SBLim-2A by Richard44 - WAK -1/33 - CARD - Polish license-built MiG-15 variant

[Richard44]

My kit finally arrived (including laser-cut parts and a clear canopy), and I had a chance today to have a good look at it.

 

Chris has given a description of the kit so I'm not going to repeat that. There are plenty of English instructions which need to be read rather carefully, referring to the six sheets (five colour, one B&W) of parts plus the two laser-cut sheets and the construction diagrams, as required. Many of the card parts need laminating onto the laser-cut sheets and in the photo below, the topmost sheet shows some part numbers highlighted, these are those that need laminating. Many of the parts have a thin black border but no indication as to whether the cut to release the part should be inside the line, along the line or outside it - I'm going with cutting along the line.

 

Not much done yet, the build will be slow as I'm building Harpy as well.

 

The first photo simply shows the five coloured sheets of parts (sorry about the colour balance). The second shows some of the parts for the two cockpits and the first of the fuselage sections. One thing to notice is that an opening has to be cut in the fuselage section if the pilot's cockpit is to be shown, and the front and rear cuts for this to be done are actually slightly curved, not straight. 

Cheers

Edited April 18 by Richard44

[ccoyle]

5 hours ago, Richard44 said:

English instructions

 

This is actually a rather generous description of the instructions -- the translation is very obviously not the work of a native speaker.

 

I'm happy to see this one under way. Best of luck!

[Richard44]

On 4/18/2025 at 10:55 PM, ccoyle said:

I'm happy to see this one under way. Best of luck!

Thanks Chris.

 

Had a chance to do a little on the SBLim-2A while waiting for glue to dry on Harpy. I got the first fuselage section joined after rolling it in my fingers to give it some shape. The joiner strip that goes on the forward edge of this was next, after trimming it to allow for the nose wheel. Then the lasercut former at the front of this section was readied by first laminating it with a print, then scraps of lasercut fret were glued on the cockpit side to give the pilot's seat a better gluing surface, and the area in between these strips was coloured to closely match the cockpit colour. Getting this to seat correctly in the fuselage section was a test of my patience, but finally it was done, though the canopy support at the rear of the fuselage section took a bit of collateral damage. 🫢. Anyway, all should be good.

 

The two cockpit sections were cutout, folded and partly glued, following Chris' advice, to make it easier to install the interior parts of the cockpits.

Cheers

Edited April 22 by Richard44
Edit. Just noticed that the damaged canopy support I mentioned above, is actually part of the bulkhead between the two cockpits.

[ccoyle]

8 hours ago, Richard44 said:

though the canopy support at the rear of the fuselage section took a bit of collateral damage.

 

Mine did, too. For anyone following, if that little strip in the back is damaged beyond repair, it's not a great loss. The two fuselage sections can still be glued together, and the bulkhead that ends up there can be covered with a strip of scrap card and painted to match.

 

PS -- I added a link to your build in my signature so interested parties can easily toggle between our builds.

[Richard44]

9 hours ago, ccoyle said:

I added a link to your build in my signature so interested parties can easily toggle between our builds.

Good idea, I've done the same.

[Richard44]

Next was laminating the instrument panel to the laser-cut piece, then glueing it in place. The bulkhead has been coloured to more-or-less match the cockpit interior colour, and some scrap laser-cut fret has also been added to give a better glueing surface for the cockpit tub when this is installed.

I then decided to tackle the rudder bar, even though this will not be visible when the fuselage is completed. The bar is wire, formed following the printed template, with card "pedals", simplified loops actually. The wire was easy enough, but then it became more difficult. I decided to wrap thin paper around each side of the bar to make it look a little more realistic. It is not possible to wrap normal paper around a 0.5mm wire (the size I used), so instead I used the very thin paper that forms the receipt from a supermarket cash register. I had several goes at doing this, finally settling on two wraps. The glue used was something called "Roket Card Glue", which gave just enough adhesion between the paper and the wire to allow a full wrap to be done. The following photos are actually from a failed attempt, but the technique was subsequently used successfully. The first photo shows the strip of paper being glued to the wire, in the second three full wraps have been done and the third shows the finished bar before the pedals were done. The pedals were attempted using this particular bar, but this was a failure, so I started again.

Finally a successful rudder bar 😁.

Cheers

[Richard44]

A little more work done. Parts for the seats cut out and ready for assembly. Some parts need laminating, others doubling.

The assembled seats. The only real problem I had was that the laser-cut Part 8 ( the cushion for the seat) was too wide to fit in and had to be trimmed. The printed part was fine. You can see the two parts on the top left and top right of the above photo.

The pilot's tub has had the rudder bar and joystick glued in place. I didn't attempt to roll the printed part for the joystick into a 2mm or so tube, but used a piece of styrene rod instead. Thin paper was wrapped around the top to improve the appearance a bit. The tub was then glued into the fuselage. 

Cheers

Edited April 27 by Richard44

[Richard44]

The next thing to do is assemble the parts for the second cockpit, these are shown in the photo. The rear bulkhead has had two holes punched in it (Chris' suggestion) to help with inserting this into the fuselage skin, as access is cut-off once the skin and forward bulkhead are glued together. Suitable pliers could then be used to grip the bulkhead.

The forward bulkhead, rear tub, instrument panel and skin glued together.

The rear bulkhead and joiner strip have yet to be added. The rear bulkhead took some effort to get in place. Dry fit, sand the rim gently, repeat. The two holes took a battering, but finally the bulkhead was seated and glued. The two completed (less seats) fuselage sections ready for joining. Could be interesting. 

