Hey Richard. I've given up using Tamiya flat paint because of this rough characteristic. Touching the parts while the build proceeds means polishing the surface and that means good bye to the matte effect. There's no such thing with Gunze Acrylics.

While decaling of the MIG is well underway (all stencils together mean a book as large as War and Peace), I felt like some modelling today and so I built one of the canopies. The canopies are broken down to multi-part assemblies. The good news: the fit is very good. Nevertheless, gluing and painting clear parts is full of pitfalls and so I have looked for a practical and save way to bring it all together. I'm sure that there are many ways to get there and here is one of them that worked reasonably well.

• Eduard's external paint masks are applied.
• The front frame, coloured Russian cockpit turquoise, is glued to the clear part using Tamiya Extra Thin Cement.
• The internal glazing is masked using Kabuki tape.
• The clear part is painted internally together with its edges.
• The rear frame is painted separately in Russian wheel green.
• The canopy is painted externally using the technique described above. You don't have to do any additional masking as long as you position the airbrush relative to the canopy in a way that it can't reach the edges.
• The rear frame is hooked in the front frame (no cement required) and secured at the aft side of the canopy with a drop of TETC.

Pink sealing to fowllow as decals once all is set.

10 attached images. Click to enlarge.

I'm quite enthusiastic about the wet transfer decals of the company HGW. They are applied to the model without any remaining carrier film. It sounds kind of incredible, but applying a stencil, every single letter will go on the model as a separate unit. There are a number of tutorials on the web, the essentials are: 1) apply Mr. Mark Softener 2) Bring on the decal as always 3) Wait 6-8 hours and remove the carrier film.

It's amazing.

Don't try to avoid 1) or use anything else. It seams to be essential to use this product.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Many thanks, Bernd. I hope the result will not disappoint the expectations. Though I was well on my way recently ...

I really hate it when modelling does that to me.

The original kit decals went on well. I used them only for the red stars, the numbers and the emblems on the air intakes, as all the stencils were replaced with the HGW product as reported above. Micro Set was my choice as a setting solution and it worked as always, however, for the blue 93 to make sure that the decal conforms nicely to the panel line, I also added some Micro Sol. Micro Sol which is meant to soften the decal to better conform to curved surfaces, with the kit decals lead to an effect that I'd call micro bubbles. Hundreds of them. And no way to get them back in shape.

The rest of the story is told by the pictures.
I went for a Begemot after-market decal set and though I only used four pieces of it, two for the separate white edges and another two for the inner blue part, I can say that the quality is very good and the carrier film extremely thin.

My take-aways:

• I'm still not wise enough to test chemical stuff with unused parts. I wonder when I ever will be.
• Remember the brand Begemot if you're into Russian jets. Great quality, great selection of subjects, excellent documentation.
• Those who can't use their head must use their back.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Looking good and only the result counts, nice job on the single surface color by the way.

Thanks, Simon and Bernd.

Sebastijan,
as much as remember all joins of the air frame run along panel lines. But though the kit certainly conforms to high quality standards, I'm missing that Tamiya like snug fit.
I haven't used any putty on it (didn't say so), but some filler was required at most of the joins to end up with gap free panel lines. With the latest Tamiya releases some super thin glue does the job and though AMK have come a long way, I feel they have not yet reached this benchmark.

On with the build, today with some well used gear doors and and air brakes.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Seats and belts.
It has been a while since my last post on this build. It is very close to the finishing line now, only the seats, parts of the canopies and the landing gears are missing.
AMK in the meantime have released the new B/BS version of the MIG-31 and repaired the short comings of their original BM/BSM version which I'm building here. The B/BS e.g. comes with photo etched belts, the BM/BMS didn't have any belts at all. They also have announced die cast landing gears on their facebook site that tempt me a lot. The kit ones are a real pain to build with the main struts being made of two halves that don't align well at all.
But first things first and back to the seats. I originally planned to use eduard's photo etched harness that are part of their interior set which I used to some extent for the instruments. The only problem: I hate etched seat belts. Really, I know that many of you guys achieve excellent results with them, but the point is: I just don't have any fun working with them. I hate the bending, I hate it when the sharp edges scratch the paint off the seat and I hate it when they are too rigid to be properly held down by a reasonable amount of glue.

I do have fun, however, working with HGW's magnificent system of textile belts with etched buckles that I already used for my 32 scale Corsair projects. There was considerable disappointment when HGW told me in Telford that belts for the MIG-31, respectively the K-36M ejection seat, were not on their list of next releases. It eventually turned out that the seat belts of the MIG-23 have a design not too different from the MIG-31, the main difference being the colour and a mat of the MIG-31 seat that covers the entire backrest.
The result of all these considerations: I bought two sets of MIG-23 belts, fitted them, painted them in the proper colour and and scratch built the backrest pad from Kabuki tape.
The seats themselves are built out of the box and they look very nice. A little colour variation between the cushions (black) and the frame (black with some grey) and a medium grey wash bring out detail nicely.

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Really nice. How could I miss this one?

Final 2016 modelling work is about the exhausts. Given the MIG 31's uniform grey colour scheme, one is grateful for every part that allows to create an eye catcher.

10 attached images. Click to enlarge.