New! Mikro Mir 1/72 Scale Martin XB-51 Bomber

[TheRealMrEd]

Well, I had a sort of schedule in mind for what I was going to build next, but something has occurred that blew all that out of the water!

 

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a preview or review of this kit, and sat down immediately to order one from Ukraine, as I could hardly wait.  It was scheduled to arrive around July 4th, but showed up unexpectedly yesterday.  Wow!  Talk about fast shipment, from a war-torn country  -- words can not express how amazed I was.  Sometimes, it takes longer for me to get a package from  Canada to Atlanta, Georgia USA.  (NOT THE FAULT OF CANADA POST!).  The US postal system seems to like sending parcels back and forth between New Jersey and New York, before banishing them to south Georgia, before they can figure it all out.  I say this as a US postal service retiree, so i feel justified in saying that "the old grey mare ain't what she used to be"... but then, what is?

 

Anyway, here's what they sent me in a nice sturdy mailing box.  The kit box was un-assembled and included:

 

 

The kit includes 16 pages of illustrated instructions, plus a paint/decal  guide for the two aircraft built:

 

 

and a BUNCH of parts, including a PE fret, and actual nose glazing:

 

 

For references, I shall be using one book, one magazine article, some photos grabbed decades ago from a great old movie, I think called "Towards The Unknown", as well as some pictures grabbed here and there on-line:

 

 

By the way, and sadly for those desiring such, the decal sheet in the kit does NOT include the markings for the fictional Gilbert XF-120, which would have been a heck of a huge fighter -- image the Thundbirds markings for these!

 

Now, it's not like I haven't tried building a model of the XB-51 before.  Decades ago, (before being burned out on modeling), I began  an old Execuform "Nostalgia On Wings" 1/72 scale scale vacuform offering, and then a while later, the Anigrand version, both of which ended up on the Shelf of Doom.  While they both had their problems, the major problem was me.,..

 

Below, a comparison of the fuselages from each kit.  Top to bottom, the Execuform kit, with a few embellishments, the the Anigrand, followed by both halves of the Mir kit:

 

 

As you can see, they are all pretty close.  A while back there was a build claiming that the Anigrand kit was way to short, and had to be lengthened and fattened to shape up.  I decided to measure this kit, to the best of my capability, and I think that I have found out what the problem was.  Below is is a picture of this process:

 

 

When determining the length of an aircraft, it is important to know whether it will fit, whether it be into a hangar, onto a hangar deck or elevator, or what have you.  Sometimes, you have to contend with a nose boom or the like.  In this case it will be from the tip of the nose cap or glazing, to the rear tips of the horizontal stabilizer, NOT the rear of the fuselage!  In my process above, the parts are just taped together, and the Horizontal tips rest against a box, and the forward position is marked just ahead of the fuselage tip, as I did not attach the nose cap/glazing to the fuselage.

 

The standard length given for the XB-51 is 85 feet and 1 inch (85'-1").  My crude assembly measures out to be 84'-6", or about 7 scale inches short, call it a slightly fat 2mm in real life.  There may be that much slack in my tape job or whatever!

 

Anyway, I don't think that I have another 20 years or so to wait for another "more accurate" kit to show up, so by golly, I'm gonna finish this one!

 

Stay tuned,

 

Ed

 

PS: If anyone would like to make an offer on either the Anigrand or Execuform kit, started but complete, PM me, or they'll end up on E-Bay.

 

 

[Beard]

I'll be following (if that's okay). I first discovered the XB-51 when I was maybe 7 or 8 and my Grandmother gave me some Martin promotional material that my Dad had got as a kid.

[TheRealMrEd]

10 hours ago, Beard said:

I'll be following (if that's okay). I first discovered the XB-51 when I was maybe 7 or 8 and my Grandmother gave me some Martin promotional material that my Dad had got as a kid.

Welcome aboard, Beard

 

I also loved the XB-51, as well as the Lockheed XF-90.  I thought they were the coolest planes ever!

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Well, here we go.

