Eduard 1/48 North Vietnamese MIG 21 PFM

[Loopyduck]

My entry into my very first Group Build... Eduard's 1/48 MIG 21 PFM done in North Vietnamese colours. This will be pretty much an out of the box build seeing as Eduard's Profipack already comes with photo etch for the cockpit and various other details.

Box Art...



All that plastic inside the box...



I'll be making a minor change with the paint scheme on the box and in the colour call out. This is based on a black and white photo I found which suggests that the mottling is over a grey/green finish on top rather than over silver.



This is the first Eduard kit I have gotten my hands on and it looks great. I have to say that the instructions are easily the best I've ever seen. I've gotten my hands on a few other Eduard kits as well now and they all look brilliant. Hopefully I can do justice to the kit and create something I'll be really proud of.

[Nige201980]

Looking forward to seeing this come together best of luck mate.

[Willem]

Nice one mate. I've had my eye on this kit so will follow with interest.

Good luck with your build.

[DBMiller]

I think the Mig-21 is my favorite Russian fighter. This should be good!

[snappercity]

I have this in the stash but waiting until I have a better airbrush before I get round to mine so will be watching with interest. You are right the dark green mottleing is over a lighter green with silver undersides. I have seen this built before with a different colour rudder as b&w pic suggests that but it is the same colour as the airframe.

[Joesdad]

Looks a great kit Loopy, I wouldn't fancy all that mottling though mate...
Best of luck.

[MarkVerploeg]

Cool the primary target of my build
looks like a nice kit And a nice subject
good luck with the build

[SqzMyLemon]

Great choice. I almost went with a Mig-21 myself. Looking forward to your build and will follow with interest.

[Loopyduck]

Firstly, thanks for the encouragement. I hope I can live up to the expectations

Secondly, my apologies for the quality of the photos. I'm discovering the the camera in my phone has a lot of trouble focusing when it gets close up and personal. It's the only camera I have so I'll have to try a few things to get better pics in future.

So let's get the build rolling. I've managed some half decent work this week, which as always starts with the cockpit area and other internals. The first step was to install the front wheel well walls onto the cockpit floor. I decided I would glue in the instrument panel and joystick as well so I could prime the whole piece as one prior to painting. The second part of the build was the exhaust for the Tumansky R-11 engine The engine parts were all painted as per the colour call outs which are in Gunze.

The cockpit floor/front wheel well primed and engine exhaust parts painted prior to final assembly.



I didn't need to worry about the seam lines on the exhaust tube as the outside would be hidden by the fuselage and the painted inner is dark enough to effectively hide it.

Next it was on to painting the cockpit area. The instructions gave me a choice of H58 Interior Green or H70 Grey (RLM 02) for the aircraft internal structures such as the wheel well. I went with the H70 just for something differnt (yes I'm sick of interior green LOL). The cockpit was a different matter. Eduard gives a formula for the turquoise colour of the cockpit interior but to my eye was too dark and in any case it didn't match the colour of the photo etch panels. One reference I sourced suggested Vallejo's Model Colour 70-838 Emerald but this turned out too green. In the end I made up my own mix of the Emerald with Model Air 71-108 U.K. Azure in a 4:3 ratio (emerald:azure). Though this proved to not be an exact match with the photo etch it was pretty close.

Assembled and painted exhaust and cockpit/wheel well.





Next up came the fun part of applying the photo etch to the instrument panel and the cockpit side walls. As I've never used photo etch before it was off to view Paul Bretland's excellent tutorial on the ISM Youtube channel. All I can say is thank heavens for Ultimate's photo etch placer. My big gorilla hands hate anything smaller than a wing assembly and that handy little pencil is going to be an absolute life saver. As far as actually attaching the photo etch went, it was pretty painless. Instead of PVA glue I tried Micro's Metal Foil Adhesive. It gave me time to get the parts into position and it's water soluble so I could apply it with a brush and clean it up with water. Some parts sill worked better using CA glue. At this stage it's still a learning process so we'll see how things develop.

Intrument panel and side wall photo etch attached.







