MIG 15 by Danstream - Trumpeter 1:48 - Finished

[Danstream]

Thanks Mark for your comment. I hope you are right. However, I preferred a full, glowing red ... My fear is that the final flat coat will discolor the red stars even more. Let's wait and see.

[mtaylor]

I'll keep my fingers crossed on the top coat not fading the decals more.

[Danstream]

Hi all,

after the gloss paint, I tried to bring up the surface details with art oil colors. The underside was treated with Payne's grey which has a shade of blue in it:

 

 

For the upper surface, I used Burnt umber which is a very dark brown. This is a picture taken after brushing the color. This is when you hope that chemistry really works as promised:

 

 

After cleaning the oil color:

 

 

I realized that I run out of flat clear paint, so I am driving now to the LHS to buy some.

See you soon,

Dan.

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Danstream

[Old Collingwood]

That looks lovely Dan  - what a great combinations of  fine painting and panel lines.

 

OC.

[Danstream]

Hi,

I bought the Tamiya flat clear XF-86 and sprayed it on the entire model. Fortunately, it seems that the red of the decals did not fade further:

 

The Tamiya flat clear gives a finish which is not completely dead matt, but leaves a satin shine. Although additional matt effect can be added to it, I like this finish which is like an 'egg shell' type of matt finish.

 

Finally, after long, I can start removing the masked areas. This is one of the most awaited step of aircraft modelling. Starting with the jet pipe:

 

Removal of the brakes:

 

The canopy, which was kept in place by drops of masking fluid, was pulled out and the cockpit could be seen again:

 

The masking of the windshield piece was removed:

 

The masking of the canopy was removed and the canopy posed in place (shall I glue it closed or open?):

 

 

That's all for now, refining weathering and touching up of the paint will follow.

Thanks for following,

Dan.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Danstream

[Egilman]

11 minutes ago, Danstream said:

shall I glued it closed or open?

open my friend, there is no other answer... (but, it is up to you, it is your creation)

[Canute]

You did some nice work in that "office". Show it to everyone.😁

[FriedClams]

Very nice work Dan, looking great.

 

Gary

[Danstream]

Hi all,

thanks for the comments and the likes. After a long interval, I am now finishing a bunch of small items. 

 

 

I cleaned up the landing gears and added the piping of the breaks, as seen in walkaround pictures,  to busy them up. Prepared the aux tanks and wheels. I replaced the main wheel with Eduard's resin parts which are nicer. Then sprayed the landing gears, painted details, brushed floor polish and completed them with Tamiya panel liner (black and brown). As said before, the idea is to get the feel of the real thing.

 

 

To break the more tedious works, I also started to add small stains and scratches using watercolor pencils. 

 

 

This is the underside with stains and the main landing gear legs finally glued in place. A light coat of matt clear will remove the remaining shine.

 

 

The split flaps are dry tested in place:

 

 

 Also the nose landing gear is now in its place:

 

 

That is all for now, comments, suggestion, critiques are as always welcome.

Dan.

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Danstream

[Javlin]

You know Dan the early MIGs well just looked fugly and when you laid the paint at  first still fugly but you know what the decals and your enhancements have changed that opinion to just ugly😄 You really have some nice work going here and would not mined it in my cabinet,

[king derelict]

Looks great. The panel lines are so neat; a skill level to aim for

Alan

[Danstream]

8 hours ago, Javlin said:

the early MIGs well just looked fugly and when you laid the paint at  first still fugly but you know what the decals and your enhancements have changed that opinion to just ugly😄

Indeed, this is my first model of a Soviet aircraft and I had never been greatly attracted by them before because I thought they looked 'different'. However, lately I had the occasion to read more about these early jets and I was pushed to try one. Now, I am very intrigued by their being 'different', by their look and by their engineering. Surely this will not be my last one. Thanks for your appreciation of my work! 😉

 

8 hours ago, king derelict said:

Looks great. The panel lines are so neat; a skill level to aim for

Thanks Alan, happy that you like it. The result of the panel lines depends a lot on how good is the model. In this case, the finesse of the starting pieces was not bad, but, because of extensive filling and sanding I had to scribe again the lost details (I did not do all of them, though because it is such a boring work). Here is where you need same more skills. Otherwise, the process is not difficult and capillarity and chemistry do most of the job for you. 🙂

 

Thanks also for all the likes! 

 

[mtaylor]

11 hours ago, Danstream said:

Now, I am very intrigued by their being 'different', by their look and by their engineering. Surely this will not be my last one. Thanks for your appreciation of my work! 😉

 

Their engineering and work arounds created some problems for other countries.  I forget which one it was but super fast and no one had seen one up close until the pilot defected.   They were beyond surprised when they found round rivets (not flush) holding the skin on the fuselage and massively overpowered engines to make up for the drag from the rivets.   

