Summer delta, Eduard Mirage IIIC in 1/48

[Christer A]

Hello!

It seems that I haven't started a new thread here in years, but that is not entirely correct.

I've been playing around way too much in the group builds and not in the main WIP area.

But I managed to finish 3/4 kits within the allotted time so that's quite an achievement for me 😃

For my remaining 3 weeks of summer vacation, I'll play around with this:

Seems to be a nice piece of plastic. I'll not go totally bonkers with AM stuff for this one, but I have some needed parts, just because I can.

So....

Let's get going then!

By the way, does anyone know any good walkarounds for this?

Perhaps also if the underside is painted aluminium or bare metal, and what is a good paint to match the light blue on top?

[VG 33]

Hello

 

Underside was painted aluminium and the blue can be obtained with 80% Gunze H42 and 20% white. That is what I did with my Mirage F1 B.

 

Patrick

 

 

 

[Christer A]

Thanks for the info Patrick!

You have a beautiful F1B there.

[Christer A]

Let's get on with it shall we?

The nose gear well looks kind of busy enough so I wont bother with doing more. The destructions calls for bare metal here so I'll probably just pick out a few details and add a wash later.

The well by itself is attached behind the cockpit, so that was also glued in place.

As per the standards of its (European) times, the cockpit is supposed to be black.

For weapons, I choose to go with the maximum load of to Matra ATM-9D and one 530K and supersonic tanks.

There is a pair of Sidewinders in the box, but it feels more right to have the ATM there instead.

Two versions of the big 530 missile are also provided but the IR version was a bit bananashaped to I went with the radar version instead.

 

The wings and main gear bay was also constructed.

After some initial cleaning it all went together well. I get the feeling that this is more in line with a luxury short run kit, instead of the Eduard of the 2010:s which is not so strange when thinking about it.

I also added some extra tabs here and there to help with the alignment later on.

I've heared that the fuselage might need some extra help with spacers to force it out a bit to fit against the wing. I'll see about that once I get there.

Also, some tabs was added to the fuselage.

Now it looks like I'm ready to paint some internal bits.

[nasosrr]

A lovely bird you have there Christer. And your work looks clean and methodical. I'm pulling up a chair and following this one, if you don't mind.

[PaulT 876]

Hi

The E-Seat had the D type face blind handle not the B type that is in the photo of the JP 48th seat, all French Mirage III C-B- BE -E - R- RD had this handle.

There are a few other things i doo to my kits to update them ie things that they have missed as you say you are not going mad with it thats fine.

I have loads of photos of III c's so i do go to town on them a bit.

 

Paul

[Christer A]

Thanks for the info Paul!

I'll try to do a D handle then. There is plenty of wire to use for it 

 

By the way, how is the air intake painted?

Eduard tells me to use white for the inner "bullet" part, with aluminium for the rest, is that correct?

[exdraken]

very nice project!

a summer delta

 

intake colors seem to be correct as you state!

[Christer A]

Thanks for the clarification @exdraken !
If I'm to finish this before my vacation ends I need to get it done in two weeks time.

Luckily the kids appears to behave so it might be possible.
The cockpit tub was painted Tamiya NATO black, clearcoated and received two decals for the side consoles. I figure I can attach the joystick, instrument panel and bang seat from the top later on.

I also added some nose weight just to be on the safe side.

The afterburner section was painted and installed. Perhaps not painted correctly since I cheated and didn't look for proper pictures here, but I can safely say the the after burner ring, flame holder and rear compressor blades look fine, too bad that they're so deep into the fuselage that they cannot be seen.

After that I smashed both fuselage halves together in an attempt at friction welding, but since that didn't work I resorted to TETC instead. That did it...

My biggest complain about this model so far is the terrible mold shift that has occurred on most runners. Top and bottom halves are up to 0,5mm off which makes most part look quite bad in magnification. See here:

That's not me being a lousy modeller (not in this case at least!) since the little fairing is cast into one fuselage half. Same thing happens with the fin, where one side looks great and the other one doesn't.

