Mirage IIIO 1/32, Scratchbuild

[ArnoldAmbrose]

double posting, sorry

[ArnoldAmbrose]

18 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I have a good set of plans for a USAF xyz in 1/xx scale! 🤔

Ah, yes, one of those. An interesting and versatile aircraft if I recall correctly. Looking forward to seeing it. (Err, could you just jog my memory again with an image or picture of it?) 😁

  

19 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I’m trying to focus on getting the PZH out of the way as it’s nearly done, but the large number of final details Is sapping my mojo. 

That I understand. I'm having to push myself to get my latest across the finish line too. I don't dare start another until it's done. Stick with it.

       Regards, Jeff.

[AdrianMF]

I know how it goes Steve.

 

There's room for it on the Shelf of Shame next to the Short Empire and Fairey Long Range Monoplane if you like...

 

Regards,

Adrian 

[Marklo]

1 hour ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

That I understand. I'm having to push myself to get my latest across the finish line too.

It must be in the air. I’m actually stopping myself from starting things and actually finishing things at the moment. Weird. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

4 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Hello @Romeo Alpha Yankee

 

I regret to say that I have not done anything more on the mirage beyond what is posted here. 
 

The shed took muuuuuuccccchhhh longer to finish than anticipated but is now done and I have a far superior working area than before. 
 

Unfortunately I still have three active modelling projects on the go; the PZH 2000, the SS Xantho and this one.

 

I’m trying to focus on getting the PZH out of the way as it’s nearly done, but the large number of final details Is sapping my mojo. 
 

With three major jobs already in hand, I don’t think I’ll be up to starting anything to mark the 75th anniversary of the formation of the USAF in two days time. A shame really because I have a good set of plans for a USAF xyz in 1/xx scale! 🤔

Sometimes changing subjects restores my mojo ? Maybe if you jumped to the Mirage or SS Xantho you might feel more invigorated and likely to work on the build. 

[Bandsaw Steve]

8 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

I know how it goes Steve.

 

There's room for it on the Shelf of Shame next to the Short Empire and Fairey Long Range Monoplane if you like...

 

Not quite that bad yet!
 

I still consider this a live project, whereas after the millions of years your Fairey Monoplane has sat there, I’m guessing it will have turned into a fossil. 🦖 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

6 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Maybe if you jumped to the Mirage or SS Xantho you might feel more invigorated and likely to work on the build. 

Keep your eyes peeled on the nautical pages! 👍

[Bandsaw Steve]

An annual update.

 

Wow. It's been nearly a year since I last made a substantive update on this thread!

As those of you with a long memory might recall, this project was stalled by the replacement of this old shed...

 

with this new one! Which really is a beauty (especially if you disregard the small foreground pile of paint cans and chemicals awaiting responsible disposal).

 

Here it is from another angle. In this photo it looks a little lop-sided - like the front wall is leaning out slightly - but don't worry, that's just a trick of the camera's lens... honest! 

 

Anyway, when the shed replacement project got underway I foolishly wrote something like 'don't expect many updates prior to Christmas' (and at the time I meant Christmas 2021). 🎅 Obviously this was based on the assumptions that the shed replacement would be quick and that upon completion I would be straight back into the Mirage project.  Neither proved to be correct.  In the end the shed replacement took about 6 months and once complete I sank a lot of time into the PZH2000 and Xantho projects (neither of which I have managed to finish yet) ☹️.  Finally, last week, I circled back to the Mirage and so I now offer the following humble annual update.

 

Those of you with very long memories might recall that I intend to skin this model with aluminum lithoplate. This remains my intention but the accurate geometry of curved surfaces is proving difficult to convert into 2D cut-outs, especially where two surfaces that have not yet been glued together meet. Here I'm making some careful measurements to try to work all of this out mathematically; a good idea in principle but it's involved and not a very fun process. I could probably use a computer for this but that would make it even less fun. ☹️

 

Instead I've decided to cut representations of the panel lines into the model and then resort to sort of 'brass-rubbing' technique to transfer the resulting shapes onto a sheet of paper and then onto the lithoplate. Here I'm using a saw to cut a panel line into the rear fuselage.

