worn machine, courtesy of an oil wash and to tone the decals and stencilling, I applied a heavy coat of Tamiya Flat Base, with sort of worked... Generally dissatisfied with the outcome, I've already acquired an RV Aircraft MiG-23P, which I may attempt in a camouflage finish. The decals appear far superior in the RV kit, are in register and with appropriately scaled stencils, but I've already got a Print Scale stencil decal set, which is what I should have used in this case. On with the photos. Darren 22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulsbrown Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Nice work, having just done the same aircraft at a bigger scale I commend you, I had all sorts of difficulties putting the missile decals on 1/48. Yours are perfect. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mig88 Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Regardless of all your troubles it came it out very nice, at least as far as the photos show! Honestly, it looks very good. Miguel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangor Lad Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Great job on the monochrome finish. Always difficult to pull off but you've 100% succeeded! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheyJammedKenny! Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Wow! That's nice work. It's armed and dangerous, all right. Agree with others about the difficulty of making a monochrome finish interesting, and yours looks great. I really like the missile details, and the nose-high posture doesn't look very out of place at all. Didn't they call these things "lizards" for that upward cant? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binbrook87 Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Very nice indeed. You've done a great job there 👍Just about to start mine so thanks for the heads up on the fit of parts etc. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-4Guy Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Looks really good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Rhodes Posted April 22, 2020 Author Share Posted April 22, 2020 2 hours ago, paulsbrown said: Nice work, having just done the same aircraft at a bigger scale I commend you, I had all sorts of difficulties putting the missile decals on 1/48. Yours are perfect. I've just committed to proper reading glasses and together with a large magnifier, they were essential for the missile decals! But the decals behaved flawlessly as I'd expect from Eduard and Reskit. I particularly liked that the R-23R missiles come with different microscopic decal serial numbers, as they should! Thank you all, far too kind! Darren Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Rhodes Posted April 22, 2020 Author Share Posted April 22, 2020 18 minutes ago, binbrook87 said: Very nice indeed. You've done a great job there 👍Just about to start mine so thanks for the heads up on the fit of parts etc. Be wary of the seam between the forward and aft fuselage parts which is split just behind the cockpit, very visible and also aligns with the wing root inserts (to cater for the extra dogtooth on the MLD variants). Also the fin is not terribly secure fitting - mine came off at a late stage, with the engine cooling ducts in place, addressing the fin/fuselage seam was a challenge. Lesson, I'd add metal pins to the fin to make the connection extra secure. Bin the decals unless you have an RV boxing... Darren Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binbrook87 Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 17 minutes ago, Darren Rhodes said: Be wary of the seam between the forward and aft fuselage parts which is split just behind the cockpit, very visible and also aligns with the wing root inserts (to cater for the extra dogtooth on the MLD variants). Also the fin is not terribly secure fitting - mine came off at a late stage, with the engine cooling ducts in place, addressing the fin/fuselage seam was a challenge. Lesson, I'd add metal pins to the fin to make the connection extra secure. Bin the decals unless you have an RV boxing... Darren Thanks very much for the heads up! Mine's actually the KP boxing and I've already got some aftermarket decals. 😁 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vultures1 Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 Very nice result, despite the challenges of the kit. The stance looks correct to me for a MF and the finish looks great 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djos Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 The kit is not an easy one, plastic is very challenging. You mastered it. Model is looking very nice, so no need to be unsatisfied, for sure. Best regards Djordje 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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