 

The first step in the instructions called for gluing a PE part to each of the cockpit side consoles.  Only problem here is that one PE part is flat on one end, and then needs to be bent to a slight curve on the other, to cover the throttle quadrant.  Even with my pretty fair selection of PE tools, this was a bit of a challenge, but I more or less got it done.  These will be seen in later photos.

 

Next step was to begin assembling the cockpit area:

 

 

Above left.  The instructions would have you first glue the two side consoles to the cockpit base plate "D", above.  I started to do this, and quickly realized that I would not have enough room for my fumble-fingers to handle the next step, which was to glue the rudder pedals "A", to the rear side of the floor hump "B", and then cover those with the "foot console"(?), "C" above.  Problem here was that the areas marked "X" on part "C" (above left) were not open, which would have made the whole step impossible!

The "foot console" is supposed to go atop the bump, and cover the rudder pedals connecting bar.

 

So, above right, I glued the rudder pedals as needed, and then removed the sides of the "foot console" openings.

 

Next up, I glued the I.P. PE part to the needed plastic part:

 

 

Above center, all the parts up to this point have been assembled, including the steering yoke.  Just to the left of the steering yoke can be seen the bent "throttle quadrant" area of the PE mentioned above.  Care must be taken when assembling the pieces that the rudder pedals clear the side consoles, which must be  wide enough apart to drop in the I.P. , and that the consoles are flush with the back of the floor, so that they butt up against the rear panel.  I used Weld-On #3 liquid glue to give me time to get everything to mesh together.  Oh, and this time, I did use Metal Prep 4K primer on the PE parts, before starting!

 

Above right, the pilot's and Shoran operator's seats are started, with each seat consisting of 4 plastic parts, plus 3 PE parts that I will show next time, plus 4 PE seat belt parts on each seat!  Up to now, I'm about 3 HOURS into the build, between trimming and sanding the edge of each plastic part, fiddling with the PE, and trying to make sense of the illustrated drawings.  It was a lot tougher than you might think!

 

At this point, let me tell all of you, that hpoed for -- finally -- a simple to build model of this aircraft -- this ain't the one and  that this will NOT be a quickie kit!  There are a LOT of parts, many small and fiddly, plus the fact that the kit is molded with the rather soft plastic that is in favor with eastern European kits, and there you go...

 

All that being said, while it's no bed of roses, I'd MUCH rather have this kit than not.  I only hope that with all the fiddly bits, sub- assemblies and then the BMF finish, that I can actually build this kit, as well as do it justice.  I guess we'll all find out, together.

 

Gotta go have a snort of my new favorite, peanut butter whiskey, and heal for a while, before the NEXT round.

 

Later,

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Moving along.

 

The PE ejection seat sides attach to the seats, taking care to align the back and bottom edges. (arrows), shown here askew, and not yet attached:

 

 

Above right, the seat sides have tabs which attach to the tubular structure.  I could not determine whether the tubular part was supposed to fit against the seat back, or should there be a little space between?  I glued the tube parts to the seat back, and CA'd the tabs also.  None of this will be seen anyway, so I don't think it matters a great deal!  ON the left is the Navigator/Shoran Operator's seat, with the pilot's seat, with it's long mount, on the right.

 

One mistake that I made earlier, was that the piece I attached to the back end of the pilot's cockpit, flush with the backs of the side consoles, should actually been attached pointing downward, as it forms the front of the Navigator's compartment.  You can see it better in the next picture:

 

 

Above left, not yet glued in, nor the cement fully set, this pic shows the locating marks for the crew compartments "A", while there is another ahead of the rear bulkhead at "B".  Also note that the rear bulkhead butts up flush against the gear well opening at "C".

 

Of note is the fact that the forward-most cockpit bulkhead (nearest the left-hand "A" is numbered in the kit as "110", as is one of the "electronic boxes" that will mount on the wall.  Both parts are on the same plastic fret, and can be seen in the parts map on the instructions.  A bit odd, that...

 

Above right, another PE part is attached to the I.P. coaming.

