Eduard 1/48 MiG-21MFN Ejection Seat Set First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Eduard from the Czech Republic is easily the most prolific producer of aftermarket details. Period. Their series of photo-etched detail sets have brought additional fidelity to otherwise bland subjects, and have taken even the best-produced models and kicked them up a notch or two with details that cannot be produced with injection-molded plastic. Many AMS modelers will collect the relevant Eduard photo-etch sets for a given project, but they'll also go out and gather specific resin enhancements as well. Eduard has stepped up with a new product line to complement their photo-etched detail series - Brassin. Brassin is a play on words with Brass and Resin, and in many sets in this series, the resin details also include a set of color photo-etch as well.

In this release, Eduard has rendered a beautifully detailed KM-1 ejection seat used in the Generation 2/Generation 3 MiG-21s. This set includes six parts cast in gray resin, one fret of color-printed photo-etched parts, and one carrier of laser-cut/color-printed fabric harness straps. I really like the fabric straps as threading color-printed photo-etch through the buckles can be a bit challenging. This set is much easier as you assemble and paint the ejection seat, add the color-printed actuator handles, then build up the fabric harness parts using the photo-etched buckles. You'll still want to use cyano-type adhesives to build up the harness.

This combination is one of the nicest approaches I've seen to replicating ejection seats and the color-printed parts will minimize the need for painting the finer details. Nicely done Eduard!

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!