[Danstream]

Hi Mark, you must refer to the defection of one MiG 25 which took place in 1976. The MiG 25 was an interceptor capable of Mach 3+. But, indeed, no great sophistication was found from a close inspection of it, just massive power and an airframe made mainly of a nickel steel alloy that could perform at the high temperatures of Mach 3+ flight. No high performing titanium or the like. Clearly, it was a one-point design being designed to accomplish just a single type of mission (although it was also used as a reconnaissance aircraft), but it did the task it was designed for.

 

Let me say that the point you mentioned about the rivets is a bit too simple, if I may say so. Surely the protruding rivets were used where they could be tolerated from aerodynamic point of view being most of the airframe welded. Surely, it required a massive trust to reach 3.2 Mach, but looking at its configuration (huge intakes, vast wing surface, high weight), I guess that the rivets where not the main reason for the need of that. At any rate, the pragmatic unsophisticated and often spartan approach is one of the interesting factors for me about these Russian planes. 

[Danstream]

Dear all,

I started to 'furnish' the model with the last bits and for me, this means progressing at a more glacial pace than my usual with very small progress at every step. Here, I rebuilt the arched frame that is located inside the canopy and which was provided as an obvious solid piece in the kit.

 

 

This is how it looks once painted and glued inside the canopy. I find that this is a little improvement which is easy to implement.

 

 

Then, it was the turn of the landing gears and wheels which were treated with panel liner to let their nice details to pop out:

 

 

Followed by doors and other little details:

 

 

 

Landing gears are not completed yet (oleo jacks still missing), but the MiG can finally stands on its own legs now:

 

 

Well, the model is an hopeless tail sitter and its final equilibrium will be decided by fraction of grams of the addition of the last details, despite the amount of lead that I added in the gun compartment (and the omission of the jet engine).

 

 

 

A detail of the Eduard's cannon muzzle which is a nice addition. All the muzzles were brushed with graphite powder to give a bit of shine to their metallic paint:

 

 

Another riddle: the main antenna mast doesn't have any pin to get securely fixed to the smooth and curved fuselage skin (it is supposed to get positioned below the oval panel pictured just below the canopy edge) . A simple butt glued join with such a small contact area is clearly not adequate and I will have to find a better way to glue it.

 

 

That is all for now,

thanks for watching and kind regards,

Dan.

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Danstream
Text typos and misplaced pictures

[Javlin]

Dan your panel accents are working very well Sir!!

[Danstream]

11 hours ago, Javlin said:

Dan your panel accents are working very well Sir!!

Thank you for your comment, Sir! 🙂

Lines on the airframe (which were done with tube oil colors) came out OK, but it could be better. Otherwise, yes, I use the the Tamiya panel line accent (black and brown) quite often to highlight details and they are quite handy to use.

Best regards,

Dan.

[FriedClams]

Nice progress Dan.  Did you put the flats on the tires or did it come molded like that?  Either way, it's a nice detail and will give the model visual weight.  I've seen guys do something similar to truck tires - soften them with heat and squashing them them down to produce a little side bulge. 

 

Gary

[Danstream]

22 hours ago, FriedClams said:

Did you put the flats on the tires or did it come molded like that?

Hi Gary, the wheels are a resin aftermarket from Eduard and they came already flattened. Yes, it is a nice feature which I often add also to items OOB to give an otherwise round wheel the impression of carrying some weight. In addition, in this case, the flat portion of the tire is also functional to maintain the precarious equilibrium that I mentioned for this model. Believe it or not, with round wheels, the model would sit on its tail 🤔.

Dan

[lmagna]

I have always wondered about the flattening of tires on aircraft especially more modern ones. All of the aircraft I have seen(Not really that many in real life) have very high tire inflation rates and don't seem to squish all that much.  I have not made a study of it, just commenting.

 

In this case Dan it doesn't really matter one way or the other. There is so much more to see that no one would notice if the tires were flat! Well possibly the pilot.

[Danstream]

4 hours ago, lmagna said:

I have always wondered about the flattening of tires on aircraft especially more modern ones. All of the aircraft I have seen(Not really that many in real life) have very high tire inflation rates and don't seem to squish all that much.  I have not made a study of it, just commenting.

Lou, I think that you are generally correct. Jets operating from tarmac runways have a high pressure tires and on ground you can see only a very small footprint. For those, I omit the lateral bulging that can be obtained by heating the plastic, as Gary said, but I just file a bit the wheel where it contacts the ground. This eliminate the 'tiptoe' appearence given by a wheel that touches just on one spot, which does not happens in reality.

