MiG-21PF 'ProfiPACK'
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Kit Review
For our preview of this kit, visit here
Over the last couple of years Eduard have released kits of just about every version of the MiG-21 in 1/48th scale. These have ranged from simple weekend kits to elaborate special editions. This variant, the PF started out as one of the latter. Thankfully it has now filtered down to the normal range as both a weekend and the ProfiPACK edition you see before you. As with any manufacturer Eduard are always trying to improve their products and in their case this will usually be a noticeable jump in the quality of the product. The last time this happened was between the release of their Hawker Tempest and the P-39 Airocobra. The kits went from a good limited-run standard to mainstream productions. I had heard and read a lot about these MiG-21 kits, all of it good so I was looking forward to finally getting stuck into one. First impressions are of a quality product from the start. Once you have finished admiring the excellent box art you are presented with eight sprues of well detailed parts, two photo-etched frets, two sheets of decals, pre-cut canopy masks and a very comprehensive instruction booklet. Before starting the build it is well worth studying the instruction booklet as you have a few options to choose from but mainly because there are a lot of parts on the sprues that aren’t required for this kit. If you have an Academy kit in your stash you’ll have a lot of parts to dress it up. The other thing that stands out with the instructions is the assembly sequence. It shows that the guys at Eduard are modellers as apart from a few small ariels the sequence is pretty much as an experienced builder would put it together. So, it all looks good so I had better get on and build it!
Construction
Things get underway with the nose gear bay and progress through the rest of the internal fuselage sub-assemblies. The cockpit is well catered for straight from the box. The instrument panel and side consoles are provided as well moulded and detailed plastic parts which you can either paint or use the decals provided. As this is a ProfiPACK edition there is a full complement of pre-painted photo-etch provided which is the option I chose. As you would expect for a company who primarily make photo-etch detail sets, a set of optional plastic panels all ready for the P.E. parts. None of the messy scraping, filing and sanding needed here. I prepared the internal parts and gave them all a coat of Gunze H308 Grey. When that had dried I followed it up with a wash of MIG Dark wash for depth and a quick dry-brush for the highlights. I could now add the P.E. which unsurprisingly all fit perfectly. Next up is the jet-pipe and once again the detail is superb. A shame as most of it won’t be that visible. The inner main undercarriage bays are built up from four main parts meaning plenty of surface detail. With a growing collection of sub-assemblies the last thing to deal with before closing up the fuselage is the conical radome to which you need to add some nose weight. You would think that with the cockpit floor, nose cone, jet pipe and three bulkheads to line up closing the fuselage halves would be troublesome? No, take your time and line things up properly and it all works perfectly. To enable them to release the various versions of the Mig-21 Eduard have moulded the spine and tailfin as a separate assembly that can be added now along with the nose intake ring and rear fuselage tip. This is all the major assembly on the fuselage done now and you may have noticed I haven’t mentioned the filler yet? That’s because I haven’t needed any at all so far, the engineering is that good! Time to move onto the wings now. Here we have a single span lower section incorporating the fuselage underside centre part with separate upper sections. Onto this one piece lower wing go all the parts that make up the outer sections of the main undercarriage bays which includes several spherical pressure chambers for the hydraulic and pneumatic systems. One of the options to be dealt with now is the pair of forward airbrakes. If you want them closed proceed to the next step but if you want to have them deployed some surgery is required. This involves removing the closed air brakes and fitting the two recessed bays. Once again, patience is a virtue here. I started by chain drilling around the outer edge of the doors. The bulk of the material was then snipped with a pair of side cutters leaving the job of cleaning up with a scalpel, files and some sanding. If you carefully sand back to the engraved lines that define the closed doors the bay inserts just drop into place. The inner bay assembly from earlier is now positioned in the centre of the wings and the whole lot can be added to the fuselage. At this point I’ll mention that so far any paintwork done was using the many colour call-outs on the instructions. These are all keyed to the Mr Creos (Gunze-Sangyo) range. The one problem I found here was regarding the colour for the undercarriage bays. It is given as option of H58 Interior Green or H70 Grey. Unfortunately it doesn’t tell you which is relevant for the various options of aircraft in the kit so I would suggest checking your reference material. The upper wing sections are then added without any drama or filler. The control surfaces which are all moulded separately were added now along with the tailplanes. There are a few small intakes to be added to the rear fuselage and to add a little depth these were opened out with a small bit in a pin vice. I added the large pitot tube and fairing at this point but I ended up cutting the tube itself off and drilling and pinning it for re-attachment later on. The addition of the underside ventral fin and rear airbrake fairing meant that apart from a few small bits and pieces the bulk of the airframe was now built. The cockpit, canopy, jet pipe and undercarriage bays were masked up now in preparation for some paint. There are five options for colour and markings schemes in the kit. The North Vietnamese, Polish and one of the Russian aircraft are in bare metal along with a second Russian and an East German option in camouflage.
