Andrew

Thanks Jay - me too! I've now stuck one on the F1CR, although I dithered for a while as to which I should put on; there's a choice of two and the very late configuration is what I've gone with (rather than the one with the obvious camera window). The F1CT will receive a fairing modified from the same type of late gondola applied to the F1CR. I don't think that what resembles a laser rangefinder in the Special Hobby kit is relevant to the F1CT (evidence that I should have waited for a specific F1CT boxing?), hence the work to provide one from other bits. I'll update the thread with photos when I'm a little more progressed. Andrew.

Thanks very much Ray. As to the Pigs, so much effort was expended on those that they will definitely be finished, but the priority for their completion has plummeted since that GB finished. I'm having so much fun with these Mirages (and thinking about adding some delta Mirages to this build) that it might be quite a while before work on the Pigs resumes.

Ta da...

Thanks Jay. They are pieces of plastic (a punched disc in the case of the circular panel and a rectangle with rounded corners for the other panel) glued and then carefully sanded down to scale thickness. I think I've actually over-thinned them, as the edges are a little vague now. I might have a go at masking what's there and paint it with some Surfacer to re-establish the shapes. Next time I'll leave them a little too thick, prime the area then thin a little further - this should help maintain some definition at the edges. Thanks Jabba. The fit of the fin overall isn't great - I've added mine and had to fill the gap between tail and fuselage this morning. I think it should clean up okay though.

I've nearly finished restoring the detail on the underside of the these jets (my choice to remove all the moulded detail so that I could make a really clean job of the lower fuselage seam) and have added the intakes and pieces containing the airbrakes/bays; fit of those bits was generally very good. The wings have been cleaned up as well, but I've had little success in 'lifting' and sharpening the inboard section of the leading edge from underneath; I think that I'll have to persevere a little longer, or just end up scraping away from the top of the wings. Or possibly even pretend that the leading edge isn't as blunt as it actually is... The last photo for today shows another aftermarket purchase. A few weeks ago I was looking at which pods were provided in the kit and realised that they didn't include the Presto pod, as carried by the F1CR late in its career. The good folks at L'Arsenal have kindly filled that void with a very nice rendition (kudos to L'Arsenal for their prompt service too; their package arrived within two weeks) - apologies for the ordinary photography: Moving on, I have trialled the fit of the vertical fins, only to discover that a.) they are a very tight fit, and b.) there is a substantial(ish) gap at the base of the rudder. Cue more work by my good friend Mr Dremel for concern (a.) to thin the width of the fins' locating tabs and some plastic stock has been added to the fin base for concern (b.). The plastic stock will be reduced width-wise to match the base and in profile to yield a minimal gap with the rudder (one of those was taken care of this morning). Fins and wings should follow soon thereafter. Andrew.

Well done to save the fin, Wez. Half the challenge in situations like that is to just set the piece aside and let the plastic harden, allowing the microsmesh to work its magic later - I've learnt this from painful experience. I agree with your assessment of the correct rocket pods; LRF-4 looks right. I think I've seen the other type (LAU-32) on Belgian Mirages, but not French jets. Andrew.

With thanks to Patrice and others who have recommended this book, I'm now the proud owner of a copy. I was starting to get a little concerned that the package had gone astray in the mail, but it turned up yesterday (in very flimsy wrapping - thankfully all was well with the book). I'm grateful to the author for so clearly illustrating the distinguishing features of the various sub-types; it's well laid-out and very helpful. Andrew.

Oh no! Can you salvage it? Surely it can't be more embarrassing than my blunders at the front end... Andrew.

Yes, that's what I did - take a lot from both of the mating surfaces of the upper and lower wings and then take a bit more... Obviously it's difficult to remove much from the inner surface of the upper wing, but do what you can - I took to mine with a steel scratch pen, convinced that there was an excess of plastic built up around the ejector pin marks to cause the lower wing piece to sit so proud, but in reality there wasn't that much. Another good point Jay. I found exactly the same thing and have cleaned up the mould line on the inboard portion of the wing leading edge but not yet addressed the sharpness of the edge or the height of that edge (I understood exactly what you meant having seen it first-hand). When the time comes, I think I'll be grinding away some material from the underside of the leading edge to both thin the appearance and lift the height of the edge. Cookie, it's my pleasure to help where possible. I like your thinking about joining respective halves together - I'm keen to see how it goes for you. I should have been more prepared to follow this process with this kit given the experience I have with Hasegawa's family of F-4 Phantom kits. Thanks again to everyone for your interest and insights.