 

Here is what the cockpit parts look like, with seats not yet cemented into place:

 

 

There are several sub=assemblies to get through -- the cockpit, two gear wells and the bomb bay, at least, all of which, along with parts of the fuselage sides, will require Interior Green painting.  I have decided to build out of sequence with the kit instructions, so that I only have to (hopefully) airbrush this color once, after which I will ad other detail, such as seat belts, etc.

 

Well, that's it for this time around.

 

Later,

 

Ed

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by TheRealMrEd
corrected text info

[TheRealMrEd]

And more...

 

At this time, I decided to deviate from the kit's instruction sequence, as some instrument "boxes" would need to be installed on the cockpit sidewalls, and these would be in the way of installing the Navigator's side window.  Referring to the little plastic bags with the clear parts, one can see that the window needed, is the one with the circular port engraved:

 

 

It was then that I noticed, for the first time, the little white piece of paper in the bag.  Upon examining it, I determined that the kit contained it's own masks.  Kudos!  However, I don't know it it's just me, but the plastic film that is becoming more in use for masks nowadays is very hard for me to make out the outlines of the masks, even under a strong light.  I much prefer the Kabuki tape kind.  So, my solution to this problem is to use a tiny amount of pencil lead scraping, which after being spread around on the film with a finger, at least yield something  I can almost see... (above right).

 

Here, let me give the model company another shout out for the design of the window, as they provided a clear piece larger than the actual size needed, which lets the modeler glue it into place, and then, after any needed filling, polish as sand the clear piece down to blend perfectly with the fuselage side, and we can the simply mask off where we want the actual glazing to be.  I wish all manufacturers would for this with ALL inset windows on all kits.  Sadly, the UPPER Navigator's window is NOT done that way, it will have to be glued to one fuselage side, and the fitted/glued to the other fuselage side, when those are mated.  Phooey!

 

Anyway, the side window opening was largely full of flash, and undersized anyway, so using a sharp #11 X-Acto blade, I cleaned out the flash, then began gradually scraping out the window opening a little at a time, with frequent test-fittings of the window.  Eventually, I achieved the fit I was looking for,m perhaps a ten of a millimeter or so proud of the fuselage side, which can then be sanded down smooth with the fuselage:

 

 

The fit being so close, I could not use my usual watch cement here, so I tried to protect the clear part from liquid glue damage by using a modeler's punch set (bought decades ago, when they were still affordable!), to punch out some discs of masking tape that were first stuck onto a very thin piece of plastic card.  There were a bit oversize, and I centered then up on the window, inside and out.  Here I used regular masking tape vs Kabuki tape, as I wanted something extra sticky so that hopefully, the glue would not run under it and craze the window.  The piece on the inside of the windows was just to mask when painting the interior, later on.  Square pieces of tape might work as well, and there is also a mask provided on the kit's masking sheet, for the actual size of the finished "porthole" window.  I shall apply this real one just before painting the outside of the model.  Then liquid glue was applied VERY carefully, using a Glue Looper to run a very thin bead of glue around the entire window.  When unmasked, later, we shall see how my scheme worked out.

 

Next, a picture of the right fuselage half, showing the tape disc on the inside of the window, as well as the installed instrument boxes:

 

 

Above left, also is shown a part "A" which needs to be glued horizontally along the red line shown, butted up against where the red line "B" is marked.  Above right, the fuselage bulkhead that will eventually be glued in here, along the penciled line.  There is also one of these on the other fuselage side.

 

There is a stop molded in for the rear crew compartment bulkhead, again "A":

 

 

Above right, the crew compartment held in place, and showing the instrument boxes glued onto that side.

 

At this point, let me digress and show more detail on the rather annoying sprue attachment bumps found throughout the kit.  Not only are some protruding the the outside, many also  protrude on the inside of a part, requiring sand on two surfaces of the same edge, like the vertical stabilizer half shown here:

 

 

Above right, even worse are the ones in the "well" where the vertical stabilizer will eventually sit, which will have to be chiseled out in two planes instead of just one...