For aircraft intended to operate from grass, the tire pressure is lower and a bit more pronounced effect might be appropriate. However, I am not concerned with these subtle differences and I just file a bit the tires in all cases.

Dan

[Danstream]

After long time, a very small step about the antennae (or antennas?). I added a pin to the antenna mast made with a metallic wire. I also made a blade antenna made by hammering flat a brass rod and another short one made with small brass tube. These will replace the fiddly plastic parts.

 

 

Here the antennas are inserted and glued:

 

 

 

 

Now the metallic parts needs to be primed and then painted.

Best regards,

Dan.

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Danstream

[Danstream]

Hi, 

The last missing bits always take more time than anticipated, but eventually they went into place. The pitot tube was replaced by one which I made out of metallic micro-tubes:

 

 

The airbrakes with their oleo jacks. The jacks are rally awful, but I did not have the patience to replace them, so I left the ones OOB:

 

 

 

The main landing gear completed with the equally awful OOB oleo jacks:

 

 

Now last touch ups, then the wire antenna and the canopy are the last details to be mounted. I prepared the drop tanks, but at the end, I like the model better without them. Hence, the next installment will be the conclusive one with proper pictures, but not before I scratch build the trolley for the engine.

See you next time,

Dan.

 

[Javlin]

I agree Dan I leave alot of ordnance off of a fighter now a P-47 is something else it makes the fighter look faster/meaner/aggressive all things it is suppose to be/do.

[Canute]

I disagree, in a fun way, Javlin.  The older fighters (early jet age and earlier) were almost all gun fighters, so yeah, nothing hanging off the wings except maybe fuel tanks.For Viet Nam and later, gotta have some missiles on the fuselage and wing pylons. An F-4 or F-15 with 4 heaters and 4 radar missiles, gotta love it. Even a Tomcat, with 4 buffaloes, looks fierce, at least to this old fighter guy.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours, gentlemen.

[Danstream]

Dear all,

Thanks for all the likes and for following. About the external loads, I always tend to omit them, but I can also see Ken's point. Sometimes, I am attracted by a model by seeing the unbelievable quantity of loads the it carries under its wings. This is a bit part of your 'philosophy' (what a big word) of the hobby. Personally, I am often more interested in representing an aircraft perhaps isolated from its context, others might want to pick more the aspects or a particular moment of its operational life. Surely, I imagine there must be always discussions going on between the aerodynamic engineering department and the operation and sales departments 🙂!

 

Following Ken's kind message, I also wish all of you and the ones you love a Merry Christmas and a healthy and peaceful New Year.

 

Dan.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Danstream

[mtaylor]

Load outs have always been seemingly a part of aircraft modeling.   Depends on what your goal is with the model.   I remember the early B58 and B52 kits providing a vast display of what the beasts could carry.  The load outs weren't one the plane but on a base spread around them.   Seeing photos today of what can be loaded out is impressive and actually, to me, overwhelming.

[popeye the sailor]

hey there Dan!  very nice progress you've done on the Mig............look'in so cool    the canopy looks great and an interesting way to weather........shows the panel lines quite nicely.   don't be concerned with the decaling.......some decals are based on white image backing and don't allow the surface color to show through.  depending on how prominent the base is,  the better it is.  it's a lighter color over a darker color....your going to see some amount of tint change.  looks great none the less  

 

have a very merry Christmas!

[Danstream]

Hi all,

I wrote that my post was the last one, but actually, I am still posting a WIP for the engine stand which I scratch built blending various configurations posted above by @Egilman. Clearly, the comparison with the workshop equipment built by Gary in its diorama is intimidating, at any rate that's mine:

 

 

I built that from plastic card and evergreen profiles. This is how it is supposed to look with the engine temporarily posed on it:

 

 

I am afraid this is not a proper workshop stand, but rather one similar to the ones used for static display of the engine, but I didn't feel to embark a more complex design. This is it after a coat of color and brown staining:

 

 

Now, the engine needs to be refined a bit more and some wiring added.

Greetings to all,

Dan

 

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Danstream

[king derelict]

On 12/21/2021 at 12:02 PM, Canute said:

I disagree, in a fun way, Javlin.  The older fighters (early jet age and earlier) were almost all gun fighters, so yeah, nothing hanging off the wings except maybe fuel tanks.For Viet Nam and later, gotta have some missiles on the fuselage and wing pylons. An F-4 or F-15 with 4 heaters and 4 radar missiles, gotta love it. Even a Tomcat, with 4 buffaloes, looks fierce, at least to this old fighter guy.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours, gentlemen.

A fully loaded out AV-8B always looks like something not to be messed with.

Alan