It was a very pleasant surprise to find that there was no problem at all to join these two. I didn't need to use any of those magical words we sometimes have to rely on 😁.

Cheers

Edited May 1 by Richard44

[ccoyle]

I'm gonna have to get cracking on the landing gear -- struggling with low motivation. I glued the wheel disks together last night.

[Richard44]

Some more work on the MiG. The next forward conic section was cut out, as was the piece for the front wheel well.

Then I formed part of the air intake. This involved wrapping six strips around a mandrel, with each subsequent strip lying directly on top of the previous one. Except for the first strip. This was a colour printed strip that had to finish up completely circular with the ends butt joined. Whilst hunting around for a suitable mandrel, I finally realised that a 17mm socket spanner was exactly right.

A few other pieces for the forward section and the air intake and all are shown below ready for assembly.

That's all for now.

 

Cheers

[Richard44]

OK, time to 'fess up. I made a serious mistake that can't be corrected 🤒😬. If it had been two pieces of wood I could have de-glued them, but once two pieces of card are glued together, that's the way they will stay.

 

I had however, photocopied the sheets from the kit when it arrived, and I have some 1mm material i can use for laminating, so all is not lost. There will however be a brief interval till I catch up with myself 🥴.

 

Cheers

[Richard44]

OK, back to the MiG.

 

The forward section of the fuselage was built again and the rear-most section and tailpipe added.

Photos are a little lacking I'm afraid.

 

Next was the vertical stabilizer. The photo shows the parts  -  the skin, the laser-cut framing and a length of styrene rod that acts as a support/brace for it. The rod extends down into the fuselage and into one of the bulkheads. 

As Chris said in his log,  the dart (to be cut out) at the top of the stabilizer appears to be unnecessary, but I did it anyway. However, a dry fit made me think that the topmost former was also unnecessary as omitting it would make closing the seam at the top easier. So I left it out but tapered the vertical spar slightly.  Even so, the top of the stabilizer is a little messy.

The completed fuselage plus vertical stabilzer.

I should point out that viewing distance and camera angles are all-important when looking at my model.😁

 

Cheers

 

Edited July 9 by Richard44

[king derelict]

Looks very good. I’m amazed at the skills of card modelers. Well done 

alan

[AJohnson]

You have a nice combo of projects going on Richard enjoying following your Harpy  and this Mig.  I might yet try a card aircraft!  

Edited July 9 by AJohnson

[Richard44]

On 7/9/2025 at 10:59 PM, king derelict said:

Looks very good. I’m amazed at the skills of card modelers. Well done 

alan

 

On 7/10/2025 at 5:34 AM, AJohnson said:

You have a nice combo of projects going on Richard enjoying following your Harpy  and this Mig.  I might yet try a card aircraft!

Thanks for the comments.

[Richard44]

Next up was the canopy. I ordered a clear vac-formed canopy when I bought the kit. I would not have liked to assemble a canopy from printed card.

 

The first photo shows the parts of the frame, yet to be cutout. In the second, the frame has been glued, piece-by-piece, to the canopy. Fairly successful but not totally so. The third photo shows the fuselage with the canopy in place (and yes Chris, I remembered the gunsight 😁). It is noticeable in the photo, and even more so when looking at the plane in your hand, that the canopy does not sit flush with the fuselage. This is because card models are susceptible to being crushed if gripped too hard - and that is what I did with the MiG. The fuselage is slightly crushed in the cockpit area.

That's it for now. Cheers.

[Richard44]

@ccoyle Hi Chris,

 

I'm about to do the wings and I notice that you added joiner strips to the trailing edge. Hard to tell from your photo but it looks like you used strips of laser fret. I have a very vague memory of you describing similar strips in one of your older build logs, but made from folded card. Which did you use here? Thanks.

[ccoyle]

4 hours ago, Richard44 said:

I'm about to do the wings and I notice that you added joiner strips to the trailing edge. Hard to tell from your photo but it looks like you used strips of laser fret. I have a very vague memory of you describing similar strips in one of your older build logs, but made from folded card. Which did you use here?

 

The laser fret would be far too thick. Regular card or even #20 bond will do.

[Richard44]

Time to tackle the wings. 

 

These have an internal structure made from either laser-cut material (which I have) or diy laminated card, and a one-piece skin. There are also two options, full undercarriage with wheel wells or not. I've gone with the full undercarriage. The photo shows the parts, with the cutout for the wheel well visible.

There's no strength in the laser-cut material, and the assembled frame felt weaker than any I've made since my days with sticks-and-tissue planes way back. So I added some bracing. The wing joiner rod is also shown in the next photo, as are several pieces that will line the interior of the wheel well.

The completed wheel well. This was not easy, and the fit was not great. But it was finished.

The next photo shows the frame glued to the lower part of the wing skin. Getting this in place accurately was a test of my patience. The power of certain words did help 😁 😁.  The well had to be aligned with the cutout in the skin underside as well as lining up with the trailing and leading edges. Can't use clamps to assist as these just collapse the card.

The completed wing (the other one should be easier, but no guarantee).

Cheers.

Edited yesterday at 07:38 AM by Richard44

[ccoyle]

You're doing a great job! Seeing all those issues brings back memories -- hope my log helped a bit.

[Richard44]

10 hours ago, ccoyle said:

You're doing a great job! Seeing all those issues brings back memories -- hope my log helped a bit.

Your log helped a lot. I gave up on the instructions, used the diagrams though, but mostly relied on your description and photos. Thanks Chris.