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Mirage 5BA BA33 'Blackbird' Belgian Air Force


Whirly

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Hmmm. If you manage to glue the windscreen in place properly, you could then trim the canopy to have a good fit with the windscreen. The gap begind the canopy and the fuselage could be filled with pvc glue or similar, then sanded and painted. Nobody would notice the clear part is a little shorter than usual. Just as idea. 
 

Good job so far!

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23 hours ago, Whirly said:

I managed to fit the windscreen after a robust reduction of the instrument coaming, but the main canopy is a full mm. short to make contact with it. I'm now considering leaving the canopy open, despite the lack of cockpit detail. Need some time to mull it over.

Would bring the windscreen backwards to meet the main canopy & then filling in front of the windscreen be an option? I can see some reprofiling being needed to the sides of the windscreen too. Whatever you do doesn't sound like a heap of fun. :(

Steve.

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Thank you all for the useful advices! I already glued the windscreen and will try to adapt the canopy. First I have to do a comparison with the same Heller piece to understand where is the problem.

 

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On 4/12/2023 at 11:56 AM, Whirly said:

I got to the point of adding the canopy and found out a handful of issues...

 

I've tried the same on mine - it looks nowhere as bad as on yours:

 

20230417-201841.jpg

Pay no attention to the ratty paint - I've had this one for ages, and once brushpainted Israeli tan on her before getting an airbrush. Also, the mess under the windscreen is of my own accord, I jammed a spare SH Mirage F.1 instrument panel in there. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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Hi Andre, thank you for taking the time to check on your model.

Actually, I compared the Revell and Heller canopies finding a big difference:

 

REVELL

20230415_134723

 

HELLER

20230415_134710

 

I may have worsened things glueing the windscreen a bit too forward where I could have put a plasticard spacer, but the rear slant of my canopy is also off and does not match the spine.

Better desist and set it open: I have prepared a resin MB Mk4 which I hope will distract from the emptyness of the cockpit 😉

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/21/2023 at 8:18 PM, TEMPESTMK5 said:

Maybe you cab try to place a pilot on this resin seat to deal with the emptyness of the cockpit ?

 

 

Thank you for the encouragement Patrice, my skill at painting figures is non-existent 😆, better try to enhance the cockpit!

 

 

21 hours ago, Hook said:

You're welcome! Incidentally, you can see where I am with mine in my Nesher WiP thread

 

This is a great build Andre, I like a lot when you try to make good use of spare parts with older kits 😉

 

I finally got to the paint stage and the model now gained a solid black coat. Very good at hiding all the sins!

 

2023-04-29_07-19-50

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you @exdraken!

In the meantime I masked the black areas to paint the wheelwells aluminium and on removing the masks I found a very annoying side effect where I had applied Mr Masking Sol Neo: for some reason the black paint (Tamiya acrylic) got dull and some chips were removed. Never experienced this, do you know the reason?

More time spent for a touch-up...

 

 

20230512_193038

 

Finally decalling could start. I usually enjoy a lot this stage but this time more surprises were waiting for me. I know that Modeldecal sheets can be a bit tricky with some white residue being left in the water during application, but this time it was a real flood:

 

2023-05-16_03-25-52

 

The worst part is that decals are very brittle and resistant to setting liquids, maybe they are becoming too old. It's a pity because I have many sheets including still unique subjects!

This is the result after a lot of work, you can't see all the minor defects I need to correct in some way.

20230515_232217

 

Thanks for looking!

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On 5/16/2023 at 3:31 PM, Whirly said:

20230515_232217

 

 :facepalm: D'oh! Of course that's how you prevent abrading your lovingly applied paint scheme while you're decalling. Why didn't I ever think of that? [Goes off to look for a sheet of foamy packaging]

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/17/2023 at 6:43 PM, Tentacles said:

 

 :facepalm: D'oh! Of course that's how you prevent abrading your lovingly applied paint scheme while you're decalling. Why didn't I ever think of that? [Goes off to look for a sheet of foamy packaging]

 

I'm glad I gave you unconsciously a useful tip: I'm so used to using this foam block that it never occurred to me to promote its use among fellow modellers.

 

Well, I have two pieces of news, one good and one bad.

The good one is that I completed the build, please see the images below.

The bad one is that I didn't  take any images of the final stages: it was such a troubled journey that I totally forgot!

In short, I soaked the decals with a coat of Mr.Color Super Clear GX100 which gives a high gloss durable finish, so that I could mask over them and correct the many blemishes with thin coats of yellow paint.  This stage went more or less well but took a lot of time. Then I added all the details, mostly scratchbuilt (arrestor hook, ecm cone, pitot, aerials... ), u/c and wheels (Reskit substitutes) and gave a final coat of Tamiya X35 semi gloss. Last touches were adding the ejection seat (Pavla) and glueing the canopy open.

Overall I'm satisfied but it took way more effort than I expected for such a simple kit, so I'm glad it is out of the way now. By the way, I just noticed I have a bad case of silvering with the belgian flag on the fin 😒

 

Hope to take some decent photos for the gallery in natural light and then I can say 'mission accomplished'.

Thank you all for the positive comments, they helped a lot being motivated to finish!

 

20230605_220542

 

20230605_220627

 

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Posted in the gallery (I nearly forgot the deadline! 😱

Thank you all again for all the appreciations and especially to @TEMPESTMK5 for hosting the GB!

 

 

On 6/9/2023 at 6:22 PM, Hook said:

I have ordered this Daco sheet now, having seen this result. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

 

Glad to have inspired your future project, please post on BM your progress!

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2 minutes ago, Whirly said:

Glad to have inspired your future project, please post on BM your progress!

Of course, my girlfriend would like a word now. ;)

 

Most likely the sheet will have to wait for SH to release their 5BA... it might be a while! But, maybe I could start earlier by having a go at its Belgian companion.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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1 hour ago, Whirly said:

Posted in the gallery (I nearly forgot the deadline! 😱

Thank you all again for all the appreciations and especially to @TEMPESTMK5 for hosting the GB!

 

 

 

Glad to have inspired your future project, please post on BM your progress!

Good evening Whirly

Thank you very much for taking part in this Gb ...

Best regards

Patrice

 

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