1/48 Mirage III E SQdn EC 1/4 'La Fayette' Armée de l'Air , BA116 Luxeuill 1967 (Kinetic)

[rodrant]

My 2nd entry on this SiG will be this Kinetic 1/48 Mirage III e depicting a fighter from the SQdn EC 1/4 'La Fayette' Armée de l'Air , BA116 Luxeuill 1967 , interesting version as the color scheme has several types of Metallic Colors with different tones and colors ...this will be a challenge to me and will be my first time using different metal tones , with the masking and so ...

[AndreFerro]

Olá António!
Will follow yr thread with great interest.
Have one israeli Mirage IIICJ to build with bare metal ALCLAD painting!

[Avgas]

Have one israeli Mirage IIICJ to build with bare metal ALCLAD painting!

Is that the Eduard one? Got one in the stash, I'll wait until you build yours before I build mine!

[AndreFerro]

Have one israeli Mirage IIICJ to build with bare metal ALCLAD painting!

Is that the Eduard one? Got one in the stash, I'll wait until you build yours before I build mine!

No... sorry. It´s the hobbyboss one !

[rodrant]

Olá António!
Will follow yr thread with great interest.
Have one israeli Mirage IIICJ to build with bare metal ALCLAD painting!

Olá André ,

Glad to have you following the build ! Would like to do also an Israeli in bare metal also , for now this will be !

[Pacheco]

Good luck Antonio.

Not an easy kit.

[rodrant]

Good luck Antonio.

Not an easy kit.

Thank you Luis ! es ...I didn't ear and see nice opinions on the Kinetic kits, even the scheme that I choose was on purpose and to be a quite challenging to me , I do not have that much experience and to paint with all sort of different metal tones will be something to be out of the box to me

Will try and use the AK extreme metal colors , as it were the most easy to find , would like to use Alcalads, maybe in other ocasion/build !

Nice to see you following this build , will start it in a few days after complte the P-47 build

[patrickroos]

Nice entry, love the Mirage III

Good luck

[rodrant]

Nice entry, love the Mirage III

Good luck

Thank you Patrick , just love the Mirage III also , speacialy the French all metal and the ISraeli Air Force ones from the Six Days War ...

[rodrant]

So time to start on this build ...

The Kinetic 1/48 Mirage



A lot of sprues







Already we see a lot of options to the different types that this kit allows you to do , even the diferent Radar Cone types or the recon one with all the holes for the cameras













DEcals by Cartograph , options for two French Air Force , 1 Spanish and one for the Australian Air Force with different options ...

Color indications...nice to see a lot of options and different manufacturers



AS usual , I think we will start on the seat and cockpit ...first thing that I didn't like ...If you do not have aftermarket wou have a great detail in the cockpit , but no color chart to follow in order to paint exactly the cockpit and instrument , well all the bay should be painted in Black , will use NAto Black XF-69 but if you want to guess the colors , go to Internet and find some images ...at least some decals ...even I do not like them should be a good reference to paint the instruments ...



VEry easy to assemble and great Plastic and detail quality ...







Painted with NAto Black



Great detail !







I do not know if this is correct for the version I'm doing ...the ejection seat lever on top , I had this option with two arcs or only one ...decidedto do this one , the version that I'm doingis from 1967 and really do not know if it is correct ...search the internet please

also no seat belts on this one ...for the price this kits lack some details if you want an OOB build ...for the cockpit at leastyou should have some seatbelts , I probably must order now some from Eduard or something ...will see

The cockpit colors :



Also one of the things that comes to mind building this kit and plane is some child memories ...one of my favourite comic was the adventures of Tanguy et LAverdure , it was drawn by one of the creators os ASterix (Uderxo) and the texts was from Charlier , but it was the adventures of two french pilots , for me it was fun for the subject , planes ...I read all about them and have the complete collection somewhere in my Parents home still ...must get them one of this days







see I took this pictures and the Plane is a Mirage all metal , exactly/similar to the one I'm doing ! I'm felling great doing this !

[rodrant]

Another update ...oh this kit ... good chalenge !

ok ...I start on the air intakes ...



And will glue this oiece to another ...will paint with reference 34 Humbrol Flat White ....ok ...



The right one is Whote , the left one should be aluminium , reference 11 Humbrol ?

sometimes is in this little details that the manufactures fail , and this kit is very bad in references and paint instructions ...I do not know why not to take a small effort in order that a modeller who doesn't have references to build at least something a little acurate and without to stoping in every step to check Internet and google to see pictures ,and ask questions ...that should be the complement to the build not the main task ...horrible instructions let me say ! Or maybe is just me in a bad mood today

Meanhwile finish painting the seats , and placing some color in the instrument panel ..will try to do some seatbelts from Tamiya masking tape , or will order some eduard fabric or superfabric seat belts , if it was today I would buy the PE for the cockpit ... really this kit for the price isn't worth it in my opinion .