 

Now these are not impossible things, just irritants.  But, they do go to show, that while this kit is a bit on the expensive side, you will get every dollar back in time spent modeling.  You will not build this kit in one night!

 

Again later,

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Yet more...

 

The sanded and polished Navigator's side window turned out well, here shown after inside and outside masking removed.  The interior green showing through won't matter, because the actual window mask is smaller than the circle shown, and once the fuselage halves are joined, to one will see the difference from inside:

 

 

Above right, one of the more subtle things not made really clear in the instructions, are the fit of the two bars, above right, which go into the front main gear wheel well.  "A" has a tapered end, and "B" has a 90-degree end.  The "B" ends fit into the tiny slots shown, also "B".

 

Eventually, the whole thing looks like so:

 

 

Above right, the part numbered 26 (next to the red "X") should actually be numbered part 101, shown to the right.  By the way, the bullet shapes and turbo vanes inside the long engine intake and the tailpipe do not have to be painted, because unless you insert a lighted bore scope, they will never be seen!

 

As I went along, I discovered that pretty much EVERYTHING that installs into the first-used fuselage side (in my case, the right side), that protrudes over into the left fuselage side, has to be sanded or fitted to allow the fuselage seam to close properly:

 

 

Above, the tiny "X" 's shown all the areas found so far, and the arrows show things that I've had to relocate slightly when actually installing some parts, one of the reasons that I strongly recommend use of a strong or "hot" liquid cement like Weld-On #3 or the equivalent, is that when things go south after initial assembly, you can run some more glue along the seams, and after a few seconds usually pry things apart without major damage.

 

Also, note that the rear engine inlet ("A" below) is one of those things that has to be fitted into the first fuselage half (arrow, below), and when installed, the long engine intake ramp  ("B") must be installed so that the duct aligns with the ramp, as best you can.  Do NOT glue the area marked "X":

 

 

Above center, another example of minor fit problems are shown here, with gap at "X" being caused by too much plastic (arrow).  After some judicious sanding, a better fit can be obtained, above right.

 

An example of assembling the right and left fuselage halves fit problems in the rear engine inlet ramp which, as it was for the first side, is longer than the fuselage opening:

 

 

Above right, not much can be seen in the cockpit when the fuselage halves are brought together, so how much you choose to detail/paint is up to the modeler.  The Navigator's top window is installed, and fitted.  If need be, any slop will be filled with G-S watch cement, then sanded or smoothed with alcohol, after which, it will be sanded and polished.

 

Below, the fit is coming along:

 

 

Still plenty of sub-assembly work and painting to be done before the fuselage halves are finally glued together, so stay tuned!

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Despite the little fit gremlins, it does seem like a nice kit. Thanks for pointing out all the gotchas!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[TheRealMrEd]

I agree Adrian, it's a nice little kit, just requires a little experienced love and care.  It's certainly head and shoulders above what we've had before!   I certainly thank the manufacturer for taking the chance and making an unusual kit, and I hope that modeler's support them in this effort, so that perhaps one day, we'll get some more goodies!

 

Ed

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Ed, great work and really looking forward to how you sort this out.  Thinking very long range, might an early B-57 make a good shelf partner?  Well done and really like the subject!  Best, Erwin

 

[Space Ranger]

On 5/7/2023 at 4:38 PM, TheRealMrEd said:

The standard length given for the XB-51 is 85 feet and 1 inch (85'-1").  My crude assembly measures out to be 84'-6", or about 7 scale inches short, call it a slightly fat 2mm in real life.  There may be that much slack in my tape job or whatever!

That standard length for the XB-51 (85’ 1”) is from the tip of the nose to the end of the fuselage, according to the USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics chart. So the kit’s fuselage is even shorter than your measurement.

[TheRealMrEd]

3 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

That standard length for the XB-51 (85’ 1”) is from the tip of the nose to the end of the fuselage, according to the USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics chart. So the kit’s fuselage is even shorter than your measurement.

