BIG Russian Jet Groupie GB

Great work Dre!

Thanks, it's been fun thus far.

Oh right just like me then, but I do one at a time and no more.

Nice canopy, Dre! Plugging away on my Frogfoot. Pics soon.

C'mon Pork, don't tease!

Hee! Not much to tease, really.

I've finished painting the landing gear (I swear I've spent five hours on just the nose gear alone and I'm still not finished. I've also noticed that the kit nose gear is inaccurate, so I'm pondering the SAC aftermarket replacement as a do-over, but not sure it will fit without figuring out how to shave off the large metal locating tabs), the wheels, and just started the resin ejection seat which will probably take me 10 to 20 hours lol. I'm slow.

When I've made good progress on the seat, I'll post some pics. :-)

I really need to get my tail in gear on my Su22 before I run outta time. Got all distracted by a Seafire that needed my attention...

Vance, spending all your time 'over there' isn't helping either.... ;-)

~ssshhhhh!!!~  

Porkbits I can tell you from the SAC landing gear that it slotted in with no issues whatsoever and thats a Revell kit, which are notorious for not wanting to be built, you could spend double the price of the kit on sandpaper ffs! But anyway PB it's worth the money definitely.

Aha! Yeah, I'm burning through my sandpaper supply like mad with this re-popped kit. :-) Kind of weird especially considering the plastic is so soft. Oh well.

The gear issue I'm encountering with the Kopro kit is that the locating holes for the nose gear are too far forward in the nose well, so the locating tabs for the gear assembly won't reach (if that makes any sense). I've cut the locating tabs off the nose gear assembly for now, so it shouldn't be an issue, but wondering if I did something wrong when attaching the nose gear wheel well to fuselage half.

As for the accuracy issue I mentioned, the nose gear has a front strut that's not visible on the real a/c, but is on the model. Not a huge deal, I guess, so debating whether or not the SAC gear is worth the cost.

I suppose I could also cut off that strut on the kit nose gear so it doesn't show......

That front strut ought to be well hidden inside the nose of the aircraft, leaving the main strut exposed.

Yep. Here's a link to a build of the Eduard kit:

www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/.../00.shtm

If you look at pics of the nose gear, you can see the exposed strut (look at the last photo on the Web page), so apparently this guy had the same issue.

Not sure what to do.....

After looking at that linked model, and then googling some real-life single-seat A's, I have to conclude that dude's landing gear is not set deep enough into his model.  Also of note- that the two nose gear doors open to either side of the wheel well,  which is also true of the two-seater- something that Trumpeter got wrong and that I have to fix on mine (if possible, as the shape may be wrong to swap sides).

Trumpeter also pooched the wing pylons- they show and load-out 8, but the wings have locating holes for an additional, smaller pylon at the outermost position.   Time to hunt some sprues.... damnit!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm glad that you asked that question, Pork; it's leading me to fix some stuff I was unaware of... and I thought I was close to finished.

Glad I could help! :-)

Yeah, I don't think that main gear door should be down.

Not sure if I should just cut down the gear length a bit. Worried that in the process, the nose will end up sitting too low. From pics, looks like Frogfoots sit with noses pointing up quite a bit.

They do sit proudly with their noses up in the air.   What are they, stuck up or sumthin'?

Could you post some pics of the situation?   We might be able to troubleshoot it with visuals.

Sure...!

Here's the gear:

Here are the locating holes--the front one is stuck waaay up in the nose, so can't see it:

And here are various views of how the gear fits currently (with locating tabs shaved off, since the gear doesn't sit forward enough to hit the front locating hole, which is way up inside the nose, and movement of the gear base forward is blocked by the danged strut):

Yeah, that's a problem.   Looks like you're going to either live with it, or chop off a large amount of that nice, flat mounting base (which will undoubtedly weaken the whole structure).  Luckily the gear doors, once mounted, will hide a large portion of the issue!

Me, I'd live with the problem as the solution doesn't appear to be a good idea.   I don't know if the AM metal gear would fix this or not, sorry.  

Thanks, Dre. I agree....and I was leaning that direction anyway. You have to pick your battles with these limited run kits, so I'll leave gear as-is (and save some money in the process on the metal replacement). I can definitely live with it; I'm obssesive with detail, but only to a point. :-)

Looking at pics also reminds me I need to a put a light wash on the struts. :-)

Gear up and on a stand, then you would never know Porkbits. Does look good in the air this one I personally think.

Good news....! Looks like SAC makes a set of replacement gear for the Monogram/Revell kit that also fits the Kopro/Eduard kit with some slight modifications. I'm only interested in the nose gear, and found a build review which indicated all you have to do is enlarge the rear locating hole to make the nose gear fit (kit nose wheel fits with no problems, apparently).

So I ordered, and will give it a whirl. Worse comes to worse it doesn't work, and I just revert back to the kit nose gear. Will see.

Nice work on the new MiG, Dean.   It looks great in that drab scheme and those burners are fantastic.

I can see why you like the -29's so much-they've got a nice line from certain angles.

Is she done, or is there more to do?

Loads more, Dre, I have to finish the landing gear, I used foil tin foil for lenses in the landing lights, and I will wrap a small amount around the hydraulic pistons on the landing gear doors, also I have to detail the cockpit, I have all the wires in there but there is some brace or something behind the pilots seat and I have to scratch build the HUD's as there is none in the kit just one for the front seat but there should be two, then the inside of the canopy is bare so I have to add wiring and a periscope thats closed, they give you a stowed option with a moulded on cover but when operated it was removed so I have to scratch build that as well, I will hand paint the pylons a different shade of grey to make them look newer than the rest as when at Lipetsk airfield as in the photos there were no pylons attached so I can assume they could be slightly different, also I will use under wing drop tanks as they look great on the 29 and rockets and free fall bombs, which is a more realistic layout for a trainer aircraft with no RADAR instead of guided missiles and I dont like the look of the Russian heat seekers if Im honest, but also there are some old but unusual weapons I got with the 23 so I might check if they were ever used, odd looking some of them, and when a;ll that is done I will be making a base so there is a lot to do yet but it's all good.

Well, that should be enough to keep you busy for a few hours, lol.

Hadn't really noticed all those items missing until you pointed them out, so yeah...  at least there's no shortage of spare weapons when you're dealing with Trumpeter.  

Ah its just me it could be made from the box and look great but I dont know, one day I tried adding a bit of scratch built detail, and I have been at it ever since as I simply look at photos of real aircraft and always see where I could add more. I just cant help myself.

Nice builds, Dean! Great weathering on the MiG-29.

Still plugging away on teeny tiny teeny PE bits. Photos soon, I promise!

I forgot to say Dre the burners were painted acrylic gloss black, then sprayed with Alclad2 white aluminum and hot metal blue. I then hand painted Tamiya clear red on parts very thinly, then the engines were brought to life with Tamiya pigments, mud, rust, snow, soot, dark rust etc all in all about ten colours made from paint and pigments.

They look sharp no matter what.  I've never figured out how to use pastels/pigments in a convincing manner...  

Rub your finger in it and look at a photo, easy, the pigments are very easy if you use your finger, if you use the thing you get in the box you would never get anything done, I really like using pigments as they are instantly realistic when you start to blend them all together.