 

Here I'm using an old-fashioned razor blade to etch major panel lines onto the air-intakes.

 

But just etching the odd panel line does not overcome the issue of sorting out the geometry of panels that pass from one component to another or sets of panel lines that must align across more than one component.  I think therefore the time has come to stick the major pieces together.

 

The blue 'acrylic stud adhesive' is a glue that I discovered during the shed construction. It's generally used in the building industry to hold plaster onto walls. It spreads like butter, has a very long working time, is incredibly strong and fully sandable once set.  It's also absolutely permanent; otherwise people's walls would start falling down after a few years.  The 1kg bucket shown cost only $18 and provides a lot of glue at a very low price.  The only drawback - which I learned subsequent to purchase - is that it has a 'best before' shelf life of just one year. I will be interested in seeing what condition this glue will be in a year from now. That can be in my next annual update. 😁

 

So, for now, blue glue it is!  Here is the fuselage and wing assembly clamped up and left overnight, during which time the glue set like rock and achieved an extremely strong bond.

 

Just for old-time sake I include this photo of the forward fuselage halves prior to being stuck together.  Just look at the stupid amount of lead I've put in each half to guarantee that this model will not tail-sit.

 

Here is the fuselage spine being glued in place.

 

Leaving this.

 

At this point I could not resist sticking the nose-cone on, mostly because this jet looks much cooler with it on.   Even though the blue glue is extremely strong I still put a short length of carbon fibre rod through the middle to reinforce the connection. Sooner or later this nose-cone will get bumped and when that happens a bit of internal structural strength might be very useful.

 

Nose-cone on.

 

Project to date. Everything here is now glued together. The white stuff around the spine is my preferred detail filler; 'Vallejo putty'.

 

 

Here she is with drop-tanks and air-intakes temporarily attached. She's looking a bit patchy at the moment, but I think will look OK under a coat of primer.

 

Now, finally, I have a 'Mirageish looking thing' that I can fly around the room! 

 

This model is mostly made from Jarrah and has a bunch of lead added to the nose and fuselage. It weighs a tonne! I might do some 'scale weight' mathematics one day to try to work out just how over-weight this thing is. IIRC the Avro 504 model had a bulk density seven times greater than the original. I fear this one might be even worse! 🙂

 

I'll try to keep this thread moving along a bit better in future. Sorry about the long wait.

 

Best Regards, 

Bandsaw Steve

 

[SteveMc]

A nice shed and nice progress on the Mirage.

[621Andy]

Welcome back!

 

Great update...just don't leave it so long until the next one😆

[RichieW]

Hi Steve, I'm recently back from a year long break after losing use of my man cave. Was wondering how the Mirage was going. 

 

Love the new shed, well worth stalling the Mirage for. Loving the update, how thick is your litho aluminium? It's going look stunning once all covered. I used Tamiya tape to make cutting patterns to convert flat plans into shapes. Because it is translucent you can draw the lines you need on the model and add them to the tape. The shapes I needed were very simple though. No curvy air intakes on an old biplane!

 

A heavy model is great, much less likely to get shot down by a feather duster!

 

Richie

[Bandsaw Steve]

Hi Richie, 

 

Good call on the Tamiya tape, I’ll remember that one. 👍

 

The lithoplate is a mere 0.15mm thick; paper-thin and nice to use.

[Redshift]

Only just found this build. Looking very good, and I have severe shed envy as well. Is that an A/C unit hanging off the side? Luxury! Mine just has hot and cold running spiders.

Hmm.. litho plate over wood... 🤔 interesting

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, it's good to see this back on the go. I have trouble managing one model at a time. Certainly not three.       Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Yes, that’s an air-con unit. Perth can get a touch warm in summer so this shed is also fully insulated.

It’s double glazed too but mostly to keep the noise of power tools contained.

 

Lithoplate over wood; there’s a bit of learning involved but I’m getting there. It’s absolutely dead-easy on flat surfaces but the curves are tricky. Being so thin it puts a very tight constraint on how much sanding you can do once it’s on so get your wooden surfaces as smooth as possible before sticking on the aluminium because once it’s on, that’s essentially the final surface.
 

 

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

1 minute ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Steve, it's good to see this back on the go. I have trouble managing one model at a time. Certainly not three.       Regards, Jeff.

