Being a huge
fan of the MiG-29, I’ve been collecting a lot of kits from the various makers
as well as decals, so I could create a collection of the world’s Fulcrums.
Here is my
latest, MiG-29 Fulcrum-A KB720 of No. 28 Squadron, Indian AF. This aircraft,
along with its two sisters KB713 and KB707, are used as Adversaries and have
received a special paint job to reflect this role.
A
lot has already been written about Hasegawa’s release of the MiG-29, so I’ll
just explain what all I did on this kit.
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First off, the
cockpit is represented by decals and as most know in the forum boards, I cannot
stand this and wish Hasegawa would move away from this practice. Ok, getting
back to the subject at hand. I ended up replacing the entire cockpit tub with a
spare from a Hasegawa F-16, as it fit better and looked more the type. I added
side console extensions to give them a slight up-angle and added various panels,
switches and a throttle from sprue and plastic stock. The same treatment was
given to the instrument panel. This time I used my Punch and Die set from
Waldron to match photos I’ve got. The rear breaker panel behind the seat also
had some detail added. A True Details K-36D resin ejection seat completed the
cockpit.
Moving on to
the exterior, I drilled out all of the vents for the gun and replaced the
louvers with plastic sheet. The biggest portion mod I did was to remove the kit
upper intakes and insert some closed intake vents from the Fujimi kit. It looks
much better and you don’t have to try and built intake covers/work platforms.
The rest of the
build was pretty straightforward. I added a bit of wiring to the landing gear
and landing lights and repositioned the stabilators to give them a drooped look.
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The paint
scheme was achieved by using a combination of Model Master, Gunze and Tamiya
enamels and acrylics. The model was gloss coated with future and after decaling
a sludge wash was applied, as found in ARC’s Techniques section. A final flat
coat sealed in a bit of ground up chalk pastels for the final weathering.
With a little
time and some scratch building, Hasegawa’s MiG-29s can be built into a good
representation of the real jet. And at swap meets, they can sometimes be found
fairly cheaply.
Jeff
Click on
images below to see larger images
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