This all started a while back when a box arrived from Mr Gimper up in the Great White North. Inside was a lovely little MiG-3 model which was unloved because it was missing the canopy. Well, I've never let an absence of critical parts stop me before and it sure wasn't going to stop me now, especially once I realized how nice a P-40 drop-tank half looked as a replacement.
One of the side oil-cooler intakes was also missing and this led me to squirreling away those engine parts that remained for future use. Bits of sprue made the shrouded exhausts.
A plastic straw was cut to shape as a new belly cooling tunnel.
I was surprised how well this kludge worked.
The new canopy sits on top of some clear blister-pack cut to cover the hole. Plastic shims and putty were added underneath to blend it into the fuselage.
After this, it was off to the paint shop.
As there was only one viable color scheme, the old hairy stick was loaded up with a lot of Model Masters Flat Black acrylic. The canopy was done in Jet exhaust.
The decals were all spares and almost all of those lovely white-bordered red stars shattered a bit and I had to re-paint the white tips by hand. That was fun.
It only took me three days to build this model and once the canopy work was done, everything else was pretty seamless. I have no idea of the maker, but the plastic reminded me of some eastern-bloc kits I saw after the Berlin Wall fell. Still, the tolerances were pretty good for a kit of such provenance.
Before I forget, here's a couple of "money shots" (U.S. penny for scale).
I'd like to thank Mr Gimper for his kindness in sending me this cool little model. I couldn't have done it without you!
I'd also like to thank Mr Jello for bravely moderating this GB and those of you playing along or just taking a look.
Brian da Basher