I’m not really ‘managing ’ three, just muddling along with three.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

3 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I’m not really ‘managing ’ three, just muddling along with three.

Whatever it takes to get there. 🙂       Regards, Jeff.

[AdrianMF]

Looking good (and slow ). But slow is good for me...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[k5054nz]

Lovely work Steve, and that looks like a fine shed.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Loving it!

 

At the moment I'm loving this project. Big exciting shapes are coming together and steps that I thought were going to be difficult are proving easier than expected.

At the end of the last post we had this...

I was unsure whether to round off the forward fuselage / cockpit section at this stage as to do so would further weaken the forward structure and I was hesitant to attach the air-intakes because I had convinced myself that that was going to be difficult.

 

But then I realised that any serious attempt to litho-plate this thing can really only happen once the main shapes are finalised. So I pressed on; the first job was to round off the forward fuselage...

 

using chisels, files, Stanley knives, sandpaper - all the usual suspects.

 

To my delight it all went quite well and the 'thinner than ever' slither of jarrah under the imaginary pilot's imaginary seat was still easily strong enough to hold the whole front in place with no real worries - assuming I'm reasonably careful and don't drop the thing on its nose! 

 

Then my attention moved to attaching the air-intakes.  I was unsure of the geometry of the ramp / fillet thing between the main structure of the air-intake and the side of the fuselage. Then I found this view on-line which proved that there are three forward-pointing bits in this fillet and not just the one sometimes depicted in cut-away drawings.

 

So I did some measuring and some guesswork and came up with this template.

 

Which allowed me to cut a single piece of 3mm MDF to the required shape.

 

I then split that one shape into two identical 1.5mm-thick halves.

 

I then looked more closely at my previously-made air-intakes and decided that their interior voids were too restricted. As a result I spent a pleasant 30 minutes or so deepening them with a chisel.

 

If you look closely you can see that prior to assembly the inboard side of each air-intake now has a brass panel added to complete the 'D' shape. 

 

I used PVA to attach the ramps to the side of the fuselage and cyanoacrylate to attach the air-intakes to the ramps. This all happened with no issues at all. MDF and all kinds of different glues play quite nicely together it seems.

Unfortunately due to some lax measurements I made more than a year ago, there were three vast gaps left on the underside. I'm not exactly sure how I got this so wrong; but there was really only one thing to do... 🤔 

 

Fill the gaps with some lumps of wood.  Viewed up this close the woodwork is as rough as guts but after a bit of carving and sanding... 

 

It did not look quite so bad. 

 

in fact -over all - I've got to say. I'm loving how this thing looks at the moment! 🥰

 

I'm not sure what's next - but I think it will be some work to the lower rear of the fuselage and once that's done I suppose I have to start on the cockpit!

 

I hope you lot enjoy reading this half as much as I am enjoying making it!

 

Bandsaw Steve

[hendie]

I had completely forgotten about this build.  Nice to see it back on track Steve.

 

Now your manshed is finished we can expect to be inundated with build updates then?

[Bandsaw Steve]

1 minute ago, hendie said:

 

Now your manshed is finished we can expect to be inundated with build updates then?

Maybe not inundated because my modelling time is still rudely interrupted by ‘life’ and ‘work’ and other such fripperies. Also, foolishly, I have three projects underway at the moment so my efforts are a little dispersed at present. Nevertheless I think these Mirage updates will now become much more frequent than they have been.

[ColonelKrypton]

Marvelous, simply marvelous. 

 

Litho plate is pretty tough stuff. I am not sure what type aluminium it is made from but it is pretty hard. Any particular reason litho plate over something like heavy weight aluminum foil food trays?

 

This is a link to an interesting poster on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/ANKCreative/videos

 

Scratch builds a wide variety of subjects from repurposed PVC pipe and he makes some of his own tools too.  Inspirational and a bit humbling too.

 

cheers, Graham

[RichieW]

I certainly am enjoying reading this and it's great to see you having fun with the project. As ever, I'm taking notes and seeing what tips I can glean. It really does look impressive now. Looking forward to seeing the next update! 

 

Richie

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Looks Great Steve