Piero

... Unfortunately it went like this... My first experience with Techmod's decals has been "difficult": they are printed very well, good color saturation and a thin films... but hardly to use because are so fragile to move from the wet paper and to place on the model. Despite the model was so well glossed I had also a lot of silvering all over the stencils... a nightmare. This is the first time such a thing has happened to me... so I removed paints and decals until the bare plastic: I've used the AK Paint Stripper specific product for this task. Tomorrow I'm going to clean the plastic, restore some panel lines and rivets and after that I'll paint it again. This time it will be a Czech's Mig-29A, as it should has been from the beginning. CIAO! Piero

Hello, the Fulcrum has been glossed with a couple of layers of Tamiya X-22 thinned with Tamiya Laquer Thinner "yellow cap". After that I've applied a wash using the Flory Model's "Dark Dirt" acrylic wash. Now it's ready for the decals. CIAO! Piero

Well dirty Hornet here!!! Nice to see you got finished it... and now, who's next? CIAO! Piero

Hello, I spent the weekend spraying colors all over the small panels, antennas, metallic plates, radome and the interior of the undercarriage bays. Now its time to prepare the surface for some good thin layers of clear gloss paint Tamiya X-22. CIAO! Piero

Hello, the painting phase is going on. The under surface were sprayed with a very Light Grey. I used the Tamiya XF-80 reference. Then I sprayed the matt Black anti-glare panel in front of the windshield. Patches of Light Blu Grey, Tamiya XF-23, were sprayed over the Czech's insegna under the wings and around the front section of the jet air intakes. The real "challenge" was masking and painting the White band around the rear fuselage section... meters of Tamiya's masking tape following such different shapes and details... but in the end I was happy with the result. Still a lot of panels and details to be painted... but for me this is the best part of building a model. CIAO! Piero

Hello, due the quality of the Gunze colors and their drying speed if well thinned, yesterday I was able to finish the camouflage of the upper surfaces. After the Light Sand and the Light Green next was the H309 Dark Green. Then the H406 Chocolate Brown. The H65 Black Green was used to spray the patches covering the czech's insigna. Now its time to go with the Light Grey on the under surfaces....then the radome, antennas, metallic panels, black anti-glare panel and last but not least the large white band around the rear part of the fuselage. CIAO! Piero

Thanks guys! Here the first two camouflage colors sprayed: these are Gunze H44 and H312 thinned with Tamiya's Thinner Yellow cap. Here the masking using Patafix's rolls and Tamiya's Yellow Tape. CIAO! Piero

A little step before the camouflage... I sprayed some pure white inside the main panels to highlights these areas. An hint for the camouflage colors... CIAO! Piero

Hello, the windshield has been glued to the fuselage: the fitting of this part is really good. Unfortunately I have no photo of this step... Then I've spent a good amount of time to clean all the plastic parts to prepare for the painting phase. The clear part of the windshield has been masked using Tamiya's yellow tape and some Maskol to seal the cockpit area. Now I'm ready to paint it!!! First layer is a coat of Tamiya X-18 Semi-Gloss Black: this has been sprayed in two thin layers with a pass of very fine grane sanding sponge between the painting layers and... wow... that's a MiG-28!!! Next step is spray a random pattern of Very Light Grey, Gunze H338 in this case, trying to stay inside the panels but without worrying... here she is with the marbled effect on. Tomorrow I'll start with the real camouflage... Hurray!!! CIAO! Piero

Hi, early Polish MiG-29As were ex-Czech machines that retaines the original 4-tones camouflage for some years until they went to the overhaul maintenance where they were repainted in greys shades. The original 4-tones camouflage of the Fulcrums was not keept very well. The PAF's maintenance crews overpainted the Czech's roundels with blochs of Dark Green over the wings on on the vertical tails. Under the wings they applied some Light Blue Grey, used on the side of the jet air intakes too. And then applied the Polish markings. So the camouflage got a heavy fading over the years until they were repainted. CIAO! Piero

Moving on the cockpit... I've painted the area over the IP and added the glasses of the HUD. I have no pic but I've already painted the inside of the front windshield: the color is not black as I supposed it was but instead is light grey as the rest of the cockpit. CIAO! Piero

nearly close to put on some paint... but still some work to do. The airbrake has been put on in closed position. The actuators has been reshaped and detailed too. Some details has been added to the IP cover. The HUD frame is there but still no glass, this will be added after the painting phase. A very nice surprise were the plastic under-wing pylons: I was worried of the amount of work I should done because these parts in the M and K versions are wrong in shape and details. Instead, in this box the pylons are almost correct in shape and details... so a little work here and the job is done! Now its time to paint the cockpit area and the frame inside the windshield. CIAO! Piero

... and now all together!!! Fuselage is completed with the two vertical tails. The extensions with the chaff launchers has been reshaped and detailed using stripes of plasticard and pieces of PE. As you can see flaps&slats are fitted too: the positions of the all the mobile surfaces has been referred to many photos of the MiG-29A when is parked. It's curious that the flaps are in neutral position, the control surfaces are a little bit in up position and the slats are a little bit in down position... why the control surfaces are a little bit up in both the wings?... with the engines turned off of course. ...

