Mike J. Idacavage Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I thought I would start my thread on my soon-to-be Stoli Mig 17 build. I am a bit further along in another GB so this build will be a tad slow at first. Also, my model building is on hold for a few weeks as I needed to get my outside deck replaced ($16,000, ouch!) and the builders had to tear into the outside wall last week from the inside to mount the deck. Unfortunately, my model room is on that outside wall so everything is now under plastic sheet and a lot of dirt! Hopefully, they will be finished in a few weeks and I can get back modeling. In the interim, I thought I would set up my thread and show you what I plan on doing. I want to build the Stolichnaya Mig 17 display aircraft in 1/72 using the AZ Model kit along with the aftermarket PE set for the kit. The reason I really like this mig is that I had the luck to watch them perform back in 2000 at the Edwards AFB Open House. Here are some of the photos that I took as a reference: I can't wait to start this project.......... Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ross blackford Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 :D, That lookss very nice Mike, good to have you aboard. That's one expensive deck you have there mate, although it would probably not be far behind here in Oz these days. Enjoy the build Mike. , Ross. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bashace Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Gonna be sweet! I love the airshow painted Mig-17's. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MiG Mongoose Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Great choice of markings! I look forward to seeing how the AZ kit builds up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 Thanks guys! I hope to start this build as soon as I can get my model room back. The AZ Model kit looks to have a few challenges but should go together well. I am already planning ahead and trying to match the red color! Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bashace Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Do you have a plan in the works to keep it from being a tail sitter? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 (edited) Hi everyone, I am back from the shadows! I have my house in order and some of my earlier projects cleared off my workbench. I can now devote more time in this GB! :P Now that I have started on this project, I realize that it will take more work than a standard Tamiyagawa kit. This should be fun, though!I started of on the cockpit area using the PE set sold by Az Models. This is really good, and I will post a photo or two soon. While I was waiting for some glue to dry in the cockpit, I started to work on different subassemblies.An easy one is the stabilizers on the tail. The instructions show them to have tabs that insert into slots on each fuslage half, but in reality there are none. I marked out where the stabilizers should go and drilled a hole in each part for a brass rod to serve as a spar. Here's how they look now: One of the big faults of this kit is that there is nothing to block the view from the front of the nose air inlet to the cockpit. I cut and sanded a blanking piece out of sheet styrene which will serve as a bulkhead in front of the cockpit. Hopefully, this will work! You will notice that I have sprayed the cockpit area with a blue gray paint to somewhat match the pre-painted cockpit PE.Have fun modeling! Mike Edited March 17, 2012 by Mike J. Idacavage Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Great question Bashace! I hope to have enough space below the cockpit and nestled up against the rear bulkhead of the cockpit to add the weight. I'll have a better answer when I get the cockpit asembled and dry fit into the side of the fuselage. I definitely think this might be a trouble spot, though! Mike Do you have a plan in the works to keep it from being a tail sitter? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bashace Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 lol...my Trumpy 1/32 Mig-17 took more weight than I could squeeze out of site and I even left the engine and tailpipe out. Finally just built the maintenance cradle for the tail and let it sit on that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Bashace That is a really nice Mig 17! Thanks for the warning about the nose weight. From your experience it looks like getting the kit to stay balanced will be a challenge. 'I'll try and cram as much weight as possible into the section near the cockpit. Now where's my spare uranium ingots when I need them! Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bashace Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 You may be alright, Trumpeter went all out and made the tail section of the Mig-17 extra heavy, the plastic is quite thick. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 Time to give an update on my glacial pace in this build! I am doing a bit of work on different sub-asemblies, and here is one that shows some decent progress. I put together the PE set for the cockpit. Here's how it looks before I assemble the sides into a small box which wont photograph well! It does look a lot better than what comes with the kit. These pieces get mated up to the kit floor and back/front pieces to give a finished cockpit. I'll also shoot a photo after I get everything assembled for the cockpit and before it goes in the fuselage halves. Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted April 9, 2012 Author Share Posted April 9, 2012 Moving right along, here is the PE cockpit assembled. Like I thought, it is rathger difficult to see the details in a photo when the pit is put together! I have also assembled the wings. Here is a major hassle. The wings are in two parts. Unfortunately, the wing halves don't match at a panel line and you are left with a real ugly seem which cuts across quite a few panel lines. I am now going back & forth filling in the seem and rescribing the damaged panel lines. My suggestion is to do as much sanding and dry fitting as possible before you glue the two wing halves. I did not and am paying the price! Have fun modeing! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted April 22, 2012 Author Share Posted April 22, 2012 One of the things that I need to consider in my build is that the overall red paint scheme extends into the front air inlet in the nose. So I had to do some planning ahead as this would be a real to paint this area after assembly. After cleaning up the parts that will be in the front of the Mig 17 after asembly, I first painted them gloss whie as an undercoat. This was then followed by a coat of Mr. Color in the same paint as what will be used in the exterior. It should not be too long before the fuselage is sealed up! Meanwhile, the wings get repeated applications of putty, sanding and priming as I work to clean up the canyon, er... seam from the two part wing. Have fn modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ross blackford Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 :D, Looks good Mike, please keep us up with progress mate. , Ross. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted May 6, 2012 Author Share Posted May 6, 2012 Time for another posting on my slow progress! I have the front end now positioned and fixed in one half of the fuselage. Here is how I have everything set. I thought getting a few shots at this stage would be useful before I seal everything up. It should start to look like a real aircraft pretty soon! I have a question for all you color/Mig 17 experts out there in ARC land. Looking at the first two photos I posted in this thread on the real Stoli Mig, any guesses as to what the color is of the inside of the landing gears? I vbeleive the landing gear is a light to medium gray, but I am a tad bit baffled on the landing gear bays and inside of the doors. It almost looks like a dark gray green. Is this a standard Mig 17 color? Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted May 13, 2012 Author Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) Just a quick, short update on my progress. I posted above a photo of the large seem that occurs when you mate the two wing halves together. After more than a few repeated cycles of filling, sanding and rescribing, the wing looks decent. Here's the results after cleaning up. I now have the fuselage and wings glued together. I need to shoot some more photos at this stage and will post another update in a few weeks after I get back from a series of business and personal trips.Have fun modeling! Mike Edited May 21, 2012 by Mike J. Idacavage Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted May 26, 2012 Author Share Posted May 26, 2012 It looks like a plane! Here are the photos I promised of the Mig 17 with the major parts assembled. The fit between the wings and fuselage is awful, and will take multiple applications of putty to hide. Overall, the two fuselage halves went together fairly well with an average amount of seams present. This build is now Number 1 on my runway, so I plan on focusing on finishing this kit, or at least posting more frequent progress!! Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted June 3, 2012 Author Share Posted June 3, 2012 While I am logging in time finishing up the fuselage and fixing the inevitable seams, holes, poor panel lines, etc., I thought I would take a break and work on the bang seat. Here is the ejection seat after the basic assembly. And here is the complete seat after painting, weathering and the PE harness added. Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted June 10, 2012 Author Share Posted June 10, 2012 (edited) Well, the good news is that I have some more progress to show on this build. I have the main parts added to the fuselage, and now it's a matter of cleaning everything up, fixing a few screw-ups on my part and then moving on to the paint stage. Here's how it looked earlier this weekend: The bad news? Yup, the screw ups! Nothing that can't be recovered from, just speedbumps that will slow this build, and likely stretch it into next month. I was glueing in the wing pitot tubes earlier this afternoon and I needed to redrill out the holes for the pins that I am using for the tubes as they were not going in at the right angle. Yup, I drilled through the top of one wing! I can fill the hole in after