The last bit of work for the week has been to assemble and paint part of the fuselage internals which fit into the main wheel wells. These areas have also been weather a little with a very thin wash of Vallejo dark grey Model Wash, just to accentuate the surface detail a little more. The detailing in this kit is just superb.



That's it for the moment. I'm really enjoying this so far and good building to all

[UKguyInUSA]

Nice job with the cockpit mate!

[chief5437]

Nice work on the paint mixing! Eduards PE paint colour is hard to match from what I've read. I'll be stealing your mix ratio for the mig 21 in my stash! Thanks mate. Good luck with the rest of it, mig21 has to be my fave russian plane!

[Loopyduck]

Eduards PE paint colour is hard to match from what I've read. I'll be stealing your mix ratio for the mig 21 in my stash!

Chief, I know Akan does interior colours for Russian aircraft. I was almost tempted to get their sets but there was no guarantee they would match the photo etch colour so I went with mixing my own. Like I said, it's not exact but once it's all assembled and weathered it's going to be pretty good. Just as a side note I also added a tiny bit of water to the paint mix just to smooth it out more because I ended up brushing it.

[Dunhill2005]

Great details in the cockpit
I'm doing me always hard to build something exactly what you hardly see later...

[Deacon]

great choice mate and lovely work so far.

[Hackovsky]

Thanks for the mixing tip I am going to use it for my MiG also. I bought the same kit on Eday in Prague. Looking forward to build it. I got also for bargain there Brassin cockpit, wheels... This will another build for looong winter nights Good luck with the build!

[MarkVerploeg]

after looking at your update i am kind of thinking that i NEED one of these kits
is there any resin included aswell as i have seen the printed pe sheet in your photo but noting else
i did see this kit for what i think is nice price so if there are no real problems with the kit i think i will get it (soon)
cheers Mark

[Loopyduck]

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement, that's what I love about ISM To answer a couple of the questions..... No, there isn't any resin parts with the kit but I do know that there are plenty of resin available to really boost the detail. I would highly recommend getting a set of resin air scoops. I haven't built up the ejection seat yet so I'm not to sure how that will look compared to a resin piece but again, there are resin seats available so I say go to town, it will be worth it.

This kit is proving an absolute dream so far. The surface detail is just stunning and the fit of the pieces is brilliant.

OK, on with the build
The next step is getting the nose cone ready. I glued in some lead weight first off. No need to worry about it sticking out the end as there is plenty of room. It was then painted Tamiya X-5 Gloss Green.



Next it was glue the cockpit and engine exhaust into the fuselage half. Sorry, no pictures of these in place as I was too keen to get the fuselage halves together. It was at this point that I realised I had placed the cockpit side walls too low in their respective places. This meant there was no room to fit the cockpit floor onto the guides that are molded into the kit. This meant tearing the side walls off and refitting them. Not a major drama but frustrating. The moral of the story is make sure you check, double and then triple check the fit of everything before committing to glue.

Once the whole cockpit was sorted I also got the two halves of the fuselage spine and tail fin glued together.





Time to attach the tail fin to the fuselage. This is where the true quality of the engineering with this kit is really starting to show. Almost zero gap anywhere along the entire length of the spine on both sides. A very thin line of CA glue of no more than about 1 centimetre in two places.



Time to attack the main wheel wells. Some side walls glued into place and then a coat of the RLM 02 which I'm using as the interior colour. A few other pieces glued in and painted and then the earlier assembled structure put in place. The tiny gaps present were then painted over by brush and this was sufficient to fill them. Another example of just how well this kit fits together.





That's where I'm up to for now. Hopefully I will get more done over the coming days. I'm just loving this build. I simply can't say enough about this kit, just superb. The only problems I've had were of my own making.

Until next time, happy building

[Willem]

Looking good fella. Very nice work.

I have to get this kit now.

[MarkVerploeg]

That looks great Glen
And keep the good tips coming ,i got me this kit today and i can use the tips
I never build such a plane before
Keep up the good work

[UKguyInUSA]

Looking great so far Glen!

Looking forward to your next update

Cheers,

Martin

[rwsmith14]

The cockpit fit looks great !

