Academy 1/72 MiG-23: Or why do I do this to myself?

[Mak_the_Knife]

I've always had a soft spot for the MiG-23, probably due to the cover of of Mack Malony's "Thunder in the East" Wingman book where one was about to get blasted by an F-16.  Look I was 9 and it was COOL! 

 

So when I saw Sprue Brothers having a sale on the Academy 1/72 version for like $9, I didn't even check to see the reviews.  And since it was part of a larger order, I didn't even realize i had added it twice, and was going to get two of them.

Yay. 
Sometime afterwards is when I discovered it's issues: too short, shape is iffy in places and no cockpit for all intents and pourposes. 

 

I should have just donated them somewhere at that point, but I mean, it does at least look like a -23, and its not like any one ever really sees my builds, so, eh why not? 

 

And really the -23 market has been kinda slim until recently, anyways. I heard the KoPro kit was accurate but kinda of a PITA and that the Zvedza/Italari kit wasn't hugley better than the Acadamy/Hase one. At least not enough to buy one over and above the the Acadamy ones I already had. (though now I know the KoPro ones arent bad builds, so I may get one of those). And I see that Clear Prop is doing a jaw dropping Flogger, but honestly I feel like I'm not worthy of such a kit. 

 

Annnnnyways. 

 

Me being me, I went exatcly 12.8 seconds before realizing I couldn't just OOB this thing. I don't expect perfect cockpits, but lets at least make the seat look like a seat as opposed to a lump (though the headrest actually does a decent KM-1 impression). And If I was already going to do the cockpit, it shoudl be a minor thing to add the missing legnth and fix the nose. Right? 

So I found this technicle  picture that wasn't behind a paywall or horribly pixelated so I figured it sure looks like a  -23, and has Crylic writing on it, so it must totally be legit. 

 

 

So I scaled it to 1/72, printed and compared the kit to it to see where I was coming up short.  

 

 

 

 

Looked like about 4.5mm  short, which jived with what I read elsewhere. So I traced the cross section, scanned and imported into Fusion360. 

 

 

 

 

I also did the nosecone as that was also disparaged elsewhere, but I dunno if I'm feeling it. I'll print out a quick version of the fuesalage extensiuon and cone to see how they fit and what needs to be changed. 

 

I also did a quick and dirty KM-1 ejection seat and a basic cockpit tub so I can figure out where I want to go from here. 

 

 

I'm not going for super accuracy here, but i do want the cockpit to at least look like  flying takes place in it, and the extension and nosecone are easy enough to design and print (HA!). 

 

And since I have two, it makes twice as much sense to do it (scientifically speaking). 

So hopeully an easy way to make a cheap kit more accurate while working on my 3D skills. And, more importantly,  killing time at work. 

[Mak_the_Knife]

Did some quick test prints of the plug and nose on my old trusty Ender-2. 

 

The plug is about as good as I think I could hope for, but I'm not sure on the nose cone. I guess I'm not sure what it should look like, even after looking at pictures i'm kind of "eh" on it. I guess it looks fine? I dunno. Pima has a -23MLD that I guess I could force myself to go look at over the weekend...

 

 

[theplasticsurgeon]

Following with interest, as I have this kit in my stash.

I hadn't realised the nose is short.

[Mak_the_Knife]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:26 PM, theplasticsurgeon said:

Following with interest, as I have this kit in my stash.

I hadn't realised the nose is short.

I could be wrong, I've read a ton of threads lately about the, ah, shortcomings of this kit, so  I could easily be mis-remembering. It does look a bit off compared to the drawings I found, but that's neither her nor there.

It can also probably be dependent an which version you're building. For my build, I'm not going for any version in particular, but rather just a more accurate/detailed base frame. I aso rembering reading the main gear wheels were very small (and again it does look like it), but I can't that thread right now. 

 

I have been working on this a bit (along with a MiG15UTI, my MiG-28bis build, an Su-27SM and A10 build...). I did do missiles for this quite awhile ago, which I'll post pictures of later.  I'm trying out more engineered support structures for printing them. I'm also waiting on printer time for  printing a cockpit size/shape blank. I scrapped my first version of the cockpit as I wasn't feeling it,. 

 

This is my incredibly chaotic Fusion workspace. You can see my traces of the kit forward fuelsalage on top, a different technical cross-view along with the orginal one I found. The dark gray things are the cockpit inset shapes I'm trying to size and shape. 

 

 

The dark gray clump is the blank hopefully shaped the the kit fuesalage (the outline of which is the pencil on graph paper in the back ground) so we'll see how that works out. 

 

Hopefully this weekend I'll head over to Pima Air and Space to get some better pics of their MLD. 

 

I have a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I'm going to end up accidently just designing an entire MiG-23... 

 

[Mak_the_Knife]

Managed to get three blanks printed, one 'full' one, one that had the, uh, under-dash part cut off and one that was basically a block to make sure the width settings were correct. 

It's closer than I'd figured it would be considering it's based off of random internet drawings and scans of late-night tracings. 

Th

The spinal hump needs to be pushed back about 1.5 mm and the curve could use a little work, but unlike PLA, UV resin sands (too) easily so I may just adjust the curve 'by hand". 

 

 

And here's the render of the SARH R23/24 (I always mix up which is which) with my first attempt of enginnered supports. They worked ok, but I've since revised it. I have the IR one done as well. 

And here's a couple of crappy pics, one of the fin arieals popped off when I was cutting the missile free, but pretty happy with it. 

 

And here's a real one:

Edited February 1 by Mak_the_Knife

[Hook]

1 hour ago, Mak_the_Knife said:

SARH R23/24 (I always mix up which is which)

Both.

 

The R-24 is a refined developement of the R-23, both coming in IR and SARH variants. 

 

Still impressed by your 3D printing!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Mak_the_Knife]

On 2/1/2023 at 12:10 PM, Hook said:

Both.

 

The R-24 is a refined developement of the R-23, both coming in IR and SARH variants. 

 

Still impressed by your 3D printing!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

Ah, that makes sense! And Thank you! 

 

No much modeling the last few days, but we did get to go to Pima Air and Space museum today! I took slightly more than a bajillion pictures, and spent some quality  time with lady:

 

I did manage to sneak some prints in too:

A new main wheel, and a 75% KM-1 seat. I say 75% becuase I'm not going for absolute accuracy here, but I want to make sure if you know ejection seats, that you know what it is.

It's washed out becuase of the gray but I think it looks the job. 

 Once I get it sized right, I'll do inserts to give it that prominent texture those seats have. 

[Mak_the_Knife]

Worked some more on the cockpit. and printed out the next iteration test on the resin printer. It helps to be able to draw easily on the resin for measurements etc. I need to adjust the side panels to match the cockpit cutouts better and work on the "under the dashboard" (is that what it's called in planes?) area. I'm debating cutting that part out entirely and making that part of the cockpit insert, but I'll get everything else done first. 

 

I also needed to widen the insert by about a mm on each side. 

 

H

I had to sand the front quite a bit to get it to fit so fixing that in the design. 

 

Drawing on the kit part to help figure out angles and measurements from the tub. 

 

A little too narrow. Easy enough to fix. 

 A little closer...

 

[Mak_the_Knife]

The cockpit tub is pretty close. 

 

 

 

 

I did some hand fitting, traced the corrected profile, scanned and inserted it back into Fusion as a canvas to make adjustments. Hopefully, that will be close enough to start detailing for the final print.