TobHol Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 About 3 weeks ago Pilot Replicas released their injected mold Saab J21. A inbox review can be found here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F234988181-saab-j-21-a-3-148. I bought it directly and thought this is a really nice model that I could build quite fast. The aim was to have it finished to AIM (Art In Miniatures) in Gothenburg 5-6/9, http://artgot.se/. I started to assamble the main wing. To avoid a step in the joint I glued a plastic strip so that the wing skin would meet eachother. Here I realized that you need to dry fit very carefully, this goes for the whole model. The CAD parts are distributed nicely but the error margin when it is transferred to the moulds are not thought of, therefore the fit is very tight and it is necessary to grind almost every part. I also drilled out some holes, cooling duct on the side of fuselage and the end of the "bumps" on the fuselage side. I thought the ladder was to thick and I therefore decided to have a closed canopy and ladder unfolded. So I glued the fuselage part in place and filled the gap with plasticard. The ejection seat was put together and painted. I used the same as for the interior, an old can of Humbrol 116 lightened with yellow. Here is the only place I used the photo etched parts. The cockpit was painted. The instrument decals is Mike Grants. Also the HUD glass is molded on the HUD so removed that part and glued a replacement instead. The upper part of the bulkhead is left unpainted, that is so because the bulkhead is slightly too wide in the upper corner. This was grind down but there is still a gap in the fuselage/bulkhead joint, finns needed some filler after the fuselage was glued. To avoid a tailsitter I glued 24 grams of lead, the instruction says 20 g but... And then the whole model was glued together! To be able to glue the tail booms I had to remove the inner forward pin. The fabric on the fins are very odd so I grind them down a bit. It looks good on the finished model. The landing gear was glued and the main gear had some extra wire glued. These were put in Place at the same time the whole fuselage was glued. Also note that on one gear the mould was not filled up and I had to glue a rod in place and shape it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TobHol Posted September 9, 2015 Author Share Posted September 9, 2015 Some filler was needed on the underside of wing/fuselage and the booms. The canopy was glued in Place as well, if you take it carefully and dryfit it will go without any problem. I was in a bit of hurry and needed filler in some places. The top canopy does not fit at all if it will be closed, it needs to be reshaped but it only affects the framing and not the glass. Now it is time for a tricky thing, the pitot tube. The kit tube is useless so I made it myself using two different tubes and glued them together. Next thing is on which side to put it on, there are no stright answers it could be right or left. Check your references!! This is how I cut a stright line on the spinner. I clamped a blade in a book. quite easy. Next thing was the painting. I used Xtracolor, X778 Swedish dark green lightened with X108 Blue Angels Yellow, ratio 1 ml green and 8 drops Yellow. The lower side shall have a blue grey paint towards the grey shade, I found X395 Mirage 2000 Light Blue Grey to be exact was I was looking for. There are also a Dark Blue Grey that can be used on Swedish aircrafts before 1948. The blue is X317 Airline WP Thrifty Blue, match the roundel blue very nicely. Decal time! I found a misstake on one of the stencils, I talked to the decal designer and this will probaly be solved in the next batch och models. Decal no 22 is not on the instructions and that is correct, this text is only valid for J21A-1. The nose gear was knocked off some times so I left it to after decaling. It is a weak point so I glued it in Place and then secured it with quite a lot of epoxy glue. Then I glued the gear doors in place, note that the instructions are wrong here. The main landing gear door shall open to to the right on both sides. I did finish the model in time for AIM. I was sitting in the exhibition hall demasking the canopy and glued the propeller. All in all it is a very nice and fun model build, I enjoyed every minute of this build. I will build at least another one then Pilot Replicas release their engine set for the J21. Tobias Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 (edited) The main gear was missing the same piece. I thought it was just something that had broken in transport, but since you had exactly the same error, I guess it might be the mold. Congratulations on having the second nicest J 21 in 1/48 at AiM.. :-P Edited September 11, 2015 by erik_g Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 By the way, nice tip regarding the book and the scalpel blade. I will try to remember that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
skyhawk174 Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Tobias Looks great and thank you for posting this build log. Much appreciated and now convinced me to order the kit. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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