Oh well, I guess I just need to sand and rescribe a lot.

I also added some supports at the rear, to stop the wing from falling in.

I must say that the intake blank is a clever move from Eduard. Two pieces to glue together and no fan face.

Nice and simple, and nothing can be seen once the intake parts are attached in the front:

I've also done some simple test paint with what Eduard recommends for top color, Gunze 337.

Maybe a bit more grey than blue, but it could look nice I hope?

 

Right, time to make pancakes.

[Biggles87]

Great start, and moving at a cracking pace. 

I have one of these and a Neomega cockpit set as I was a little disappointed with the one provided, particularly the seat which is always a major focal point in jet aircraft cockpits I think. I might even start mine when I’ve finished my Hunter.

 

Stay safe.

 

John

[Christer A]

Thanks John.

Well, I guess the cockpit looks a bit better in the profipack edition, since that surely includes a bunch of etch to play with.

Still, the seat is a bit behind current standards.

[Christer A]

Let's push on shall we?

The nose gear bay had to be pushed about a bit in order to help secure the wing front end to it. In the end, I was left with a somewhat tatty looking front end.

But I choosed to have them all in the front end, and not on the wing roots which came out fine. I didn't even have to push the fuselage sides out, it just fit great.


That air intake though.


They're symmetrical, but it looks strange to have them a bit above the cockpit sill? It might not look totally crazy if I glue the canopy closed though (which I might)
The underside does not look good though.

There is a hole right into the air intake duct, and I can't break off the intake to fix it. Oh well, Ill have to add some shims and filler to sort it out.
Too bad that there also are huge gaps towards the nose gear bay. Something really didn't go the right way here.

In an effort to comfort me, I decided to add the control surfaces.

Those fit sort of well though...

[Biggles87]

The wing to fuselage fit looks good which is more than can be said of the intakes. I presume you followed the instructions, so I might look for an alternative method when I get to mine.

 

John

[Christer A]

Yeah, there is something very strange going on with the intakes.

I'm unable to pry it off now, and as I'm into puttying and sanding that's not really what I want to do.

Oh well, let's hope for the paint job to save the kit.

[BKirwan]

Christer

It not.you it is the kit. I am also building one of these at the moment and have exactly the same issue. 

 

[Biggles87]

I looked at mine yesterday, it’s a very strange way to break it down, presumably they did it that way to prevent a join in the gun troughs. In the box with mine were some parts from an old  Heller Mirage III  including the intakes, I wonder if I can do anything with them. 

 

John

[Nikolay Polyakov]

On 28/07/2020 at 10:39, Christer A said:

The underside does not look good though.

There is a hole right into the air intake duct, and I can't break off the intake to fix it. Oh well, Ill have to add some shims and filler to sort it out.

I’ll prefer to sand down an intake a bit (the aft side of it on the picture above) and then the panel lines will match better and the gap (where you’re added a spacer) will be minimised. It’s only my vision, though.

 

Excellent progress with the kit, happy modelling! 👍

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Going to grab a seat and take some notes here, Im planning on getting one or two of these for future builds. 

[Christer A]

21 hours ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

I’ll prefer to sand down an intake a bit (the aft side of it on the picture above) and then the panel lines will match better and the gap (where you’re added a spacer) will be minimised. It’s only my vision, though.

 

Excellent progress with the kit, happy modelling! 👍

Yeah, a slight sanding could minimize the gap. This time I was more focused on getting a smooth curve on the upper intake instead so I sort of ignored the gap below. But if I look at it from the below, one can see that this intake sits a wee bit ahead of the other one.

So sanding would have been preferable!

21 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Going to grab a seat and take some notes here, I'm planning on getting one or two of these for future builds. 

Glad to have you onboard!  

 

Ok, let's do more stuff on the underside. Pylons and actuators are to be added, and they really require to actually follow the destructions if you want to avoid gaps.