Then I fit the both fuselages , went ok , the front was more dificult to join ...but the kit in this is good , it has good fit



Do you see the Engine front , they advice to paint it in aluminium ...but for what ? It is hidden inside the fuselage , really do not see why to paint it ...





Then added the Delta Wings ...again was very hard work ...the kit do not have excess of plastic, but some cleaning must be done , ok and the fit of the wing to the fuselage isn't good ...



Some putty must be added later on the bottom in the exhaust



And this....let's see how it will be fixed later ...for now I'm not very confident that this will be without that big gap



getting a little frustade with this ..but I'm a persistent guy !

[AndreFerro]

Like we say in Brazil: "Força, Foco e Fé " !

(For those not familiar with Portuguese Language, is something like: "Strengh, Focus and Faith" in a Free Translation!)

[Stokesy44]

You're a better man than I am Gunga Din. I salute your efforts!

[rodrant]

Like we say in Brazil: "Força, Foco e Fé " !

(For those not familiar with Portuguese Language, is something like: "Strengh, Focus and Faith" in a Free Translation!)

Obrigado André !

Well it is all that in this kit ... they could have here a great kit ...but fail ... maybe with some work and patience , but you know ...when you get a lot of issues ...

You're a better man than I am Gunga Din. I salute your efforts!

, thank you Stokesy .

[rodrant]

I almost give up on this ... now I don't fell motivated to finish it , only to do as an experiment in my Metal and weathering experiences ...

ok ...a lot of fit issues ...a lot of instructions that doesn't help ...I use for example the wrong ejection seat for the version I'm doing , I'm almost sure ...Should use the single arch cable on top ( I don't know the term in English...sorry ...) not use the 2 cable version ...also I discover now that the firring of all the front landing gear is moved up , and should be at the face of the fuselage to saying so , so another heads up in who whant to build this kit ...

an advice ...if you are not an expert in the Mirage , first study or ask for some info , as the kit and the instructions are very hard to follow , even I consider that it is a simple build in terms of the few steps that you have to do , and some good detail in the plastic ...not a beginner kit must say that !

ok then I fill the big gaps with putty and sand ...









make the sidewinders and the supersonic tanks ...



Here another heads up ...they have it as optional , still they do not mention why ...You can have flaps up , or down , and one of the sidwinder rails should be used here and not only the small flaps support ...I first placed the normal ones and not the long rails to use if yu are going to use the sidwinderes or other armament , the tanks have their own support ...







I Primed the plane using an AK Microfiller and Primer , this is the grey one I used the black :









at this point decided to do a in flight display ...even with no pilot

Then I use the AK Aluminium





AK Duraluminium in a section of the wing , next to the nose also and in a section of the tail









In this and with so much handlig the masking tape removed some paint but only in the clear part , where some Maskol was used -...

DArk aluminium next , air intakes and part of the wing , think you can see the different metal tones in this photo



A lot of masking to do , but this paints react superbly to the handling ...

One thing , I tried the paints in the tanks with no primer and it was impossible to paint them , I used the paints with the primer and great paint behaveour ...think you must go always with the primer ...usually I do not use primer in small parts , but with this ...also I didn't use any thinner ...they are very liquid but sprayed well in my H&S Evolution silverline with 0,2 needle and 1.8 psi at least for me they work



I use then the Blue Metal paint to do some first shade to make a sort of the effect you get when exposed to high heat ....in this exaust part I used the Polished aluminium , again it seems that the behaviour of this paint was equal to the others , but I could get sprayed , but seemed a little more hard to do with no thinner , could be my impression but ...



But liked the effect , the Blue paint was thinned to get a sort of translucid effect , I thinned it with the Xtreme AK Cleaner that it seems is a Laquer Thinner ...



Well that 's it for today , I will must do now a clear coat ...think will use Alcalad for the first time , as this paint are laquer based ( or so it seems ) I do not htink that using the Tamiya Clear on it is a good idea ...

Thank you for watching this

[rodrant]

so, after all this 'experimwnts with metalic paints , decals ...the decals are from Cartograph ...think they are glossy , my opinion , even people mention about the quality of that manufacturer decals , yes , they allow you some mistakes ,but in this I found them a little hard to manage , well you are never happy , or they rip off and they suck or they are thick and they suck also













I forgot to mention that the rear under should be painted with some yellow zinc chromat ...I have this from the WWII USA interior colors and choose it , again couldn't find any visual references on this ...



This build has a lot of mistakes , due for bad fitting in the kit , some bad attention from myself ...some crap instructions , all toghether became the final reveal here :

http://intscalemodeller.com/viewtopic.php?f=488&t=17743

[Stokesy44]

Great looking machine you've got there. Really like the different shades for the metal. Top drawer. Striking decals too.