Thanks for chipping in, Mike.  I've run across this point of interest before, including one build where the modeler hacked up I think an Anigrand kit, to make it longer, and deeper in fuselage depth. The three sets of drawings I have, all look to be about the same as each other, so I decided to fall back on photos, to see whether I could finally resolve this issue, at least for myself.

 

The follow picture is the absolute best I could find, showing the XB-51 from what appears to be a dead-on side view, taken in 1952 when the XB-51 was returned to the Martin plant, after the landing gear collapsed, with the wings and tail feathers removed:

 

 

The picture is totally unedited, save for cropping out some excess sky and tarmac, to make it a bit smaller, and of course, my added red markings, which I added AFTER the fact of the next photo.

 

 

I loaded a copy of the photo into Photoshop, scaled it down to fit the model overall (cropped as above, the overall picture is 1190 pixels wide on my screen), and roughly taped the model fuselage half into place, using masking tape.  I could have printed it all out, etc., and laid the model atop the picture, but I was too lazy, and didn't need to, for my purposes.  The picture on the screen above is a little dark on the lower fuselage side, to see here the fact that the fuselage depths match exactly with the model, as near as I can see.  Also, be advise that the tiny nose cone, as well as the kit's final tailpipe section (maybe a quarter inch in real life, are not yet added to the model's fuse.  Using the two arrows shown in the first picture, I aligned the engine inlet ramp area, and the the nose, not trying to be super precise, but just to see how they compared, more or less.  To my old, Mk I eyeballs, they appear virtually exactly correct not only in overall length, but also depth AND proportions.

 

Feel free to download the pic and make your own determination, or I will send anyone the original photo via e-mail, if you PM me.  I  personally can only conclude, once again, that the book is wrong...

 

It's up to each modeler to decide what to believe, the book, own their own lyin' eyes... 😜

 

Ed

[Space Ranger]

Very interesting. My kit has not yet landed here in Greater Abbottstan, so I can’t check it myself. 

[Learstang]

Very nice work so far, and that fuselage certainly looks to be close enough for me. I have one of these kits wending its way to me, although I have no idea when it will land here. As far as any problems you've had, they don't seem to be anything that an old limited-run kit wrangler like me can't handle. It will be interesting to see how much of the PE I use, though.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[TheRealMrEd]

4 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

Very interesting. My kit has not yet landed here in Greater Abbottstan, so I can’t check it myself. 

Check it when you can, Mike, and let us know your thoughts.  However, if I am correct, as I THINK the photo proves, then the Execuform and the Anigrand versions were not that far off either, at least in the length department...

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

2 hours ago, Learstang said:

Very nice work so far, and that fuselage certainly looks to be close enough for me. I have one of these kits wending its way to me, although I have no idea when it will land here. As far as any problems you've had, they don't seem to be anything that an old limited-run kit wrangler like me can't handle. It will be interesting to see how much of the PE I use, though.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

Probably not a whole lot of it Jason, parts it consists of what appears to be around 20,472 or so rockets fins, not to mention four, plus bomb PE, etc...

 

Ed

[Learstang]

Glad to hear there's not that much PE I'll need to use. I don't mind a little bit of sanding, fitting, and fettling plastic parts, but too much PE is a bridge too far for me.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[TheRealMrEd]

It was about this time that it really hit me that the lack of any alignment pins and holes in the kit meant that I was going to have to check the fit on everything that lies ahead -- nothing can be taken for granted, including the needed assembly, not to mention that great difficulty that would be needed to assemble the model and then paint it, after the fact.  For example, the front engine nacelle pylons simply butt to each fuselage side.  However, they are marked on the fuse sides.  The problem comes when trying to paint this area if the model is already painted, or messing up the paint when the parts are all pre-painted, and you are trying glue the pylons later.  I am going to try and use some "trickeration" to help out a bit. This needs to be done before the fuselage halves are assembled.

 

First, the engines and pylons themselves consist of 10 parts each:

 

 

Above left, the jet exhaust tube is already glued together, and the "bullets" are already glued to the "rotors".  In the picture above left, parts "A" and "B" should be in each other's places -- sorry about that!  The areas marked A,B, and C must all be painted before final assembly.  Above right, the engine pod or nacelle mounting pylon has been glued to one nacelle half, and wires installed into the pylon, which placement is the marked and drilled into each fuselage half, making certain that the spacing of same is different from side to side.