Hello, I tried to dry-fit the submarine-tank between the engines nacelles just to have an idea of how it looks... Not bad, right? Ok, time to put the fuselage together: inserting the cockpit inside the upper fuselage is not a problem, the fitting is almost ok. As you can see the two fuselage halves are glued together and a Quickboost correct resin radome is already fitted... it looks really ok to me. What is not perfect is the thickness of the LERX: for me this part is a little bit "skinny"... but I decided to live with it. ...

... some details has been added under the front fuselage part: these includes open some air intakes, antennas dishes, stiffener plats and a lot of panel lines correction. The ventral engines nacelles and jet air intakes fitted under the main fuselage part. Also here I've added some details as stiffener plates, PE parts, a lot of panel lines re-scribing and rivets too. ...

... looking at the ventral engines nacelles and at the main jet air intakes plastic parts, these has a lot of wrong or missed panels and also are missed some drain and pipes points. Along the jet air intakes there are two long molding lines... that needs to be removed. The FOD plastic parts are really bad... I don't like the way they fits and the grills are wrong too. For me here the better and easy job is to replace the plastic parts with the Eduard's PE pieces. Here're the ventral engines nacelles after the details job I've done. ...

Hello, some update here. The main undercarriage wheel bays plastic parts has a good level of details but I've also added some details as a lot of hydraulics lines ,stiffener plates, fuel cap and so on. On the upper surface I've added some details around the auxiliary air intakes, using plasticard and PE parts. Also, I've opened a pair of oval air intakes and a circular inspection windows on the right side. ...

Can't see any pics...

Hi, my 1/32 KH Mirage 2000D/N hasn't the weapons stencils decal sheet "A"... what the hell?!?!?!?!?!

Wow, great work here Ian The job you have done on the front fuselage section is clear and the look and shape of the nose is amazing CIAO! Piero

Hello, last we i worked on the front wheel bay. The plastic parts are ok but can be detailed and so I did it adding some reinforcement plates, hydraulic tubes and valves. Dry fitting the wheel bay inside the lower fuselage part is ok. Now its time to work on the central undercarriage bays... CIAO! Piero

Thank you guys! i went for something funny, the external fuel tank PTB-1500... I never saw a fuel tank such "ugly" but at the same time is irresistible for me! So, the shape of the plastic parts are ok but I want to add more details. First job is to build the APU "hole" that goes through the rear part of the tank. Than I've added the welding lines along the fuel tank. Some other details like tubes, valves and access panels has been added too. After that a good layer of flat black has been sprayed overall, followed by some thin layers of various light grey to obtain a shade between 36375 and 36495. A gloss cote has been sprayed to prepare the surface for a dark wash. Now its time to paint all the details and a final matt cote to finish the job. CIAO! Piero

Thank you! It's time to work on the cockpit: the plastic part are ok, but some details can and must be added. The ejection seat rail has been built from scratch. The circuit brakers box has been cutted and rebuilt with plasticard, resin switch and cables. A pair of pre-coloured plates has been added too. The IP and consoles has been replaced with pre-coloured PE parts from Eduard set. Some resin switches and knobs has benn added too. Here the final result. The cockpit fit very well inside the upper fuselage part. CIAO! Piero

Thank you my friends! Some update on the engines nacelles. With all the putty and sanding the surface details has gone... so its time to rescribe the panel lines and rivets: tools and references for this task. Here the result of the task... some details in the engine covers has been already restored too using little bit of plasticard. A thin layer of neutral grey has been sprayed to show the uniformity of the area. CIAO! Piero

Ok, as I want to do a PAF MiG-29A here some specifics references for this bird: a beautiful decal sheet from Techmod Decals and a comprensive book from Polish Wings series dedicated to the early years of the Fulcrum in PAF. Going to the kit. First of all the Trumpeter MiG-29A kit is better when is compared with the old Revell kit, but also the Trumpeter kit has some errors/mistake in shapes and size. The main fuselage part includes the wings and is splitted with the lower part of the fuselage longitudinally. Personally, I like this solution. As said before, the kit's radome is short and with some error in shape and will be addressed with a new resin radome from Quickboost. What I don't really like of this kit is the shape on the upper engines nacelles. These should be much continuous with the resto of the fuselage and less pronounced... So, I've made some kind of masking with tape to define the area where I'll put some putty... Tamiya's Epoxy Putty for smooth surface is the one I prefer for this job... Ok, here the result after a first session of sanding and a layer of brush painted neutral grey just to check any imperfection... compared with the original plastic part. Not bad is it? CIAO! Piero