SAAB J21

After an inspiring visit the Swedish Air Force Museum at Linköping I decided to build a SAAB J21. The kit is an old Heller but it's quite nicely done and it goes together with out any problem. A new kit from special Hobby is currently available and it has all the bells and whistles of a modern kit and it will be exiting to comparing the two kits in the future.

Any one with an interest in building the Swedish Air Force must be grateful to Heller whom released a stream of really nice Swedish Air Force kits in the late 70's and early 80's all which were of high quality and quit accurate. All the kits has raised panel lines but with some care when assembling most of them will be intact.
 

There are two good books about the SAAB 21, Flyghistorisk revy Nr 29 from 1981 in Swedish with English summary and the new one from Mushroom publications by Mikael Forslund in English. Both books also includes the J21R Jet version. The "Flyghistorisk revy nr 29" are sometimes available at Hobbybokhandeln in Stockholm or at the Swedish Aviation Historical Society. 

I brush painted the cockpit in olive (a shade darker than on the outside) and the instrument panel black. I dry brushed the hole thing with some colors from different Tamiya Weathering Master sets.

There are plenty of space for weighing the nose down I used some lead shoots mixed with Gator Glue.

All the major parts are assembled and the fit is very good. I use Tamiya thin cement and it helps melting the parts together.

I used Army Painter white primer which turned out to be a  bad call, the paint went on gritty and I had to rub it down with some 1200grit wet and dry paper after it was dry.

The aircraft were painted in a standard two tone scheme of W26/058 Blue grey and W25/325 Olive green. I mixed up some Vallejo paint to match. For the Blue grey I mixed as follows:

992 - 20 drops

951 - 10 drops

808 - 2 drops

915 - 1 or 2 drops

The end result came quit close to my NCS paint chip. 

The Olive green is very simple to make (actually not green at all) just mix:

915 - 10 parts

950 - 3 parts

After the olive went on I notice that the primer were still a little gritty in places but I decided to let it be and it's only visible close up. The Vallejo Model Colour is a really good choice when trying to mix up your own paint it has a drop bottle that makes it very easy to control mix ratios But it needs a primer before applying to plastic. All the clear parts were glued with Gator Glue which dry clear and do not harm the clear parts.

The decals supplied in the kit are not up to today’s standard, fortunately there are after market decals for the kit. I used a sheet from HC-decals.