MiG-21 F-13 "red 809" Polish Air Force - Revell 1/72

And off we go - starting with the ejection seat. The kit's rendition isn't so bad, but as the eduard PE-set offers some improvements I didn't pass the opportunity. 

Therefore the kit's seat needs to be cut in several pieces. Only the head rest, the seat pan and some of the back structure will be saved. 

Like this the MiG build is already starting on the fiddly side of things. But I think the result is worth the effort. However, I won't keep the colour of the precoloured PE parts as my references suggest that most seats appeared in the same, darker grey-blueish colour as seen on early MiG-cockpits. Therefore it will be repainted.
Still, there are photos showing the seat in this lighter grey, for example on ejectionsite.com/sk1seat.htm 

In order to find the correct aforementioned grey-blueish colour I tested several hues from my stash on some plastic sprue. During my research "A-14 steel grey" was mentioned to be the correct colour for early MiG cockpits. However, the corresponding Model Air shade didn't seem to be blueish enough. In the end I chose Model Air Ocean Grey as seen on the right side. 

"Challenge accepted" - eduard offers a way to build up a more detailed jet pipe than the kit's plastic part. Creating a round tube from 2D photo echt parts is always a bit tricky. The white paper cutting has the lenght of the PE part that needed bending and helped to find a suitable bending tool. Most of the time you'll find one item in the household that does the job. In this instance a screwdriver. 

Due to the birth of our kids it has been three years since my last update. This weekend I now had the opportunity to cut some plastic again. Far from finished, I made some progress with the cockpit. The seat now only needs its final finish and I added those MiG-21 F13 typicall yellow tubing, made from lead wire. 

The seat benefits a lot from eduard's PE parts. Of course, seat harness made of etched parts often devides opinion - but I tried my best not to end up with free floating, gravity defying seat belts. 

I thought that I didn't have to fill the back of the head rest because it wouldn't be visible anyways. Turned out to be wrong. So this is something I will have to make up for. 

The side cockpit panels are very nicely moulded and only a few PE parts were added. The white blob is the knob of the thrust lever. The rest of it is moulded to the cockpit tub. 

Everything in place in order to close the fuselage. Only the inlet cone (Quickboost resin part) may need to be glued in place before I can glue the two hull halves together. I'm not sure yet, perhaps I can still slide the cone in position when the fuselage is already closed. I'll figutre it out. 

The back plate has been added from a Brengun PE set as I wasn't happy with this area out of the box. The seat will be added later as it would be prone to damage otherwise. Spoiler alert: Due to the PE beautification, the seat is now too thick and cannot be put into the cockpit once the fuselage is glued together. Another problem for future me.
Some fishing lead was glued on the front gear well, although it is most probably not needed. Did I mention I'm risk averse? 

The idea seemed foolproof: drill a hole through the Quickboost resin inlet cone – at the points already marked on both sides. Then push a piece of steel wire through so that it protrudes just under two millimetres on both sides.
Now the longer end of my drill bit is stuck in the resin and nothing can be pushed through anymore. 

So in the end, I did as Quickboot's little instructions suggested from the outset and glued a small piece of wire to each side. Either way, it's a significant improvement on the kit part – now if I can just get everything assembled. 

It’s starting to look a lot like a MiG-21 now. I couldn’t fit the wings to the fuselage without using some filler. But the most work was actually spent sanding the intake ring into shape. 

The air brake, shown in the closed position, also required quite a bit of filler. The four holes had to be filled as well. Although these holes are visible when the air brake is open, the reference photos I have show that there are four raised studs on the fuselage that fit into these recesses. This means that when the brake is closed, the surface is smooth and free of holes. 

There are a few sink marks scattered across the fuselage. I tackled them with Mr. Dissolved Putty. 

The afterburner ring was made out of lead wire. 

While sanding the intake ring, some material was lost from the upper lip. To repair it, I used Tamiya Epoxy Putty for the first time, which worked well. 

After many "nose jobs," the noses end up looking more unnatural than before. In this case, the opposite should be true. In picture 14, I noticed that, despite all the adjustments made so far, there was still a slight kink where the fuselage meets the jet inlet ring. This has now been corrected, so that this nose now follows the natural contours found on the real thing. 

The horizontal stabilizers were added, and two air intakes on the rear fuselage were modified. The rear section of the cockpit canopy was also glued in place and required some filling. 

Some PE was added to the underside. 

As I read lots of good things on these pages about the gloss black Ultimate Primer I tried it on the centerline tank ( a 3D printed part). I followed the instructions on the bottle and it worked fine, leaving me with a very smooth finish as a base for the metal colour. 

Up to now I had always used Alclad metal colours with very nice results - but also with much "oudor nuisance" or a really bad smell, to put it bluntly. So I tried Vallejo's acrylic alternative. The result looks very nice but, of course, doesn't reach the Alclad shine. I'm still undecided if I'm going to use Vallejo or Alclad on the fuselage...