++ **** DONE: 1/72 MiG-15bis - Military Conflicts of the 1950's

[JKim]

Username: JKim
First name: John
Category: Advanced
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Eduard
Model: MiG-15 bis Profipack
Aftermarket Additions: None (for now)

My contribution to this GB will be the infamous Sabre-killer... the MiG-15bis. This will be my first kit in 1/72nd scale so we'll see if my 50 year old eyes can even make out the pieces!

I will be doing a North Korean MiG but I haven't decided on a scheme yet. I am leaning towards a camoflaged aircraft but NMF is a possibility.

 

[JKim]

Here is a look at the Eduard Profipack kit of the MiG-15bis.

My first impression upon opening the box was, "wow, look at how small this is!" The MiG-15 was comparable to the size of a typical WW2 fighter and will result in a small build in this scale.

The main sprue holds the fuselage halves and the drop tanks.

The second sprue holds the wing and tail control surfaces. Modern Eduard kits feature some of the best molding you'll find in a injection molded model. Overall the molding quality looks good but the vertical fences on the wings are on the thick side.

The inner side of the wings feature some molded detail for the wheel well.

The third and last sprue holds the cockpit parts and everything else.

A couple versions of the instrument panel are offered... the blank one serves as a backing for the multi-part PE panel. The one with the molded dial details can be used in conjunction with a provided decal.

The molded detail on the tires and wheels are nice and sharp, which makes painting easier.

The clear sprue is circular and came with one loose piece... the sliding canopy. Thankfully, it is in one piece and looks to be undamaged.

Like everything else in this box, the photoetch sprue is tiny. But it looks to add some great detail to the cockpit, especially the harnesses and instrument panel.

The decal sheet comes with markings for two North Korean aircraft, Red 325 flown by Colonel Yevgeni Pepelyaev and Red 1976 that returned to Russia and was repatriated in Russian markings after the Korean war.

 

[Wayne Little]

This should be good...

 

[Wurger]

 

[A4K]

Nice one John!

Love the new Eduard 1:72 kits - have the Fw 190A-5 and Spitfire MK.IXc. Haven't compared to scale drawings yet, but they are the best looking and detailed kits of the subjects in the one true scale. Very tempted to get the Mig 15 at some stage...

 

[Crimea_River]

Nice entry. And good luck with the microscopic parts!

 

[Capt. Vick]

Wow! Really like the selection of decals they give you.

 

[Wayne Little]

Eduard do a good job....

 

[JKim]

The MiG-15 build starts with the cockpit so this will be a good introduction to the "smallness" of this new scale. For such a small build, the cockpit is surprisingly complete with a full, multi-part cockpit tub, a two-piece ejection seat and a little control stick.

The Eduard photoetch instrument panel is a typical "sandwich" affair and has very nice dial details. The common vertical white stripe on the IP is faithfully represented. I've elected to attach the facia to the backing while it is still on the sprue. The background color of the panel is that familiar purplish-grey that Eduard tries to pass off as RLM66

The cockpit parts are painted a light blue-grey that I mixed myself to match the Eduard panel color.

After a sequence of detail brush painting, sealing with a gloss coat, dark panel wash, attachment of the photoetch parts, another gloss coat and wash on the PE parts and a final flat coat, we have our cockpit components ready for assembly. Here is the floor with the front and rear bulkheads added and control stick put into place. The foot straps are little strips of PE that need to folded into shape... not sure how I managed to do it but it will be for naught as they will be virtually invisible behind the IP.

The ejection seat with the PE harnesses.

The instrument panel after it was sealed with a flat coat. The dials were dabbed with drops of Future.

The sidewalls with the various PE parts stuck onto it. The one criticism I have about the PE cockpit placards is how flat they can appear. Eduard took the extra step of adding separate instrument bezels, similar to the instrument panel, on both sidewalls.

The gunsight is supplied as a clear part. It's pretty small but having done similar modifications in the larger scales, I thought I could cut off the reflector glass components and add my own using clear acetate.

Here's my test mule just to see how it would come out. I've since pulled it apart and drilled a tiny depression for the optical element. I want to make sure the reflector glass is glued on as solidly as possible to prevent accidental dislodging. I'll show the final gunsight in my next post.

That's it for now. 1/72nd is definitely small but not unworkably so. It's not dissimilar to the 1/48 scale cockpits that I've been so used to.

 

[A4K]

Fantastic paintwork John!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks good as usual.

 

[JKim]

Thanks comrades! I spent the rest of the evening putting the painted cockpit parts together, which fit solidly. I'll have to dig into my fishing tackle to find some small pieces of lead to fill the available empty spaces. The nose wheel well assembly needs to be sandwiched between the two cockpit walls, which I almost missed.

And here is the final work on the gunsight with the reflector glass secured. The edges of the glass were painted to give a bit of visual definition.

I couldn't resist the AM bug for this one. I ordered the brass gun barrel set from Master. The Nudelman 37mm cannon features a very distinctive muzzle brake that is hard to capture otherwise.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Looking good so far John!

 

[JKim]

The MiG-15 build is progressing. Although the cockpit assembly is complete, there are a few things to do before I can glue the two fuselage halves together. First up is the jet exhaust. This is two-part tube that is supposed to be installed within the two fuselage halves. But that would leave a thin ring of the exhaust sticking out of the rear, making paint awkward. I noticed that Eduard provided me with two exhausts so I thought I could try cutting off the external part of the exhaust so that it could be attached after painting.

The end of one of the exhaust pipes was cut off at the neck-down.

This was trimmed and cleaned up.

The exhaust parts are painted.

The cutting and trimming left the outer ring a little bit shorter than before.

So I cut the ring off the other exhaust and made it a little longer so that I could trim it down to stick out per the original piece.

Lead weight was glued into available spaces to help keep the nose down. The intake splitter was painted silver. You can see that little nose wheel well that I mentioned in the previous post. Once I think I have enough weight, I'll glue the fuselage together.

I can work on a few small details in the meanwhile. And I mean SMALL! The little deck under the sliding canopy has molded circles instead of actual holes. So that was fixed with the help of a micro drill set and pin vise.

 

[JKim]

The Master gun barrel set came in the mail so I got a chance to take a look. This stuff is micro-sized but incredibly detailed.

Starting with the big 37mm cannon, here is a look at the kit part and the replacement barrel, which comes in two pieces.

The plastic barrel is cut off and a hole is drilled to accept the new barrel. This is just placed... gluing will come when I decide when the guns go on. Do I glue the barrels into the gun housing first and then mount the housings onto the fuselage after painting? Or do I glue the housings into place and glue just the barrels into place after painting?

The long barreled 20mm cannon is next.

Followed by the short barreled 20mm cannon. At this point, I noticed that the 20mm barrels from Master are not hollow pieces of brass but solid with the ends dimpled out. I may replace them with brass tubing.

A little bump on the starboard side of the fuselage is cut off and replaced by this brass antenna base.

That's it for now... thanks for dropping in!

 

[fubar57]

Pretty cool John.....and tiny. Struggles with 1/48 PE prove that I would have me in fits with 1/72. Any thoughts on a subject yet? I'm very limited on the -15 but I did find a shot of the damaged front end of Pepelyaev's #325...

 

[Wurger]

 

[A4K]

Love it John. And you've sold me...Eduard MiG-15 on the 'to get' list!