[Jamesday1998]

awesome work on the mig 21!
the cokpit looks fantastic! great work on that colour because its so unusual!
i am looking forward to the next up date!
KUTGW:)

[Loopyduck]

Once again, thanks for all the positive comments. While we all build for our own enjoyment it's always great to receive nice words from our peers and have our work appreciated.

Not too much work progress this week but at least the lady is starting to look more like an aircraft.The next step in the process is attaching the lower section of the wings and then putting in place the top halves. Again no fit issues and just a couple of very small gaps that were fixed with some Mr. Surfacer. I cleaned up the excess filler with some isopropyl Alcohol which removes the need for sanding. With such fantastic surface detail it would be a disaster to lose it due to excessive sanding.

With the wings in place I could glue on the control surfaces. Again a terrific fit with these parts





I cheated a little at this point and strayed away from the instructions. I made a start on the wheels with some paint on the rims. I went with gloss green rather than the bright green as suggested by the instructions. The bright green is just a bit too bright for my liking and as we are often fond of saying, "my model, I'll build it how I want" LOL.



That's it for now. Happy modelling everyone.

[planemaker]

Looking great! I hope to see more.

[Loopyduck]

Hi everyone

It's been a little while and apologies. The family and I are in the process of movie so I've been busy house hunting and packing up. Not too sure how long it will be after this update before I can get more work done as I'm about to pack my modelling gear away ready for the move. Apologies also for the quality of the photos, I don't own a camera except for what is on my phone and I'm a long way from being a photographer. Thanks to all for the generous comments, your words of encouragement are greatly appreciated.

Anyway, onto the the update and what has probably been the most intricate part of the build so far: The undercarriage and the ejection seat

With the wheel rims already painted green, it was a matter of gluing the tyre halves together and get them painted using Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black Then it was onto getting everything assembled. Make no mistake, these are mini kits all by themselves. The nosewheel is nine styrene parts on its own. The main wheels each comprise eight styrene and one photo etch part. 27 pieces in total for three wheels. I've seen 1/72 kits with less parts LOL. I found the photo etch for each leg to be fiddly, especially seeing as this is the first kit I've ever used photo etch on. With everything assembled and painted I threw on a coat of Micro Flat just to take the gloss off the paint. They were then weathered with some Vallejo black model wash.

The instructions then call for the ejection seat to be assembled. This was done and then primed ready for paint. There are a good number of colour photo etch parts for the ejection seat which means more fun.

Completed wheels and the assembled styrene parts of the ejection seat.


The colour call outs for the ejection seat were Neutral Grey and Light Aircraft Grey. The Neutral Grey was sprayed on and the light grey painted on with a brush. I applied a thin coat of Ultimate's Dark Dirt to bring out the hightlights and recessed areas. Then it was on with the photo etch parts. With 17 styrene and 12 photo etch parts, again this is a mini kit all of its own. However, the work involved in the seat is, I think, well worth it.





Now it was moment of truth time. Let's get that little seat installed into the cockpit. Easier said than done and I think if I had my time over again I would have done the seat prior to joining the fuselage halves together. The tolerances in this kit are really tight and even a fraction of a millimetre out will make the seat a lot harder to get in. A little bit of force and a lot of nervous sweat got the seat into place and the fit was so tight I didn't even bother taking it out to apply glue.

The end result is quite pleasing and I have to say this is easily the best cockpit I've ever done. The photo etch is well worth the effort.





That's it for now, hopefully I can get this house move out of the way quickly and get this gorgeous lady finished in time. I'll do my best

Happy modelling and keep on building.

[Loopyduck]

House move out of the way and one of the first things I did was set up my work desk and get cracking on this build. Time is counting down.

A small amount of clean up and a wipe down with Isopropyl Alcohol had the little lady ready for primer. I also masked off the canopy sections to get them ready for paint. The Eduard masks that came with the kit are a real time saver here. With the masks in place I painted on Micro Mask to fill in the main areas not covered. The first time I've ever tried a masking solution so it was a real fingers crossed moment.

