S-105 (MiG-19S) WIP

Alec K
Greetings! Here are some pics of my new build. Skating back into the post-WW II period, it's the first Soviet supersonic fighter, the MiG-19. The original KP had this aircraft in their lineup back when and it was the first kit I have completed fully by myself as a wee lad. I was actually home "sick" from school for a week recovering from chicken pocks. Instead of heling myself appropriately in bed, I modeled illicitly at the kitchen table as soon as my parents left for work. Ahhh, what a glorious week…

The kit is the much-reviled 2019 "new tool" from KPs "traditional manufacturer" (or usurper, depending on where one stands in this ongoing mud-slinging match). It's a short-run technology kit, so "traditional" in that sense but really a bit old-school for today's pampered modeler. In the "modern" era, Trumpeter had it in their catalog in 2008 but it was never released. Clear Prop has been working on it last few years but the events in Ukraine clearly impacted its release. Rather than wait for a better offering, I decided to go for it and build the KP's kit with few PE and resin bits thrown in. Hope you enjoy!

Paul Shearer
Impressive scratch work 👍👍 Looks like it's going to be amazing!

Alexander Grivonev
What a start, great scratchbuilding. Following!

Ben M
👀

gorby
Oh good! Looking forward to another scratch building masterclass. 🙂

Mid Franconian
Taking a seat!

Matti Thomaes
Fantastic scratchwork, following

S M
Well described building techniques! Following! 😄

Nicolas
Great start. 👍

Cuajete
Great start. Following!

Zbynek Honzik
It's gonna be another ride!
I'm taking a seat and I'll be watching closely. And I'm sure I'll learn something.
Thanks for sharing Alec!

Alec K
Thanks all for coming along and your positive comments 👍 This build is coming along nicely, so far...

Łukasz Gliński
Oh wow, what a topic, watching for sure, even though it might kill my will to build my Farmers afterwards 😄

Marko Arangelov
Wonderful!

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS
Really nice progress Alec - I´m in for this 🙂

Robert Podkoński
Fantastic job so far. Keep it up!

Michael Kohl
Following

Jakub Fiala
Excellent start Alec, and great choice of aircraft type. As a kid I loved the box art on the old box from Kovozávody. I built this new KP and I know that it is not exactly a top kit. But it probably doesn't matter to you, almost everything will be scratchbuild anyway 😄

Alec K
Gents, I appreciate you stopping by 🙂

Łukasz, this kit can be built nicely OOB, as demonstrated very recently by a modeler here accomplishing this in 10 days (something I am not capable of…). Building the OG Kovozavody is another matter 😄

Jakube, I agree regarding the box art. Velc just knows his stuff! The cover of this kit is pretty good as well imho. Thanks for the reminder about your build, forgot about it (including it here for reference). Cheers!

Mig-19 KP 1/72 | Album by kubafiala

Marius
That's a fantastic effort Alek! I wished to have implemented such improvements to my own MiG-19s, but I didn't have the courage to slaughter the model like this.
Wish you the best of luck! This will look gorgeous at the end.

Guy Rump
Following with interest! 👍

Woit
Amazing job on the details.
I see that we built the same models in past around the world despite the courtain 🙂

bughunter
Oh, how did I miss that? Great amount of detail made by very clean work 👍

Bernd Korte
Very inspiring. I need to watch this build unfolding!

Ekki
Watching.

Mr D
Doing a brilliant job👌👍.
Those vacform,s are hand bit of kit.

Kenneth
Incredible! Following…

Alec K
Welcome aboard! I made some sloooow progress and uploaded new pics.

@Marius: I am endeavoring to keep the slaughter to the barest minimum 🙂

@Woit: I must say that at the time of building the KP version of this bird, I was still a child in the firm embrace of the Czechoslovak socialist motherland. It would be fun to know how many of those kits were made in the West pre-89 🙂 (there were modelers that exchanged kits across the curtain, so some probably were).

Ben M
I had gotten ahold of the KP MiG-15 UTI in the early 80s in the US.

Michael Kohl
Very fine progress to be seen here.

Alec K
@Ben M: Nice! I had that one too. Do you remember how you got it?

Cuajete
Fantastic interiors 👌

bughunter
This developed into a great show quickly 👍 I love your nice tricks like mounting spare saw blades to a bundle!
You mill in pic 16 looks precise. Could you please tell more about it?

Alec K
Thanks Cuajete 🙂

Frank, the stacked saw blades worked ok, but one must saw slowly as they tend to spread, so instead of a nice wide channel, one has three adjacent grooves...

