GB-44 1/48 Mirage IIIC - Military A/C of post-war time

speedy work there Terry....Good stuff.

nice work Terry

Thanks all.

The wing is done, apart from the flippy floppy waggly bits on the railing edge, which are fitted later, and just awaits fitting to the fuselage.
As with every part in this kit so far, there were lots of intrusive sprue attachment burrs to remove, with, again, some actually'wrapping round' onto the inside surfaces of parts.
Some small adjustments were needed around the front of the nose wheel bay, so that the front section of the lower fuselage / wing would join neatly, but easily taken care of.

Pic 1. Those sprue attachments, on the inside of the lower wing - eight in total, and a real pain to remove without damaging the leading edge.
Pic 2. The main wheel bays are constructed from six parts per side, which seems rather complex to me, and was quite fiddly, but the end result is good, and looks as if they are to scale in depth.
Pics 3 and 4. The port side wheel bay fitted, shown here inside and outside the lower wing section. The small gaps have since been closed and firmly cemented..
Pic 5. The underside view, with both wheel bays fitted, and the wing top surfaces cemented in place. The longitudinal gaps inside the bays are filled by the lower fuselage flange, once the wing is attached o the fuselage.
Pic 6. The wing loosely attached to check fit around the adjusted nose wheel bay. The wing root gaps will easily close when the wing is cemented in place. When that's done, and fully set, the flaps, elevons and actuator fairings can be attached.
Pic 7. The adjustments needed at the front of the nose wheel bay. Although correctly fitted to the cockpit tub, which is aligned squarely as per the instructions, the bay itself seems to be very slightly offset to starboard, probably due to it being cemented onto the vertical supports on that fuselage half. That, combined with some "springiness" in the narrow, front fairing section for the wing to fuselage joint, was causing some slight interference, with the wheel bay front bulkhead, where it curves to meet the bay walls, preventing the fairing to 'bed down' properly.
Although it could have been joined, extreme pressure would have been needed to close the joint and hold it until set, with no guarantee that it would remain in place, and possibly leading to an untidy joint that would need filling, something I want to avoid, with a bare metal paint finish.
The simple solution was to slightly file down the outer edges of the front bulkhead, and also file the extreme forward edges of both sidewalls, indicated by the red arrows. Test-fitting shows that the joint should now be near perfect, given that the joint at the rear of the wing to fuselage is correctly aligned, with no visible effect on the wheel bay.

It's gone bl**dy cold here today, and I'm aching like an aching thing, so going for a horizontal rest for a while, but I hope to get the wing fitted to the fuselage later this evening or tonight.
Back when there's more to show ...........................

Making some fine progress Terry. Looks like you'll finish quickly.

Thanks, Wojtek and Andy.

I'll admit, it's proceeding faster than I anticipated, but there's a lot of fiddly stuff with the seat, and the painting to do, which may take some time.
I'm planning to use the AK Xtreme Metal range, a first for me, so maybe new things to learn.
If I do get it finished quickly, I might throw in another model, either an Argentinian Mirage IIIEA or a Swiss F-5E, although I'm still slowly bashing on with the Andover.
Not much to show on that build, being minimal parts, so I'm saving the pics for a couple or more posts leading up to the Finished thread.

Hoping to get the wing on, and other bits and pieces, some time today.

Got the wing fitted, with very little drama - I thought it might need a bit of fiddling here and there to keep things aligned.
All the joints have been attended to, including that 'springy' front section, and I'm now about to start fitting the intakes and the control surfaces etc.

Pic 1. The wing root joint was very good, and just required a little light sanding.
Pics 2 and 3. As with the wing root, the lower aft joint was also a good fit, although it had to be carefully aligned. The pics show it before and after light sanding. As this is a panel joint on the real aircraft, it hasn't been totally eliminated, just tidied up a bit.
Pics 4 and 5 The underside joint at the intakes, before and after cementing, but awaiting sanding.
Pic 6. This is that 'springy' joint around the nose wheel bay. Note that the joint line runs through an engraved inspection panel (on both sides)
Pics 7 and 8. The joint cemented, but not yet sanded.
Pics 9 and 10. After sanding and polishing, all joints eliminated. The horizontal joint in front of the wheel well was filled with finely stretched sprue and sanded flush.

There were a couple of other areas around the various complex surfaces of the wing to intake joints, and the underside of the wing, which have also been cleaned up, along with the wing leading edges and leading edge to root joints.

Back soon with another shimmering image up-date. Shimmering image - mirage - get it ?
OK, I know where me coat is !!!

Coming together nicely. Shimmering image indeed......

Thanks, Wojtek and Andy.

Well, I got the intakes on, although it involved a lot more work than I expected. The fit wasn't particularly great, as there were no locating tabs or flanges, and if aligned for the best fit, then the panel lines didn't match up.
However, the biggest problem was the location of the joint , as it didn't follow a panel line - but it did cut through the panel for the intake auxiliary door !!
Why Hobby Boss designed it this way is beyond me, as I'm sure it could have been made with the joint following the line of the foremost panel joint on the intake. Or if locating flanges had been used, the fit and joint could have been much better, and easier to conceal.
Anyway, the pics and captions tell the story of what took a good 7 or 8 hours work to achieve so far.