Colour & Decals
I had decided to go with the Vietnamese scheme so the first paint to go on was a coat of H2 Gloss Black. This would really show up any surface flaws before I added the silver. While that was drying all the delicate parts to be added later, the undercarriage, pylons, missiles etc. were prepared and painted. The first of the silvers to go on was an overall coat of H8. When dry some panels were masked and blown in with X-11 Chrome Silver to break up the overall finish. There are a few radar warning receiver panels dotted around the airframe and these were picked out with H330 Green before giving the whole airframe a coat of clear gloss in preparation for the decals. These consist of one sheet carrying the various national markings for the five options and the second is entirely stencils. There are a lot of these and most are very small so took a few sessions to apply. I am happy to report that all went down very well with just the smallest amounts of Micro Set/Sol needed.
Final Details
Once the decals were dry the model was wiped down with a damp cloth to remove any excess solvents or decal glue before I applied a wash of thinned grey acrylic ink overall making the engraved detail stand out. The pre-painted undercarriage, doors, airbrakes and pylons were all added now before the whole lot was given a coat of Vallejo Satin clear to even out the various finishes. The last of the masking could now be removed and the final larger parts added including the superb ejector seat. This just left me with a few ariels, the large pitot tube and the static discharge wicks to add to complete the model.
Conclusion
I have to say to Eduard, Bravo. Not only does it look every inch a MiG-21PF, it is superbly detailed, the finesse of the surface engraved detail is amazing and to cap it all off the engineering was such that I didn’t need any filler at all. Not even a smear of Mr Surfacer! The current level of design and engineering they are using to produce their kits is top notch and up there with the best the Far East can produce. There are numerous upgrades available from Eduard themselves already but to be honest the only addition I will probably make is to replace the plastic pitot tube with an aluminium one from Master Model. All this and for a full retail price of £33.99 here in the U.K. I can only say, “What’s not to like, buy several!” Very highly recommended.
Paints
Gunze-Sangyo Mr Hobby Color
H2 Gloss Black
H8 Silver
H70 RLM 02 Grey
H308 Grey FS36375
H338 Light Grey FS36495
H330 Dark Green BS381C/641
Tamiya
X-11 Chrome Silver
XF-1 Flat Black
XF-4 Yellow Green
XF-16 Flat Aluminium
Games Workshop
Chainmail
Boltgun Metal
For our preview of this kit, visit here
Over the last couple of years Eduard have released kits of just about every version of the MiG-21 in 1/48th scale. These have ranged from simple weekend kits to elaborate special editions. This variant, the PF started out as one of the latter. Thankfully it has now filtered down to the normal range as both a weekend and the ProfiPACK edition you see before you. As with any manufacturer Eduard are always trying to improve their products and in their case this will usually be a noticeable jump in the quality of the product. The last time this happened was between the release of their Hawker Tempest and the P-39 Airocobra. The kits went from a good limited-run standard to mainstream productions. I had heard and read a lot about these MiG-21 kits, all of it good so I was looking forward to finally getting stuck into one. First impressions are of a quality product from the start. Once you have finished admiring the excellent box art you are presented with eight sprues of well detailed parts, two photo-etched frets, two sheets of decals, pre-cut canopy masks and a very comprehensive instruction booklet. Before starting the build it is well worth studying the instruction booklet as you have a few options to choose from but mainly because there are a lot of parts on the sprues that aren’t required for this kit. If you have an Academy kit in your stash you’ll have a lot of parts to dress it up. The other thing that stands out with the instructions is the assembly sequence. It shows that the guys at Eduard are modellers as apart from a few small ariels the sequence is pretty much as an experienced builder would put it together. So, it all looks good so I had better get on and build it!