The mill is a Microlux item made for MicroMark, a US hobby supplier with long tradition. It's a nice hobby-grade mill that fills my needs, but "precise" is not a label I would put next to it. Everything is a bit on a wobbly side, and the chuck runout for bits under ,5mm is significant (not sure if a better chuck would fix this). But, for the price, a fair buy imho.

micromark.com/produc..r8-500w?keyword=mill

Dave Flitton
Awesome scratch building-watching

Ben M
Alec, there was a large local hobby shop that somehow came into a small number of KP kits. No idea how they did that in Reagan's America but I snapped one up.

bughunter
Thanks Alec! Your nice labeling description can also be used for my Proxxon! At least yours looks more robust and precise. But yes, the _look_ do not mill anything. This is where the true quality comes out.

ZHOU Kun
Very informative progress! Following!

Jakub Fiala
Great work again, Alec. The attention you pay to this build is extraordinary. The level of detail enhancement is fantastic. I look forward to the next steps.

Alec K
Thank you mates! Wishing you and yours a very merry holiday season 🙂
Managed some progress on this build, fuselage is now closed up. Time to get the wings done and make this look like a flying object. Cheers!

gorby
Very impressive work as always Alec.
I hope you have a great Christmas. 🙂

Bernhard Schrock
It's absolutely amazing what you've done with this kit. I'm looking forward to the progress.

Cuajete
Wow... Great progress and fantastic scratch job 👌
Happy Hollidays!

Alec K
Cheers friends! Reporting some small progress on this build. I am sad to say that my non-modeling self has been seriously infringing on my modeling time, with no relief in sight. I'll be lucky to get this one done by Fall...

Paul Shearer
Every time I look at this build I'm amazed at the fantastic scratch work you've doing. 👍👍👍

Thomas Kolb
What a labor of love! I built one of these kits more or less straight out of the box some time ago, but yours is clearly in a different league altogether.

gorby
Oh no, you've not been tasked with 'useful work'? 😮
You're non-modelling self needs to be made aware you have an audience to entertain and inform, by creating something worthy of (almost) being considered useful work in itself.

PS. If she falls for it, let me know your technique and I'll try it myself. 🙂

gorby
Stunning work as always Alec. The riveting looks particularly good.

Sy Bar
Great work, I'm late to the party but have pull up my chair 🍿

Marius
Wonderful work Alec!

Just a hint, the cannons in the wings are not symmetrically positioned (left-right) in the kit. With other words, the kit's wings are not entirely symmetric (which is wrong). Make sure you do install the guns symmetrically yourself, just in case you followed the gun positions the kit is suggesting. Better sand away completely those gun fairings moulded in the wings and redo the guns. It becomes quite obvious only at the very end when you also install the muzzels, since they are so close to the fuselage, therefore any deviation will look bad if you'te looking at the model from above (ask me how I know).

Second thought: I remember the horizontal stabilizer was leaving some visible gaps underneath. If you went this far and did those numerous engine air intakes justice, make sure you prepare in advance with more added styrene to fix this new issue. But I might be wrong on this last point.

Third little thing: the kit's air exhaust looks a bit dull (in my view) since it's missing those 3-4 small access panels it had. I regret not scribing them myself for my models, since they bring more drama to a rather "flat" area. They should look cool especially with the metallic finish. I see you already scribed some yourself?

Arif Saeed
Wow just wow 🫡

Thomas Haberl - TH SCALE MODELS
Now I understand your recent comment even more ... this is some crazy project with all this scratch building around. Very excited to see that coming together Alec. Looks very promising 😊

J35J
Joining late to this master class build!👍🏻

Mr D
It's a great subjects 😃👍 coming along nicely...l can't wait to see the paint process.
Good luck with next steps 👍

Alec K
Thanks all for great positive comments and suggestions. Appreciated! But don't hold your breath before the next update, it will be a minute.
@Thomas K: I was eyeing your build for inspiration, very well done 👍
@Gorby: I used your line, nearly verbatim, with my non-modeling unit. There was a pause, followed by a rather unsympathetic laugh ("laugh" is me putting it rather mildly). Hope that answers your question… 😄
@Marius: Thanks much for the watch-outs and recommendations. I did study your builds as part of my research, very helpful. I'll definitely watch the gun symmetry. I did encounter the stabilizer gap issue already, what a pain to fix! With regards to the air exhaust (I presume you are referring to the jet exhaust fairing), I still have some detailing to do there so again thanks for the reminder. Thank you again for following and making recommendations.