Katangan Air Force MiG-21, 1/144 scale

frank2056 · November 07, 2011, 11:46:44 AM

I bought a Trumpeter 1/144 J-7 for about $1.50. It was a complete waste of money - this is one horrible little kit. Huge gaps in odd places bad fit and wings that are far too thick. The Matchbox Mad Trencher came out of retirement to do a bit of carving on this kit, too. About all this kit is good for is for the 1/144 drop tanks, missiles and pocket pods.

What can be done to improve on this POS? Well, a cool camo pattern should help. Richard Chafer has many outstanding MiG-21 profiles in this thread.. My wife Lisa picked the winning pattern, the Katangan Air Force MiG-21:

The Trumpeter Abomination is, at best a MiG-21F. Here it is with the camo pattern applied, but little else done to tone the colors down. I need to fix some of the soft edges, but most of the painting is done. It's not an exact match to Richard's, because I'm really bad at following instructions:

I extrapolated the upper view. Also, the undersides are partly light gray, not wrap around:

I need to drop the canopy down a fraction of a mm and add all the other dangly bits, then work on the decals.
I have an Airfix 1/144 and a couple of 1/72 MiG 21 that may be more deserving of Richard's camo patterns, but I'll finish this one.

What isn't evident in these pictures (and still amazes me) is that the kit has been sanded down a bit to reduce all its excesses (deep panel lines, thick wings) and it's wearing two coats of Mr. Surfacer, one coat of Vallejo gray primer, and three coats of Vallejo paints (the camo colors) and the panel lines are still prominent...

Doc Yo · November 07, 2011, 12:09:59 PM

I shudder to think what it looked like before the paint*. Isn't Katanga The Phantom's stomping ground?

* Which looks terrific, by the way. And in an unrelated aside, I have started converting the Leif you sent me a few years back into
the Yuri Gagarin. Look for pics in few weeks.

Spey_Phantom · November 07, 2011, 12:19:36 PM

Quote from: Doc Yo on November 07, 2011, 12:09:59 PM
I shudder to think what it looked like before the paint*. Isn't Katanga The Phantom's stomping ground?

no, Katanga is a province from the DRC, after Congo became Independent from Belgium, the province of Katanga also gained independence.
its independence was short lived, from 1960 to 1963.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Katanga

ChernayaAkula · November 07, 2011, 07:17:27 PM

Awesome!

No two ways about it!

Cobra · November 07, 2011, 07:26:01 PM

You've done Great So Far

Thanks for the warning. @ $1.50,You Didn't lose a Ton of Cash though.atleast You Did'nt Spend in the $20-30 Range and be IDS with your Wife/Girlfriend. Stay Cool

Dan

frank2056 · November 16, 2011, 08:23:33 PM

I'm mostly finished with this Mig-21POS. The canopy mask lifted up some of the frames, so I'll have to redo it. Just about everything on this kit is wrong. The landing gear looks like it belongs to another, larger scale kit. The nose probe looks awful as well. The decals came out great, though:

Next to Richard's profile:

I used rocket pods instead of AA missiles because the kit's missiles were even worse looking than the rocket pods (which are pretty sad).

In the spotlight:

It looks grainy because the light levels were pretty low and the effective ASA was set too high.

Top view:

At least this was a good paint and decal test - the kit is just not worth the effort spent on it; I'll remask the canopy and paint it, but that's it. Eduard has a brand new (and beautifully done) Mig-21MF in 1/144. It is definitely more worthy of one of Richard's Mig-21 profiles.

Frank

Green Dragon · November 20, 2011, 04:52:16 PM

Beaut paintwork Frank, shame about the kit being crap! One good thing though, you've saved me some money. I was going to buy some of these Trumpy J-7 1/144th kits and I don't think I'll be doing that now, Cheers for the warning!

Paul Harrison

su27rules · November 21, 2011, 12:01:32 AM

Nice painting work

and it is shame about this kit it being so crap.........

ChernayaAkula · November 21, 2011, 01:53:10 AM

Despite the POS kit, this turned out great!

Maybe you really should try this again with Eduard's beauty in 1/144. Absolutely gorgeous kit.

frank2056 · November 21, 2011, 06:41:26 AM

Thanks guys - I'm glad I was able to take the bullet with this worthless kit. Paul, I was going to buy a handful as well; luckily I only bought one to see how bad it was. The quality of Trumpeter's 1/144 kits varies widely so I didn't want to take a chance. This kit is completely unsalvagable.

I have the Eduard 1/144 Mig-21 winging its way to me this week; I 'll definitely redo this scheme.

Frank