Construction
Things get underway with the nose gear bay and progress through the rest of the internal fuselage sub-assemblies. The cockpit is well catered for straight from the box. The instrument panel and side consoles are provided as well moulded and detailed plastic parts which you can either paint or use the decals provided. As this is a ProfiPACK edition there is a full complement of pre-painted photo-etch provided which is the option I chose. As you would expect for a company who primarily make photo-etch detail sets, a set of optional plastic panels all ready for the P.E. parts. None of the messy scraping, filing and sanding needed here. I prepared the internal parts and gave them all a coat of Gunze H308 Grey. When that had dried I followed it up with a wash of MIG Dark wash for depth and a quick dry-brush for the highlights. I could now add the P.E. which unsurprisingly all fit perfectly. Next up is the jet-pipe and once again the detail is superb. A shame as most of it won’t be that visible. The inner main undercarriage bays are built up from four main parts meaning plenty of surface detail. With a growing collection of sub-assemblies the last thing to deal with before closing up the fuselage is the conical radome to which you need to add some nose weight. You would think that with the cockpit floor, nose cone, jet pipe and three bulkheads to line up closing the fuselage halves would be troublesome? No, take your time and line things up properly and it all works perfectly. To enable them to release the various versions of the Mig-21 Eduard have moulded the spine and tailfin as a separate assembly that can be added now along with the nose intake ring and rear fuselage tip. This is all the major assembly on the fuselage done now and you may have noticed I haven’t mentioned the filler yet? That’s because I haven’t needed any at all so far, the engineering is that good! Time to move onto the wings now. Here we have a single span lower section incorporating the fuselage underside centre part with separate upper sections. Onto this one piece lower wing go all the parts that make up the outer sections of the main undercarriage bays which includes several spherical pressure chambers for the hydraulic and pneumatic systems. One of the options to be dealt with now is the pair of forward airbrakes. If you want them closed proceed to the next step but if you want to have them deployed some surgery is required. This involves removing the closed air brakes and fitting the two recessed bays. Once again, patience is a virtue here. I started by chain drilling around the outer edge of the doors. The bulk of the material was then snipped with a pair of side cutters leaving the job of cleaning up with a scalpel, files and some sanding. If you carefully sand back to the engraved lines that define the closed doors the bay inserts just drop into place. The inner bay assembly from earlier is now positioned in the centre of the wings and the whole lot can be added to the fuselage. At this point I’ll mention that so far any paintwork done was using the many colour call-outs on the instructions. These are all keyed to the Mr Creos (Gunze-Sangyo) range. The one problem I found here was regarding the colour for the undercarriage bays. It is given as option of H58 Interior Green or H70 Grey. Unfortunately it doesn’t tell you which is relevant for the various options of aircraft in the kit so I would suggest checking your reference material. The upper wing sections are then added without any drama or filler. The control surfaces which are all moulded separately were added now along with the tailplanes. There are a few small intakes to be added to the rear fuselage and to add a little depth these were opened out with a small bit in a pin vice. I added the large pitot tube and fairing at this point but I ended up cutting the tube itself off and drilling and pinning it for re-attachment later on. The addition of the underside ventral fin and rear airbrake fairing meant that apart from a few small bits and pieces the bulk of the airframe was now built. The cockpit, canopy, jet pipe and undercarriage bays were masked up now in preparation for some paint. There are five options for colour and markings schemes in the kit. The North Vietnamese, Polish and one of the Russian aircraft are in bare metal along with a second Russian and an East German option in camouflage.
Colour & Decals
I had decided to go with the Vietnamese scheme so the first paint to go on was a coat of H2 Gloss Black. This would really show up any surface flaws before I added the silver. While that was drying all the delicate parts to be added later, the undercarriage, pylons, missiles etc. were prepared and painted. The first of the silvers to go on was an overall coat of H8. When dry some panels were masked and blown in with X-11 Chrome Silver to break up the overall finish. There are a few radar warning receiver panels dotted around the airframe and these were picked out with H330 Green before giving the whole airframe a coat of clear gloss in preparation for the decals. These consist of one sheet carrying the various national markings for the five options and the second is entirely stencils. There are a lot of these and most are very small so took a few sessions to apply. I am happy to report that all went down very well with just the smallest amounts of Micro Set/Sol needed.
Final Details
Once the decals were dry the model was wiped down with a damp cloth to remove any excess solvents or decal glue before I applied a wash of thinned grey acrylic ink overall making the engraved detail stand out. The pre-painted undercarriage, doors, airbrakes and pylons were all added now before the whole lot was given a coat of Vallejo Satin clear to even out the various finishes. The last of the masking could now be removed and the final larger parts added including the superb ejector seat. This just left me with a few ariels, the large pitot tube and the static discharge wicks to add to complete the model.
Conclusion
I have to say to Eduard, Bravo. Not only does it look every inch a MiG-21PF, it is superbly detailed, the finesse of the surface engraved detail is amazing and to cap it all off the engineering was such that I didn’t need any filler at all. Not even a smear of Mr Surfacer! The current level of design and engineering they are using to produce their kits is top notch and up there with the best the Far East can produce. There are numerous upgrades available from Eduard themselves already but to be honest the only addition I will probably make is to replace the plastic pitot tube with an aluminium one from Master Model. All this and for a full retail price of £33.99 here in the U.K. I can only say, “What’s not to like, buy several!” Very highly recommended.
Paints
Gunze-Sangyo Mr Hobby Color
H2 Gloss Black
H8 Silver
H70 RLM 02 Grey
H308 Grey FS36375
H338 Light Grey FS36495
H330 Dark Green BS381C/641
Tamiya
X-11 Chrome Silver
XF-1 Flat Black
XF-4 Yellow Green
XF-16 Flat Aluminium
Games Workshop
Chainmail
Boltgun Metal
