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Revell
1/32 MiG-29A, Hungarian Air Force 60th Anniversary, 1998 (another mad
custom paint & decal job!!)
It
was at Kemble last year, at the Classic Fly-in, that I found a second-hand stall
and picked up the old Revell 1/32 Mig-29 kit for £10. It was when I got home
that I realised that this purchase was full of pros and cons! The pros; a nice
Eduard etched brass detail set was thrown in along with an old article by Ken
Duffey from “Scale Models International”, May 1992, about building this big
Mig. The cons; some really serious warping of the main wings, the fuselage and
the fins. So a decision to make: build it, or bin it? Since this would be my
first ever 1/32 scale build, I decided to give it a go – after all, at that
price if I mess it up big-time, at least I will have gained some valuable
experience.
First
I read Ken Duffey’s article and started to discover another major problem –
the amount of work I would need to put in to correct the Mig-29 model, and the
amount of detail I would need to add if the cockpit was to be anywhere near
acceptable at such a huge scale. I decided that some of the corrections were
beyond my modelling scope, but I would do what I can. The cockpit, however, was
within my scope, so, with the Eduard set already acquired, it was time to hit
the spares box and dig out bits of scrap plastic and anything else I can find to
boost that sparse seat and further enhance the cockpit area behind the seat!! I
was happy with the results
At
this point the colour scheme had not yet been finalised. I had a choice of 2
Hungarian specials – the blue/stars scheme or the eagle scheme. Having not
long completed the Eagle Mil24 Hind, I’d had enough of raptors for the time
being, and opted for the blue/stars scheme. Researching photos was not easy and
I could only find about 8 on a Hungarian internet site, but they were good
photos that helped enormously.
While
I tried methods to get the warping out of the wings, I also started to work out
how I was going to achieve this colour scheme since, although relatively simple
in design, execution is much more awkward. Most of all, how was I going to
achieve the huge Hungarian chevron on the top of the aircraft? I settled for
using decals – a large white triangle decal followed by red and green decal
cut and trimmed to size. The white triangle decal idea did not work – it was
just too big for the complicated contours on the Mig’s upper fuselage, so I
was compelled to mask and paint! Fortunately this worked, and the red and green
decals went on well although there is some unfortunate overlapping on the red
decal that darkens the colour at some points.
Next
problem – how to achieve the colours on the fins. Since the colours extend
down under the lower fuselage and also curve at the same time, I wondered again
whether to make decals, or whether to paint. Whether to do this before attaching
the fins, or after? After a long time, I decided to paint the whole of the
fin/under-fuselage colouring rather than try to cut decals.
The
white stars are cut from white decal sheet. The larger stars have quite
complicated asymmetrical shapes so it was never going to be a case of simply
buying some white star decals!
The
colour used is blue Humbrol matt 25. This was painted on, gloss varnished,
decaled and then matt varnished. The remainder of the aircraft – wheels and
struts, wheel-wells, cockpit, aerials, etc are standard colours for the Mig-29.
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The
Eduard detail set was a great help with the cockpit, though I found that
the HUD structure was too tall and had to be trimmed down significantly;
maybe I was doing it
wrong. With all the difficulties presented to me with this model,
especially the serious warping of major parts, and the not insignificant
amount of putty and filler that was needed, the final disappointment was
still to be revealed. I had not put enough weight in the nose!!! There was
nothing I could do about it, I was not about to start smashing off the
radome in order to pack more lead inside – there was too much filler
involved to secure a clean break. So this model sits with a strut hidden
under the fuselage! |
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Click on
images below to see larger images
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I
don’t know if the recently released Revell Mig-29 in the German special scheme
has any corrections to the mould and design, but in my eyes, this original issue
looks like a Mig-29 ought to look – it sits right, the curves look right, the
profile looks right, and that’s good enough for me. I have quite a few 1/32
scale kits in my stash now – Tornados, Phantoms, Mig-21’s, F16, B0-105, and
with increasing age and decreasing eyesight, it could be that this scale becomes
a better choice.
Steve
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