 

Below the assembled engine pods/nacelles, not yet painted on the outsides:

 

 

 

Above right, another area of interest.  The bombs consist of two halves, a "crown" looking PE part, and the 4 PE fins which must be glued to that, before the PE parts are installed on the bombs.  The wires are to attach the bombs to the bomb bay, for reasons shown next.

 

There are some PE ends and sides of the rotary bomb bay (shown below), that are totally flat and featureless, and exactly the same size as the plastic sidewalls and end pieces of the bomb bay itself.  I can't imagine why they are provided, but they are.  I elected to leave them off entirely, as they seem to add nothing at all to the model.  The directions would also have you install the bomb bay assembly into the model toward the end, which due to the "iffy" bulkhead locators on the model, would be a crap shoot at best.  I elected to carefully glue the rotary bomb bay "tray" into place as I went, making sure to check the accumulated length of the front and rear gear well doors, as well as the bomb bay itself.  There are some location marks for this tray on each needed bulkhead, which helps, leaving the modeler to only contend with the fit of the tray's protrusion of the sides, where they stick out of the fuselage -- in other words, making sure that everything fits equally all round when the other fuselage half is fitted...

 

 

Above, the kit directions would have you install 8 TINY bomb shackles ("X" 's)  to the bay (in this case "roof"),  with locations for only four being marked on the part.  The bad part is, they are so tiny that I had to work under magnification, which didn't help, because as soon as I hit them with some liquid glue, they would dissolve, fall over, or stick to the tweezers, resulting in loss or damage of some.  This is when I decided to go with the wire attachments for the bombs, as shown earlier.  After chucking the kit bombs in favor of 3-D printed aftermarket parts of the same size, I found that both bombs would not fit in the bay at the same time, unless I relocated the mounting holes, accounting for all the spares that you see above.  If you build on of these good luck just gluing the bombs to the tiny kit shackles, and the attachment point are all smaller than the head of a straight pin, by around 30 percent!.  Of course you could instead, go with all the rockets provided in the kit...

 

Fortunately, plain bomb doors are also given, so that all the above can be overlooked.  Don't forget to check the fit, however...

 

Anyway, I got some more stuffed into the fuselage half, checking many, many times for proper fit with the other fuselage half:

 

 

If I had it do do all over again, I wouldn't even consider installing the funny, slanted parts of the rear bomb bay bulkhead, as I  had to soak them loose with liquid glue, and re-position them, yet again.  But, I think I'm pretty close to being able to finally glue the fuselage halves together!

 

I know it sounds like a lot of whining about this kit, but I actually like it very much.  One thing that I am beginning to suspect is that the kit manufacturer was intent upon adding many needless little bits of both plastic and PE, merely to drive up the total parts count, so that they could justify a higher price for the kit.  To my mind, all this was NOT needed, as I would have gladly paid the price for a kit that seems this clean and accurate!  I wish instead, that other parts has been added, which I will mention as I go along.

 

See you next time.  Meanwhile, let us pray,

 

Ed

[TheRealMrEd]

Yet more...

 

Finally glued the fuselage halves together, clamping and gluing as I went along.  At first, I was trying to be really careful to get the join line just right, until I realized that when aligning the halves at the front and rear, and all the major openings just right, then some of the engraved kit panel lines no longer lined up.  So, realizing that I was going to have to fill and sand the top and bottom anyway, I just forged ahead more quickly.  The join lines weren't terrible, just needed a little filler, here and there:

 

 

 

Somewhere I didn't get one of the bulkheads sanded done completely, or whatever, and I had to insert some card shims and filler behind the cockpit, which meant that the kit Navigator's window was now too narrow, so a new one will be added.  Also, there was some kind of short shot or occlusion in the left fuselage half bomb periscope window at the front, so there was not adequate gluing surface on one side.  After enlarging the hole, a new piece of flat plastic was fabricated and glued into place:

 

 

Some items of note on the upper rear fuselage:

 

 

Above, the intake area ("A")has to be sanded smooth.  The line "B-B" should not be glued together before the vertical stabilizer "C"  is installed , because the stab sits in sort of a "pocket, which has to be chiseled out just a bit, and the stab sanded a bit, after which it will pop right in and the seam at B-B closes up okay.  Fiddle - fiddle!