Thanks to all for their interest and kind comments. The fuselages needed a bit of work to remove some gaps and misalignment, which led me to do what in retrospect might be excessive - I've removed all the moulded ventery (you know, all the vents and intakes etc) from the underside of the jets. I just couldn't get to the fuselage centreline to do what I needed to do, so I removed the bits that were in my way. While it's been a success thus far, in that I've managed to clean and fill the join, I now need to replace all that moulded goodness. Only time will tell whether it was a prudent move. Anyway here are some pics of the fuselages with Tamiya putty soup (Tamiya grey putty thinned with lacquer thinner) painted on to test the effectiveness of my Superglue mixed with pigment filler. The CMK centreline tank has also been assembled, primed and painted with the same concoction to address some pinholes in the resin's surface. I then hammered the radome onto the F1CR with maximum prejudice, having attempted to solve the fit issue between the fuselage and radome by making things worse. A shim was necessary to correct an ugly case of nose droop and although the alignment was pretty good (if you squint while looking the other way), in clean-up today I've realised that my solution was far from ideal. I will have to rescribe a fair bit of the lost radome detail, such was the work necessary to get the sides and top and bottom lined up. I took a little more care with the second kit's radome and this has paid dividends in how well the bits relate to each other. At least I remembered to add weight to the radomes before gluing them to the fuselage. Thanks Jay, it's an important point for anyone attempting this kit - I picked it up as I was trialling the fit of lower to upper wing pieces last night and ended up grinding away large quantities of plastic from the underside of the lower wing (i.e. the internal side that meets the underside of the upper wing) with my Dremel and an 80 grit sanding stick. Even then, I think I could have taken even more off... Thanks to all for looking in. Andrew.

Thanks again for the info Wez, I'm learning a lot from your posts about the differences between the versions, plus the Cocardes book (that I didn't ..ahem... order) is yet to turn up, so I'm more-or-less blundering in the dark at this stage. To the credit of Special Hobby, they did note in the instructions for their F1CR kit to remove the starboard gun, so all is not down to you to save me from my own ignorance. Thanks Jabba. As you'll see below, I took off the lip of the assembled radome in an attempt to ease the assembly concerns and probably made things worse; for instance, the angle at which the radome and fuselage joined was affected such that I had to insert a shim between the two, just to avoid a ridiculous nose-down cant to the radome. The second of the two kits was a little more refined in how it went together, but it still took a lot of shaving, shaping and fiddling to get the radome onto the fuselage. As was suggested elsewhere, a solution might be to join each radome half to the corresponding fuselage piece in advance of joining the two halves. I'll have to try that on my next build. Andrew.

Thanks Graeme. Like Wez said, I use a Sharpie to indicate part nos. and versions/Marks etc. The writing seldom survives to the painting stage and if they do, then again as per Wez's suggestion I'll clean the surface with isopropyl alcohol or methylated spirits to remove the Sharpie inscriptions. As you say, there's a big risk of them bleeding through once paint is applied, even after priming and several layers of paint!

A spot of pre-assembly painting: Then I glued some bits together... Yes, I broke off part of the refuelling probe on one of the radomes. I have the broken bit and hopefully can restore it at a later stage ... Curiously, the very front of the instrument coaming piece did not interact nicely with the corresponding bits of the fuselage halves; I hacked significantly more than felt comfortable (approx 1mm) in order to get the instrument panel into the cockpit tub and the fuselage together around it. The work paid off though as the coaming now looks quite okay -I wonder why there was so much additional plastic at the front? The settled alignment of the fuselage halves is not bad, but both kits will require some work to clean / fill seams. A quick trial fit of each radome suggests that a bit of work is also necessary to render a neat join to the fuselage. Andrew.

Pity that the shape/outline/accuracy issues continue elsewhere on the model. I agree with your inclination to leave the wings alone and limit yourself to the most glaring error/s; if it were me, I'd be dithering for weeks to come over what changes to attempt, then become frustrated that I was baulking at attempting said changes and then finally come to the conclusion that I'd be better off buying the Special Hobby offering. I call this the 'Buying my way out of a difficult decision SolutionTM'.

Awesome, thanks very much Wez. I didn't know of those changes, so will pay careful attention when the time comes (come to think of it, the deleted cannons ties in with something I noticed recently, but I thought no more of it). It's just possible that I have a copy of that book on the way to my corner of the Antipodes (no comment) - when it arrives I'm sure that there's a lot more I'll be learning. Assuming I'd bought that book, of course...