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Here's my just almost finished Hasegawa 1/72 MiG 23. I got it for five bucks from a vendor a few years ago.

It's only almost finished because I need to do the wingtip navigation lights and pry the canopy off to display it open. I'm also going to try to put on the canopy sealing strips with some yellow decal. We'll see how that turns out.

What I did:

Scratch built cockpit interior - the only kit part in it is the headrest for the seat. The rest is all card, rod, strip, lead foil and epoxy putty. And Mike Grant's gauge decals.

I also reshaped the R-23 missiles fins to get them to look a little more like the real deal. I pointed up the nose on one of them to make it a radar guided version too.

I cut the middle out of the R-23's pylons to make them look more like the later versions.

Replaced the "Odd Rods" antenna with wire that I flattened slightly.

Replaced the UHF antenna on the spine with a cat whisker cut to length. (thanks Tina!)

Added the "sticky out" bits to the ILS antenna under the nose. (still oversize but they look okay)

Replaced the pitot tube with stretched sprue and a bit of hypodermic needle (thanks, Mittens - the diabetic cat!)

Added a bit of wire and what-not to the struts and wheel bays.

Paint is Model Master - Russian Topside Brown, Russian Topside Green, RLM Lichtgrun, SAC Bomber Tan and Russian Underside Blue.

Alclad for the exhaust along with some old Metalizer non-buffing I still had laying around. Radome and dielectric panels are Dark Gull Gray. Top coat is Testors Dull Coat.

Decals are by Hi-Decal and I'm not too impressed with them except for the fact that they were about the only game in town for Flogger markings. They were thick and non-conforming to detail. Worse than old Academy kit decals. The carrier film was very evident, not silvering but cloudy looking. I was able to make them work by applying them with Future and then layering about 5 heavy coats of Future over them, sanding with some 3200 grit between coats. So much for panel lines, they're buried under there somewhere!

I'm happy with it. It just got 2nd in 1/72 single engined jets at GraniteCon.

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Edited by Grey Ghost 531
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very cool! Do get that cockpit open though, especially if you put all the extra work into it.

I like the finish a lot, but the missiles look too white for me. I know they're white in real life, but in 1/72, a slightly off-white color goes a long way in making the weapons look more realistic. Just m two cents.

Don't get me wrong though, the model looks terrific

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I finished up the "final touches": Added the nav lights, popped the canopy loose (and busted off a missile and a landing gear door) and used decals to model the canopy glazing seals.

Here's a couple of pictures of the cockpit and seat early on. I guess I wasn't in a picture taking mood back then (May) as these are the only two I took.

mig23seatqn0.jpg

mig23cpym1.jpg

Close ups of the cockpit, also shows the "Odd Rods" antenna I made with copper wire that I flattened slightly.

mig23cockpit2tm2.jpg

mig23cockpit1dd4.jpg

The canopy in the raised position showing the sealing strips. They are 10 thou decal stripes off of a Scale Master sheet (very old). The kit has a neat feature in that the canopy has a little tab molded to the back edge that fits into one of two slots in the fuselage. (you can see those in one of the other pictures) One slot is for the raised postion and the other slot is for the closed position. You can also sort of see the detail I added to the ILS antenna under the nose.

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