 

Eventually,  it gives up and I get the win:

 

 

Next the nose window gets sanded into place, but still needs to be fine sanded and polished out:

 

 

Above right, the new Navigator's window is installed, using the interference-fit method, gets sanded down and also awaits final polishing.  It should be noted that while both of these two clear plastic pieces are wider than needed, but that won't matter, as when I apply the kit-supplied masks, I will just center them up, and only the correctly-size windows will show after painting.

 

More items of interest; the top of the vertical stabilizer (A) is wider than the "pocket" (B) on the underside of the horizontal stabilizer:

 

 

I used a tiny modeler's chisel to reshape this pocket, as I did for the pocket for the vertical stab.

 

The rest of the tail-feathers are the upper and lower halves of the horizontal stabilizer (here already glued together), two elevators, and two halves of the rudder, which is curious, because there's nothing to "trap" to make the part moveable in the end.  Here again, strange excess pieces, since the rudder is never shown off-center on the ground:

 

 

Remember, each of these pieces has to be cleaned up and sanded, and above right, after several minutes of fitting and sanding, the rudder STILL doesn't fit the vertical stab just right, and will have to be sanded down/filled as needed, after the glue dries...

 

More to come, someday!

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Some more still...

 

After sort of sorting the rudder, the Horizontal stabilizer, with it's newly-enlarged "pocket" was glued to the vertical stab.  I got a fairly good joint here, which will only require minimum clean-up:

 

 

Above right, an odd piece of I suppose duct-work is assembled along a very fine 45-degree line to form a right angle (arrow).  This piece will now be installed in the front wheel bay, as it's opposite side was installed before gluing the fuselage halves together:

 

 

Above left, the duct parts are marked "X", while the two arrows point out the only thing that will really hold the front landing gear onto the model, the two small indentations the the gear will be glued onto.  Have to scrape a little paint off this join!

 

While there are a couple of other retract arms, etc. that will be attached to the main gear, they offer only lightly more support.  If I were doing another of these, I'd probably drill the bulkhead first, and checking with the fit of the front main gear, I'd add some wire support to this area.  No wonder the main gear broke off the actual aircraft!

 

Above right, the wind screen and canopy have been glued to the model, using G-S watch cement, which will later be smoothed down with alcohol.  This is useful, because there are a couple of small gaps that would otherwise be hard to fill without damaging the clear parts.

 

Next up, a little work on the wings.  Normally, one would assume that this part would be simple, such as gluing on the top wing half to the bottom wing half.  Not so fast there, pardner!  On this aircraft, the wing was not only variable incidence, but has anhedral, rather than dihedral.  I checked the fit, and sure enough, there were a couple of issues.

 

I began by test-fitting the tab on the inner edge of the bottom wing half into the slot on the fuselage -- wouldn't fit.  So, I carefully began removing material from the forward end of the tab, and thinned the tab with sandpaper (very slightly) to get a "snap" fit between the wing tag and the fuselage slot. So far, so good:

 

 

Above right, if I had simply glued the upper and lower wing halves together, aligning the edges and the tips, I would have ended up with the large gap shown.  While the wing had a tiny gap, allowing it to pivot up and down to vary the incidence, it wasn't a scale 3 inches or so!

 

Therefore, I ended up slowly and carefully sanding the edge of the upper wing where it meets the fuselage ( a VERY slight concave shape), gradually sliding the upper wing half toward the fuselage as I test fitted.  When a good fit was achieved, I smeared some Testor's tube glue around the joining parts of the wing, about 2mm back from the outer edge.  The tip of my pinkie finger was then used the smear the tube glue toward the outer edges, resulting in a glue surface that was tacky, yet not thick enough to squeeze out and mar the wing's outer surface.  By using the pinky finger, I assured that I would not accidentally grab the model with a finger that had glue smeared all over it.  Ask me why I do this...

