The rest of todays bench session was spent on my Mig-3.
First up I drilled out and added the exhaust pipes to the engine
Then I began all the base color painting. The two different colors on the fuselage interior are due to the materials used. The rear of the fuselage is wooden while the front is metal. According to what I’ve read, the Soviets used different color lacquers on each material
I also prepped the Cutting Edge IP for assembly and installation.
I’ve finally reached a point where I think I can paint the chassis. I kept thinking I could earlier and realizing I really should glue some more things together. The engine is in as it sticks to the chassis in a few places. If I were to do it again, I would build it to this place before putting any paint on it although the engine will be hard to paint well now.
Assembled and puttied.
The rifle is not glued on yet.
Some more sanding of the seam lines needs to be done before washing and priming. Essentially all OOTB…I didn’t modify or add anything.
A few more steps done, the chassis painted black. I guess the dirt will break up the black on the lower parts? Not sure what to do about breaking up the color on the inside of the cab.
I hope in the end it all lines up. I’m not confident of that. There are some small locating tabs that should line things up but they are pretty difficult to land on and for some parts it’s not obvious how they fit together. When I built my first MiniArt kit, the SU-85 I was worried the hull would not all line up in the end and it did, so hopefully I’ll get the same result here.
The gray bits on top of the metal frame are actually made of wood, so I’m going to finish them as bare wood, then put green on top chipped with the hairspray technique. It’s probably overkill for no more visible than they will be, but it should look good on the wood bed of the truck when I get to that stage.
Knock-out marks are visible on the inside of the cab so I’m filling and sanding those even though I’m not sure they will really be visible.
Well, the bed made a box, so maybe it will all come together at the end…
Yikes those pictures are blurry!
Focus on the wrong spot…
I must confess that there has been a slight delay in the construction of my Austin, as disaster struck yesterday…
A loaded book shelf came crashing down on my desk. So far 2 victims have been reported: a filled tea cup and Austin. I have recovered most parts but some parts from the engine compartment remain MIA.
The horror…the horror…
Tough luck, Erwin! Hope you are able to save it!
Thanks for the support mates… I cautiously started the repairs…,
Dang….that sucks. Glad your are still able to mostly continue with your plan.
That’s awful! Hope you can fix it.
Had a similar thing happen several years ago when a book fell from a shelf and landed square on an Airfix Cessna O-1. With how fragile that model was, there was little that could be recovered. The lesson I learned, don’t display models on the bottom shelf.
The kit was on my desk, together with a laptop a couple of monitors and other stuff. It is a small wonder that the laptop is unscathed. I was sitting at the desk at the time, which was purely a coincidence as I should have been off to work under normal circumstances…
And that’s just bad karma for not going to work! 
Seriously, if you don’t open the hoods that are intact, that’ll be okay! Good luck! 
I actually was at work, just from home… 
Anyway, good luck for the recovery mission! 
Nightmare. In my house it’s usually cat related carnage. One has a particular like for 1/35 scale figures. Hope you can rescue as build was looking really good so far.
So all finished with ICM’s DH82a Tiger Moth. Really nice kit. The wings proved a bit fragile, but this might just be common to all but-plane kits, or my relative inexperience as this was my first aircraft build.
Beautiful build, Digger. Like the faded, but clean look of the aircraft.