the epoxy putty dries and resand and rescribe. I also need to clean up the stabilizer/tail joints a bit better. I also spent some time masking the canopy and guess what? I was painting white primer for another model so I just hit the canopy. Just as I finished I realized I had NOT put down the interior gray undercoat. Time to sand/scrape off the white, clean it up and remask. Oh well, such is life! Have fun modeling! Mike Edited June 10, 2012 by Mike J. Idacavage Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted June 17, 2012 Author Share Posted June 17, 2012 Here's a quick update as we go into the last weeks of this GB. Here's how the Albino Mig looks this morning with it's final (hopefully) coat of primer. I'll take a close look at it later and then start with the final red paint steps. I know that some of the panel lines are not consistent abd there are a few small build errors and flaws but I think it is time to move on and finish the model. This may change, of course, when I give it my final pre-paint inspection later today! Looking at my work/travel schedule for the rest of this month, I don't think I will finish this in time. I will keep working on it and shoot to complete the build in July. I like to let the final, gloss paint coats really dry before I move on to the decal steps. I'll still post the final steps in the GB after the end of the month to complete the record. Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted June 30, 2012 Author Share Posted June 30, 2012 Well, it looks like I am going to miss the deadline for this GB. Bummer! With a bunch of work related travel this month, I decided to not rush this build and finish it out at a reasonable pace.Here is how the Mig 17 looks this morning after two overal red coats: The overall red color actually looks a bit better than the photos show. I want to shoot a third red overcoat and an additional application on just the rear part of the exhaust which gets masked by my support rod. After this fully dries, it is on to painting the wheel wells and chromed speed brakes. The decals application is next and finally an overall semi-gloss coating before adding the fiddley bits. I hope to finish this out by the end of July and I'll post the progress photos here if our GB is not closed out. Thanks for a fun GB! Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted July 8, 2012 Author Share Posted July 8, 2012 Great news about the extension to this GB! Now I'll not be as late as I previously thought I would be. :D I do have a lot of modeling to cram in the next week or so. I spent the last half of this week finishing out the painting on the Mig. While I was painting the bare metal speed brakes, my masking tape lifted over the small fuselage fin and I ended up with Alclad on the bottom of the fuselage. I waited until that dried, then did another session of masking today and touched up where I oversprayed the Alclad. Here is how it looks now while the paint dries. Once everything is dry, it's on to the decals! Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Derek Moss Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Great news about the extension to this GB! Now I'll not be as late as I previously thought I would be. :D I do have a lot of modeling to cram in the next week or so. I spent the last half of this week finishing out the painting on the Mig. While I was painting the bare metal speed brakes, my masking tape lifted over the small fuselage fin and I ended up with Alclad on the bottom of the fuselage. I waited until that dried, then did another session of masking today and touched up where I oversprayed the Alclad. Here is how it looks now while the paint dries. Once everything is dry, it's on to the decals! Have fun modeling! Mike Looks terrific! Waiting to see it with the decals on! Derek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mike J. Idacavage Posted July 15, 2012 Author Share Posted July 15, 2012 Well, in spite of the best intentions, I will not be able to cross the finish line in this GB with a completed model. I got the Mig decaled this week but I did not end up with the result I was hoping for. In addition to getting more than a bit of silvering with the decal at various parts, trying to get the Stoli script to conform over the top wing fences was not very successful. The decals tended to stick on top of the wing without moving around very much. This resulted in the decal "tenting" over the sharp wing fences. Crap! I decided that I have come so far, so I did not want to just blow past this problem. After the decals dried, I slit each decal at the intersection of the wing fence and the wing. I now need to go back and cut teeny little pieces of white decal and patch up the gaps in the lettering. I think I'll take my time and just patch up the decals as I get the time. Here's how the Stoli Mig looked this morning before I slit the decals and started the repair work. I stil plan on finishing this project, just that it will take a bit longer than hoped. I'll post the finished result here so everyone can see the final result. Have fun modeling! Mike Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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