 

 

Above left, this process resulted in having a very tiny bit of clearance where the upper wing meets the fuselage, very real-life looking.  Above right, this process also then results in the top wing tip having migrated toward the fuselage, rather than being perfectly aligned  -- the price to be paid for getting a good join at the fuselage.

 

The same process was repeated for the right side wing assembly, with one further problem!  For whatever reason the upper right wing half edge nearest the fuselage was molded with a dihedral angle, vs. the needed anhedral angle, which meant even more material to sand off the top inner end of that wing top half:

 

 

This also resulted in a good fit at the fuselage join line, but even more of an "under-lapped" wing edge.  Modeler's choice here, whether to sand down to the shortest edge, or build up to the longer.  I don't know which I'll do yet, as I am not concerned about dead accuracy as far as wingspan goes, I'm more interested in the proper "look".

 

I should state here that my game plan, after re-scribing needed areas and masking needed areas, is to prime and paint the fuselage, engine pods, ailerons, and wings all separately, decal them, and then assemble everything at the end.  We'll see how it all works out at the end.

 

Meanwhile...

 

Ed

[billn53]

Yeomanlike work going on, here. I am definitely impressed!
 

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks Bill!

 

Just plodding along...

 

Ed

[Adam Poultney]

On 19/05/2023 at 22:25, TheRealMrEd said:

To my mind, all this was NOT needed, as I would have gladly paid the price for a kit that seems this clean and accurate!  I wish instead, that other parts has been added, which I will mention as I go along.

In my experience with Mikromir (their actually pretty good Victor kit), they do have far more parts than necessary in many places. The landing gear I think was something like 18 parts for each main gear if I'm remembering that correctly. 

 

I was actually thinking about exactly this today going through the content from the Design and Manufacture module on the Aerospace Engineering Course I'm on (exam for that module is 1:30pm tomorrow... ugh, Saturday exams). One of the things that is covered is DFMA, basically optimising designs for more efficient manufacturing and assembly. A big part of that is reducing total number of parts to the minimum necessary. Mikromir could benefit from employing that philosophy. 

[TheRealMrEd]

22 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

In my experience with Mikromir (their actually pretty good Victor kit), they do have far more parts than necessary in many places. The landing gear I think was something like 18 parts for each main gear if I'm remembering that correctly. 

 

I was actually thinking about exactly this today going through the content from the Design and Manufacture module on the Aerospace Engineering Course I'm on (exam for that module is 1:30pm tomorrow... ugh, Saturday exams). One of the things that is covered is DFMA, basically optimising designs for more efficient manufacturing and assembly. A big part of that is reducing total number of parts to the minimum necessary. Mikromir could benefit from employing that philosophy. 

 

I agree Adam.  There is one glaring omission from the kit, the bullet fairing for the T-tail that was eventually added to correct flutter in the rear end of the aircraft.  That will have to be scratch-built for those who want one.  The other parts that I would much rather have seen would have been drop-able slats and flaps, or even a crew entry door.  Oh well, better what they did than no kit at all, as at least the basic bones are good.

 

Ed

[Neil Lambess]

It certainly looks better proportioned than the Anigrand kit with its way too large engine pods !

 A lot of the concerns about the Anigrand kit been too short and not deep enough is due to comparisons with the Ginter  plans ...which are either oversize or close to 72nd depending where the fuselage  length is taken from ...the Anigrand engine pods and wings however match the Ginter drawings far more closely than the fuselage (emphasing just how out of proportion it is ) the Micro Mir kit is very underscale compared to the Ginter plans (not that it matters if they are overscale ) as long as the Mir kits wings and engine pods are in correct proportions to tge fuselage we are fine ....maybe measure the scale height of the human  figures in your excellent photo comparison ...if they are  only 4.5 feet tall we have a problem