1/32 Mig 17

[T. van Vuuren]

Seasons greetings all.

Here is my Trumpeter 1/32 Mig 17 cockpit tub. In the pix it looks a little simple and sparce, but in "real life" the small size makes it look Ok-ish.

I added some copper wire pipes and cables aswell as the port side cockpit light and rudder peddal straps.The PE harnass came from my spares box.

I tried something different on the pannel,Instead of dry brushing it I painted it black and wery lightly sanded the raised detal to give a very nice and crisp effect.

It will be painted in the collours of Mozambique Air Force MiG 17 #21 to depict the plane that Lt. Adreano Bomba defected to SA with.

Although a very nicely detailed kit ,the wing fences are miles to thick and will take allot of carefull sanding to thin them down.

Another thing I found to be a potential big problem is the fact that no airduckt is suplied, just the nose ring with splitter cone ,so any views from the front will be "wrong"

The front part of the canopy is also the worng shape when it comes to the framing and I really can't see any way of fixing that other than to get a correct one.

Theuns

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[yak face]

Hi theuns, ive done this one and as you are finding out ,it needs quite a bit of work to get it something like right! I did a review on the build in the reviews section which listed most of the things i had to rectify and theres also a posting in aircraft pics with a lot more photos.The air intake is a problem , i sorted it by using pieces of wine foil bent into a curve and glued to the splitter so it covered up the cockpit tub and gave the impression of ducting going into the fuselage. The main thing as you know is the canopy which is totally inaccurate, i made my version into a 17f and cut the front screen off and reglued it back (after i had sanded the sides ) at the correct angle, if youre doing the 17pf then youll have to do the same but not quite as much (BUT if you are doing the 17pf, the nose ring and radar bulge dont look right either!!) I found the aerofax book (isbn 1-85780-107-5 ) and the kagero topshots book (isbn 83-89088-96-7) invaluable. In regard to your other post re. the instructions , ill have a look and see if ive still got them and try and photograph or scan them for you. cheers tony

 

[T. van Vuuren]

Thanx Tony, it will be great if you still have the instructions. Now I know how well cyno sticks to paper!

Good idea on making a duckting, I hve alreade fixed the nose splitter, but am still weary about cuttling off the windshield and re-glueing.You are allot braver than I am.

I find it strange that trumpeter made such mistakes with an otherwize nice kit.

Do you have any pix of this prosess? I will go and look at your review again.

Here is a pic of the mig I am doing.Intercepted by the SAAF

Theuns

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[yak face]

mig 17 instructions

Hi theuns, i forgot to say, squadron do a vac form canopy for the mig 15 in 1/32( product code SOS9408), it should be identical to the 17 , so if you could get one of those it would make life a lot easier , hannants stock them but im unsure if theyll post to SA.Here are pics of the pages you wanted , sorry theyre only photos ,the scanner isnt working but hopefully youll be able to use them.Anything else you might need to know just ask away , cheers tony

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[T. van Vuuren]

You are a champ mate!

I have lookedt @ your pic of the canopy and for the life of me I can't figure out how you did the cut and fix thing.I am comparing it to my 2 suplied windshields (the longer one with pretruding armour glass ans the shorter flush moundted one) but how do you cut the front part off and still maintain the bottom length of it.I can't see that there is enough material to do this even with slanting the front flat piece back.

All of those curved surfaces won't line up anymore................I am truely confused now!

T

 

[yak face]

hi theuns, the squadron vac form canopy is your best bet but if youre stuck and want to try cutting up both canopies heres how i did it (i think!!it was ages ago!)I cut off the longer armoured screen, leaving it a bit big then cut the screen off the shorter canopy and sanded the edges back till they just met the canopy frame ( be very careful here, its very thin- i broke mine and had to repair it!!) Then sand the edges of the armoured screen till it fits the front of the short screen and glue them together with pva based glue.Heres a very rough drawing hope it helps!!

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[T. van Vuuren]

Dang that's goint to be tricky! But I understand now what you mean, I was not sure that even the lond windshield part would be enough.

Failing that I will sand it back as you said and fit a new piece of thin clear plastic from a toy container to the canopy.It might not be as crystal clear, but it would look better than a wrong shape canopy.Thanx for the effort in your reply.

What did you glue it togerher with? Cyno I nknow makes it fog up. I have PVA wood glue (don't know if it will hold) and thin model cement.

Here I go with the razor saw, wish me luck!

Theuns

 

[yak face]

I glued it with formula 560 canopy glue but pva will do just as well, the only thing to be careful about is when masking up and removing the masking ,dont pull too hard or it might come unstuck, good luck mate , keep us informed how its going, cheers tony

 

[T. van Vuuren]

It's Done!!!

I followed your prosedure and the canopy is looking allot more like yours now (just not nearly as neat!)

The hardest part was to "inlay" the sidepannels. I don't have a dremmel tool, so it had to all be done by hand with needle files.It is a rather fidly job, but atleast it didn't break.........yet.

I glued the pieces in with thin model glue and sofar it has not fogged yet.

I will have to finetune the fit to the fuse as the windshield is still about 2mm short, some filler will work I hope.

Now just to make the thing neat again, filler, sanding, pollishing.

Theuns

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[yak face]

Excellent job theuns!! thats exactly how i did it, just having to fill in the bit at the base of the screen, looks perfect now doesnt it. keep it up mate , cheers tony

 

[T. van Vuuren]

Thanx mate, well worth the effort. Now just to look at making the air duckting like you did. This however might be a little more tricky.

I am thinking of making some sort of "slot" locking device out of plastic for the fuse joint to show off the engine (even if it is a bit bare) to help with my storage problem.I thought of a tipe of thing where the halves have a slot and a latch that you line up and twist to lock in place.

Atleast my paint job will be allot more easy than what you did, no masking! Thanx to the Mozambique AF for that.

Interesting they had some mig 17's in cammo, but the one that was defected with seems more interesting. When it hapened we lived about 80km fron the airbace he was taken to in the north eastern part of SA.

Theuns