I didn't and glued in the control surfaces in first, so naturally I had big gaps to the actuators and pylons.

Well, a smear of PPP filled that, and then I primed the belly using Ultimate Gloss Black:

I found a few blemishes that were taken care of, but all in all it lloked quite ok, even the nose area.  

Nothing else to do then but adding a coat of Vallejo White aluminium

Shiny!
Perhaps a bit too bright for a painted finish, but with a gloos coat and further weathering I think it will be knocked down a bit.

I haven't done that yet, and there are two areas that are to be painted yellow zinc chromate or similar so that needs doing as well.

But I also need to finish the cockpit!

The bang seat was painted up, and I added a D shaped handle like so

Control column, instrument panel and coaming was also installed and now it starts to look like a real cockpit.

Just need to fix the gun sight before closing it up completely.

 

[Biggles87]

The underside of the intakes doesn’t look too bad from a distance, I suggest any further photographs taken from at least 5m.🤣

The seat is looking good, you’ve made a good job of painting the harness, I prefer cast resin harness to etched they look much more realistic.

 

John

[PaulT 876]

Hi

The fit problems you have are normal for the kit you have done quite well

The intake is fine see photos of the real a/c if i can get them posted, there is a tri angle lenght on the canopy rail side look closely and you can see this when the canopy is open you can see that part ALL the kits have this missing and all miss the intake iner cone there is a diffrence from the left and the right sides see photos same again missed by all the kits apart from the 32nd kit i think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this helps mind a a tad late i do not have good internet at home so have to use the works new wifi they have set up for us at home wuld not have been able to do the photos if you need more just ask and i will see if i have a photo of it.

Paul

 

 

[Biggles87]

It’s amazing what detail you can get from close up photos of ‘ sleek ‘ jets. Some of the earlier types could have been built in shipyards.

 

John

[Christer A]

1 hour ago, PaulT 876 said:

Hi

The fit problems you have are normal for the kit you have done quite well

The intake is fine see photos of the real a/c if i can get them posted, there is a tri angle lenght on the canopy rail side look closely and you can see this when the canopy is open you can see that part ALL the kits have this missing and all miss the intake iner cone there is a diffrence from the left and the right sides see photos same again missed by all the kits apart from the 32nd kit i think.

 

I hope this helps mind a a tad late i do not have good internet at home so have to use the works new wifi they have set up for us at home wuld not have been able to do the photos if you need more just ask and i will see if i have a photo of it.

Paul

 

 

That was a bunch of VERY helpful pictures Paul!

Thank you so much for this clarification.

So, maybe I could add some small triangles to the canopy and it will improve the look of things.

 

By the way, Eduard wants me to paint a large area on the rear fuselage in something close to yellow zinc primer:

 

What's the reason for this?

[exdraken]

the canon pack was exchangeable for a fuel tank, sometime these were painted like this.

the rear fuselage had either a rocket pack or a fuel tank, so was also exchangeable. Same coloring applies.

 

why this exact plane had it painted like this, of course no idea!

I'd assume there are photos out there somewhere

 

edit: these ones e.g.?

https://www.airliners.net/photo/France-Air-Force/Dassault-Mirage-IIIC/1829211/L

http://saspozatlse.free.fr/ancien-178.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PaulT 876]

Hi

I have had a look at my photos and all the ones i can find of a/c 31 when in the blue do not show the gun pack and rear underside fuselarge to be in any colour other than silver that not to say they at some time was different as they where exchangeable as has been pointed out before . The a/c was only in these colours for 11 months before it was struck off charge in dec 1979 it had 2,870 ish hours on it at its end.

The Eduard colour under side plans look like the same ones they use for all there Mirage IIIc kits, they have got it wrong a few times before.

I would paint it all silver on the under side. I also note they have the brake chute cone as black it was a silver or grey-silver colour some times they did paint the odd one up in the EC colours and they have the rear of the strake white it was the same as the underside colour, when in nat -met colours it was a different shade of ali so was a different colour.

hope this helps

Paul