wijnands Posted August 4, 2016 Share Posted August 4, 2016 I recently picked up the Mig-15, A02037 and was wondering what the story behind this kit was since I've never seen it in a shop before. Apparently it's a new tool from 2009 that was only made for one run? It's got the new style soft plastic and the sprues suggest a modern design. However there's ejector marks on places were I didn't expect to see any in an airfix kit and the fuselage has fit isses that I'd associate with a much older kit. the ejection seat doesn't look like the real thing at all. The canopy is excellent cast, nice and thin and clear.Decals are excellent quality though and once you've used enough filler on the fuselage it goes together well. All in all I found it a strange mix of the old and the new. Is that the reason why it's a relatively scarce kit and has not been updated? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pretty Mediocre Modeller Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 I think that the reason that this kit was never reissued was that the dimensions were a bit out. Airfix's kit looked like a MiG 15 on steroids! The fuselage seemed a lot beefier than it should have done. Saying that I did build the kit a few years ago and I had no problem with fit of parts and no filler was needed, so maybe the moulds have worn, causing your problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peebeep Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 I think that the reason that this kit was never reissued was that the dimensions were a bit out. That's a bit of an understatement. The fuselage is about two scale feet longer than it should be. The fuselage proportions are actually quite good, but over-scale by quite a margin. That's not to say you can't have a bit of a hoot building it, I certainly did. I used a few parts from an Italeri/Dragon MiG-15, a kit that has it's own problems, but I was able to use the seat and undercarriage, because these are much better than the Airfix bits. I didn't have any of the fit problems as reported by the OP, but I would guess this is down to variable QC at the factory. Decals are from a Hobby Boss Easy Kit MiG-15, a kit that is very good, but the Eduard is really the one to go for./media/tinymce_upload/854d9c6493ff4af689ee7793b21a3c32.JPG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jopres57 Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 I'm a bit surprised that this kit is being criticised. I have three of these in my stash, including two Korean war doubles with the Sabre. The new Mig 15 received some good reviews in various modelling magazines when it was released, are there any bad reviews anywhere that give more details on its perceived faults? It certainly looks like a good kit to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peebeep Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 The main problem with the Airfix MiG-15 is the fuselage, it's about twp scale feet longer than it should be. The problem appears to be in the fact that the fuselage is over scale, because it is proprtionally as wide as it is long. The wings appear to be correct, but because they are fitted to an over large fuselage the span is a bit out. The undercarriage and pilot seat are not great in shape/detail, and the wings and rudder lack the fine trailing surfaces. Regardless of these problems I had great fun building mine, using a seat and undercarriage components from an Italeri/Dragon kit that is even weirder in shape than the Airfix, but with better detail. I used thin card to replicate the thintrailing surfaces. To be honest the Hobby Boss and (sublime) Eduard kits are much better starting points for accurate models, but if you're just looking for a blast, then the Airfix fits the bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peebeep Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 I used decals from a Hobby Boss kit to depict a Korean war period aircraft, although the kit options are rather attractive./media/tinymce_upload/c832e914b20408da317f1fc63f683c31.JPGThese images show that the kit fuselage has good proportions, but it is the wrong scale!/media/tinymce_upload/27e1e80fdb89f9198a8f084f185f0f02.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/88796b66b019314ed3640860d57eed76.JPG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jopres57 Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 Thats a good result Paul, and thanks for the information. The kit certainly looks the part and a couple of millimetres error doesn't really bother me. It just makes you wonder though how the designers can make such basic mistakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wijnands Posted August 10, 2016 Author Share Posted August 10, 2016 Well.. first thing I noticed with this one was this mismatch in panel lines: /media/tinymce_upload/5c12ad21deaefe71f219a3408a698a93.jpg Which in my mind is just strange for a new tool kit. Second peculiarity is when I tried to close the fuselage. Even after trimming down the air intake divider as far as I could I still ended up with this gap in the nose. Easily fixable of course with primer but it's not something I associate with recent airfix which has very little in the way of fit issues./media/tinymce_upload/158a99573e78ff73ad9cdcf35632fbcd.jpgNow as to scale dimensions I'm sure, I'm too casual a model builder for that. It looks like a Mig15 and that's good enough for me. I did notice the wheels, especially the nose wheel was rather chunky when compared to pictures.Another thing I ran into was to get the canopy to seat properly which it didn't seem to want to do, almost like it was made for a different brand of mig./media/tinymce_upload/83ce8eb5053b4d5ca0fb53c702fd8a7d.jpgYou can just see a bit of that here. Kit decals on the other hand were great, just a bit of Vallejo decal solutions and they settled really well.Am I critizing the kit? I guess I am a bit since this is not at all representative of how I've come to know and love the new tool airfix kits and some of the things I noticed seemed easily avoided. Still, the kit served it's purpose, it was an enjoyable build and the end result looks like a mig-15 but also has gotten me more interested in early jets and makes me want to build more migs. I know there's a decent mig-17 from Dragon but unfortunately the Mig-19 is really difficult in 1:72. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peebeep Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 You have to reduce the width of the cockpit tub and instrument panel to avoid the gap when closing up the fuselage halves. The kit generally requires a degree of fettling of the components, a few minutes spent with file and/or abrasives and everything should fit perfectly. This was an early release after the Hornby takeover, what appears to be clear about these early kits is that they were probably rushed out in an effort to re-boot the brand, something that was badly needed. They are not at all representative of the sort of products that are now released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Mock Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 Well.. first thing I noticed with this one was this mismatch in panel lines: /media/tinymce_upload/5c12ad21deaefe71f219a3408a698a93.jpg That's all down the draft angles which is something all kit companies have to deal with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wijnands Posted August 11, 2016 Author Share Posted August 11, 2016 That's all down the draft angles which is something all kit companies have to deal with. Possibly but I've never seen it this bad on something made this century. I'd have loved a response from an airfix person to this. I'll tweet them, see what happens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Mock Posted August 11, 2016 Share Posted August 11, 2016 That's all down the draft angles which is something all kit companies have to deal with. Possibly but I've never seen it this bad on something made this century.It's draft angles owing to the fact moulds struggle to hold detail beyond a certain angle at 90 degrees to the moulding plane. This can vary from mould types, plastics and pressures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comet4 Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 I have to say that I've not only built several of the new tooling kits but also still got my 1967 issue one as well, plus a few more besides. I never notiiced any issues with the kit tbh. Yes, the new one is slightly off scalewise but I can live with that. I have a whole load of Mig 15s from various manufacturers and all have their own little idiosyncracies in some ways. Here's just a few of them./media/tinymce_upload/48d55caf5808ae08e76640aa7e177d86.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/4bc118c23c7bbda7628ecbf5b5e32480.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/b2b6419a4107643dc418ce3789281a25.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/4b61eb9a61339751bcbaa4c4b7abd254.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/cf535d1a9021d9b821cbc7b7a1576595.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/37d92d6ee1d80a07f4d0aa4dd99573e2.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/04fff5e21e87f6f992856b13e1cbafa2.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/a36f66ca56fb476fa4ba50c0dbf1b46c.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenneth ONeill Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 @wijnands @Paul brownI've had similar issues with a few recent Airfix, and annoyingly they never show up when I dry run but only when I've committed to cementing parts, and I use liquid cement, not tube so I don't believe that it's toleranced being taken out by my adhesive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wijnands Posted November 4, 2016 Author Share Posted November 4, 2016 @wijnands @Paul brownI've had similar issues with a few recent Airfix, and annoyingly they never show up when I dry run but only when I've committed to cementing parts, and I use liquid cement, not tube so I don't believe that it's toleranced being taken out by my adhesive!Exactly! And it bothers me since we read about all the lidar work and the months in the design process with the latest CAD tools and all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peebeep Posted November 5, 2016 Share Posted November 5, 2016 Exactly! And it bothers me since we read about all the lidar work and the months in the design process with the latest CAD tools and all that.First off you can't assume that every new kit has been laser scanned, that is not the case. Even if it is scanned all it does is give you the overall envelope, it doesn't design a kit. Using CAD doesn't design a kit either, it's the bloke using the CAD that makes the difference (I'm a CAD tech BTW). I'm given to understand that the kits are designed for optimum fit, but there has been a deal of frustration with the way the kits were being moulded that leads to the problems that are reported. I'm also given to understand that the moulding done by the UK company is a vast improvement, also they are using a different type of styrene. The fact that Airfix R & D can liaise on site with the injection moulder should make a significant difference to the quality of the product. I'm looking forward to trying out the kits now manufactured in the UK to see how they shape up. One other thing, you can't compare the kits that are being issued now with those that appeared shortly after the Hornby take over, they're chalk and cheese. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pretty Mediocre Modeller Posted November 5, 2016 Share Posted November 5, 2016 I built the Airfix new tool MiG 15 a while ago, and yes, while it does have some shape issues, I don't remember having to much trouble putting it together, nothing some basic modelling couldn't solve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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