**** DONE: MiG 21 PF 'Fishbed D', Moscow District PVO Aviation Fighter Regiment, 1967

[bemay]

great work terry!

[Vic Balshaw]

Great reference pis Wojtek....

Yes, good one Wojetk...............

just remember Terry one little slip up with tiny parts and the carpet monster gets to eat!

I got one of them to Wayne, nasty little beast he is ...............

[Wurger]

THX gus.

[Wayne Little]

I got one of them to Wayne, nasty little beast he is ...............

Mine don't eat much....I try to be real careful!

[Lucky13]

Give the wee f*cker one of those Hippocroccofrogs and it'll be happy for a year at least!

Excellent work chaps!

[Airframes]

A year! A bl**dy decade judging by the size of the average female Hippocroccofrog in this town!! (Shudders at the thought!).
I've put the B*st*rd Buc aside for now, and returned to the delicate MiG. Got all the joints sealed with PVA, and the outside of the jet pipe, and the RWR panels etc painted. Now that I've recieved my new airbrush, I can get on with the first stages of painting the airframe, hopefully tomorrow (Sunday). Pics soon hopefully.

[T Bolt]

What type of airbrush did you end up getting Terry?

[Airframes]

Basically the same as before, an AB series, but this time with an adjustable 'stop' for repeatable fine-line work. Great company to deal with - they sussed out the problem with my 'old' one, and sent me a new fluid nozzle, free of charge, with the new brush! So now I have the new one, plus the old one which has lost a bit of it's fine-line capability due to filing the needle, but still works fine!

[T Bolt]

Good deal Terry! It's always nice to have a second one!

[Airframes]

Yep. I'll post a pic of the new one in the 'Recent Purchases' section.

[Airframes]

A bit late with the progress pics, but here we go.
PIC 1. Spike-like static vents were fitted to the wingtips of the MiG21, and these will be added from fine stretched sprue after painting and final assembly. As the wing trailing edge on the model is so thin, I found the easiest and safest way to be able to mount the 'spikes' was to cut notches into the wing-tip trailing edges.
PIC 2. 'Radar Green' dielectric transponder panels are located just inboard of each wing fence, and these have been painted and masked. Navigation lights will be added later, using tinted Kristal klear.
PIC 3. The model masked ready for the first stage of painting, with the fin-top RWR panel painted and masked, together with the varied tones of metal in the area of the jet exhaust, and the 'Radar Green' panel on the ventral fin. The rear of the fin-top bullet fairing was virtually impossible to mask effectively, so this will be painted after the main painting stages.
PIC 4. The first base coats have been applied. Second generation MiG 21s were not natural metal, but finished in a 'silver' coating made up of clear dope and aluminium powder, which had a satin, or semi-gloss finish. After a bit of b*gg*ring about - sorry, experimentation - this was replicated by mixing two shades of Humbrol Silver enamel, with some white added. Two thin coats have been applied so far, and this will be allowed to harden for a couple of days, before applying a further two coats, slightly lighter than the first. After a gloss clear coat for the decals, a satin clear coat will be applied. The nose intake ring will also be painted in a darker shade, and some panel lines very lightly defined, but not too much, as the aircraft was fairly new at the time depicted.
The first job though, will be to fill some very fine joint lines which still show feintly, in the area of the boundary layer bleed duct on top of the nose, and just under the air intake. This will be done using a further thin bead of PVA or gloss enamel varnish.
Once that's all done, it'll be time to work on the ejection seat and landing gear.
Thanks again for your kind comments and interest.

[B-17engineer]

Hey T, what's dope?

In the US dope is a slang term for drugs...

[Airframes]

Yeah, it is here too! Dope is what was traditionally used for coating canvas - covered aircraft, and is still used on some flying model aircraft (and real ones in some cases).
Basically, it's a relatively thick, clear varnish-type product, originally cellulose based, although there are now synthetic equivalents. In the case of the MiG, it was very similar to the coatings used on such things as P47 and P51 landing gear legs and other parts, where the clear 'varnish' is mixed with additives and fine metallic powders, giving a metallic, in this case 'silver' coating when applied. It can't be called paint, as it isn't the same base ingredients, and doesn't use pigments as such, as paints do. It's very tough and hard wearing, and can give an extremely smooth finish, which is long-lasting and resistant to weathering.

[T Bolt]

Great looking in the silver Terry

[Crimea_River]

Looking pretty sharp there Terry.