The canopy sections were first given a coat of the cockpit interior colour so that it would show through on the inside. I attacked the aircraft with Vallejo's surface primer. Fortunately the thin coats still allowed the very fine rivet detail on the surface of the kit to show through.



Having left the primer to cure for a few days I then touched up a few minor blemishes and re-primed those areas, again leaving a good time for the primer to cure. I decided against any preshading as the photo I have shows this particular aircraft to be in fairly new condition and I didn't think the dark mottling to come would allow much of that work to show through. Now it was on with the paint. I couldn't find any mention of Russian built aircraft having a natural metal finish the way the United States did so I chose Vallejo's Model Air Chrome (71-064) for the underside and to go over the top of the interior colour of the canopy. The chrome colour gives a nice smooth silver finish. Other pieces like doors were also painted at this stage.



Next it was on to the upper surface camouflage. The first stage was an overall coat of grey/green. I used a colour I had previously mixed for another project. This was a mix of Tamiya's XF5 Green, XF2 White and XF19 Sky Grey. I'm sorry, I don't have the ratios as it was an old mixture that I did by eye. The mix looked about right so I went with it. I have no idea how accurate it really is but it looked OK to me.



The next stage was laying the mottling over the base colour. For this I chose Tamiya XF27 Black Green. The contrast between the lighter and darker colour looked about. I started the mottling by randomly placing some larger patches on first, then working down to smaller irregular shapes and finally small splotches of colour. I think it worked pretty effectively and the pattern seems quite random which was what I was hoping to achieve.





That's it for now, happy modelling and more to come soon I hope

[shortCummins]

fantastic camo, reminds me of a shark

[MarkVerploeg]

Very nice work mate
Now i really can't wait to start my mig (same kit)
Keep up the good work

[UKguyInUSA]

She's coming together sweetly! That cockpit was nicely detailed and the camo is different, but will look killer

[rwsmith14]

Mottling came out perfect !! Well Done !!

[Loopyduck]

Back again

Work is progressing nicely and after what seems like an eternity, the kit is really starting to take shape. Unfortunately some of the smaller photo etch aerials didn't survive the handling with painting and clean up. An object lesson in being a lot more careful and maybe thinking a bit more about how to deal with these sort of pieces. If anyone has any tips I'll gratefully accept them.

With the main part of the paintwork out of the way it was time to give it a gloss coat for the decals. I brushed on several thin layers of Alclad's Aqua Gloss and let this harden for a couple of days. I counted up the decals for my particular version..... 172 data stencils for the aircraft and weapons plus national markings and aircraft serial numbers. 180 in total. OK, set myself for several sessions. There are actually quite a few more stencils for the Russian versions of this kit so good luck to those who decide on those.





After what felt like a never ending line up of decals, the work was finally done. I only lost a few stencils to accidents that were my fault. The national markings and aircraft serials went down smooth as silk and responded exceptionally well to Micro Set/Sol. The first time I've ever used Cartograph decals and I have to say I'm most impressed. The decals were sealed with a couple of lightly sprayed on coats of Aqua Gloss.

The only real weathering I want is to highlight the panel lines and leave very light traces of dirt. I'm not one for heavily weathered aircraft and I would imagine these Migs would have been the pride of the NVAF at the time of their service so they should have been pretty well cared for. First off is a wash with a liberal coat of Ultimate's Dark Dirt. This was cleaned off with some small streaks left in place and a few areas of slightly darker wash left behind just for effect.







With all that out of the way it was time to start getting a whole lot of little bits and pieces glued into place. I removed the masking from the canopy sections and the combination of Eduard's masks and Micro Mask worked a treat.



This will most likely be the last of the progress reports for the actual build. At this stage I envisage the next update to be the final reveal photos, unless something comes up that's of particular interest.

Thanks to everyone for all the positive comments and feedback. This has been a fun build and I think I've managed to pull out some pretty good work that I'm pleased with.

Happy modelling everyone

[chief5437]

Gotta say, I LOVE that paintwork!!! Superb! Going to be a stunner when it's done. Good skills mate.

[UKguyInUSA]

That's looking sweet, so far!