Pics 1 and 2. Side and bottom views of the intakes fitted. The red arrow indicates the joint line, and the yellow arrow the auxiliary intake door in its panel.
Pic 3. The joints were first sanded, and then stretched sprue was laid into the vertical joint, and the forward horizontal joint on the underside of each intake. When sufficiently set, Tamiya Extra Thin cement was brushed over the sprue to soften it, and the softened plastic flattened into the joint.
Once set, the sprue was shaved almost flush, the excess trimmed off, and then sanded smooth.
Pics 4 and 5. How they look so far, after sanding, and re-engraving any lost surface detail. There's still some work to do to improve the finish, before clean-up and polishing, which I hope to get done some time tomorrow.
Note that the silver paint is an extension of the painted interior of the intake and shock cones, to avoid a ridge if the exterior was left bare. This will be cut back to a smooth surface before spraying the primer and then the Xtreme Metal finish coats.

Excellent fix good sir!

Moving right along despite some setbacks

Thanks very much chaps.

I didn't get any work done at all yesterday - got to sleep at around 02.30 hrs, woke up at around 06.30 hrs, went back to sleep and stayed in bed all day, unable to stay awake !!
Obviously must have needed the rest, as the aches and pains have gone and I feel refreshed, so I'll crack on with the model later today, and should have some pics by this evening.

Doing great, well done Terry.

Lovely work so far Terry!

Thanks, Wayne and Hugh.

Well, the Mirage has scored its first kills - a bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin cement and a cutting mat !
Caught the cement bottle with the inverted fin of the model, knocking it over, and the cement dissolved the surface of the cutting mat.

Anyway, back to the model, and some more fiddling. Got most of the bits and pieces on, and a little scratch-building, but had to 'make' a couple of parts due to "The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Plastic", as explained in the pic captions.

Pic 1. The result of the spilled Tamiya Extra Thin Cement.
Pic 2. The cooling system intake ducts in place. No locating pins for these small parts, just etched outlines on the fuselage surface.
Pic 3. Elevons (outboard pairs) and elevon compensators on, with elevons very slightly drooped, as they would be on the ground.
Pics 4 and 5. The elevon hinge fairings were rather fiddly, having very small, shallow locating pins, but over-sized locating holes. Unable to hold them to fit, I used tweezers, and the first, outboard faring pinged across the desk, but could not be found. I had to make one, using a missile rail cut, filed and sanded to shape. The second pic shows the finished item, below the kit part. Not perfect, but good enough, considering it's under the wing, at the rear.
Pic 6. The hinges in place, quite fiddly to do without getting cement on the wing surface. The ventral fin has also been attached.

A bit of improvisation and minor scratch-building coming next .......

As I'll be using a brass pitot tube, I decided to match this against the nose, to check for fit. As expected, there was a difference in size, so I decided to use the base of the kit (plastic) pitot, mounted on the nose, and sanded to match the 'cone' on the base of the brass item.
The base of the kit part was cut off, and prepared for attaching to the nose. However, what I should have done, was to attach the complete kit pitot, let it set, and then cut of the unwanted part !
Yep, it 'pinged' as I was fitting it, but after around 15 minutes searching, I eventually found it, started all over again, and ..... it 'pinged' again, never to be found !!
A little bit of improvisation, shown below, soon solved the problem.
I also decided to do something about the area between the instrument panel and the base of the windscreen, as this looked wrong to me, again illustrated below..

Pic 1. The model's nose, and the brass pitot. The 'cone' at the base is obviously too small, but would fit perfectly if the base of the kit part was used.
Pics 2 and 3. As mentioned, the kit part has joined the abyss, so, improvisation, and a quick search through the kit parts I won't be using, and a solution was found. The tip from one of the cones of the SNEB rocket pods, included in the kit, proved ideal, and this was sawn off and cemented to the nose, the joint being reinforced with CA. Once set, it was roughly sanded to match the nose, and the extreme tip sanded flat. A hole will be drilled in the tip, the brass pitot attached using CA, and final sanding done to blend it all in. This will be done when the final few bits and pieces are fitted (less the undercart and small 'sticky out' bits), ready for painting the model, in order to have a good joint without damaging the paint work.
Pic 4. How the front of the cockpit, forward of the instrument panel, is portrayed by the kit parts. There should be a shroud over the wiring etc, and I suspect the kit may have been based on a museum example, lacking the shroud.
Pics 5 and 6. A shroud was fabricated from five pieces of plastic card, cut to shape, cemented in place, and sanded to smooth the joints. A small indicator lamp console was also added to the top of the port side panel sill. The rectangular opening is for the gun sight, which will be added later, after painting the model. (the cockpit will be masked for painting, and the windscreen fitted once the painting has been done).

Just a few more small parts to fit, then clean the model, and spray the primer. I've ordered some AK Interactive 'Xtreme Metal' paints, in various shades, and I'm hoping these will be with m by early next week.

All looking fine, except the cutting mat.

Yep, and 80% of a bottle of cement !!
Good job I recently bought a new bottle.