Once the main painting is done I picked out the details like the exhaust and gun port.
Then a gloss coat with AK Gauzy is done to get ready for decals.
Markings will come from Scale Nutz. This is a long out of production sheet from almost two decades ago. Let’s see how it holds up.
So… it’s not too bad actually. The decals have a brittle quality to them when it comes to conforming around edges and lumps and bumps. Note some tearing on the blue parts on the tailfin and the red fuselage band over a vent. These will all need to be touched up by paint.
On the nose the decal got so thin it tore off.
Since I couldn’t leave it well enough alone I decided to mask and spray the broken ‘tip’.
The red is a mix using my eye to gauge the hue. It’s a small area so I think I pulled it off.
But what’s this? Some of the metal finish seems to have chipped off. More masking and spraying ensues for the correction.
The decals were very thin and once folded it was hard to recover, such as what happened to the ‘F’. Also note how the AURI pentagon is off-register.
The ‘F” was an easy fix using spare decals but I wasn’t sure how I’d fix the pentagon so I decided to just suck it up and move on.
In fact, all the pentagons were off-register although the rest of the decals went on without a hitch.
This Mig-21F-13 has very loud but interesting asymmetric tail markings.
As I don’t panel wash my bare metal finish builds, I’m on the home stretch.
Even though there are a lot of curves and sharp corners, my masking turned out OK.
Next is installing the landing gear. Pins and holes to hold the wheel in place. Really Revell? In 1/72 scale? Is that necessary?
The landing gears are very thin and had to be handled with kid gloves and patience.
I then carefully attached the tiny lumps and bumps. The lights near the wheelwell gave me particularly acute problems and I had to patch things up by handbrushing aluminium to cover the mistakes.
Last on was the centerline fuel tank.
And another AURI/TNI-AU build is done. But as usual it was too late for 17 August, Indonesia’s Independence Day.
Pt.1 – Construction | Pt.2 – Construction
Pt.3 – Painting & Finishing | Pt.4 – Painting & Finishing
