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Playing in the Sandbox Group Build Sept 1, 2024 - Jn 1, 2025

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11 hours ago, GusMac said:

That's a bummer with the fit of the tail part Kai but I'm sure you'll make it work.

Just out of interest, how much weight did you add to the nose? I'm hoping the big resin nose for the Cheetah will help but I'd be keen to know how much is enough.

You’re right that’s really a mess. 
Lots of work but I hope to solve it.

I don’t remember how much weight I put into the nose, sorry. Typical for Italeri they don’t mention how much to put in it. 
I check it by lifting the model a little bit at the fuselage at the line where the main gear is attached. When the aircraft bow moves down it’s enough weight. 
If not I add further weight. The good news is that there is enough space under and in front of the cockpit to place some lead in it. I have flexible lead foil for this purpose.

Hope this helps a little.

In my opinion the Cheetah-Nose will add enough weight to avoid having a tailsitter in the end.

Cheers

Kai

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4 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Yay!  It's always good to see a splash of color!  I hafta admit I like most IDF color schemes.  Especially with those big triangles!

 

Gaz

Thank you Gaz! Painting is one of my favorite tasks (like you?). But it’s still a long way to go.

I also love the earlier 3-tone scheme. 
You will laugh: I exactly plan to do a plane with the yellow/ black triangles:

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It’s one of the two in IDF-Service with the most aerial victories. 
Eyecatching scheme  due to the triangles.

Kai 

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Kai

You have overcome so many obstacles and fit issues, no question your No No question, your Mirage will cross the finish line. Italeri’s poor engineering is one thing and can’t be excused but the poor fit of the Isracast’s AM parts Is the same!
I now have resting in my stash, the kit and the Isracast parts and seeing what work and aggravation you have gone through, I have no desire in the near future of tackling such a frustrating and poorly engineered kit. Down the road, who knows.
For me, I do work in other scales, especially large jets - just helps keep the fun factor up and the juices flowing for me. After the ZM He 219 now on the bench, two 48th Tamiya Tomcats await their turn.   
Being away from the hobby for over a few years and after getting down to building again, I keep asking myself : where are the NEW Tamiya 32nd scale kits and not just releasing variants of previously issued kits? Most awaited new kit for me is Tamiya’s 1/48 F-4B and I’m willing to bet the fit Is perfect and the issues (intakes as an example) will never appear. A rework of their ancient Tomcat would also be a welcome gem.

Please excuse my off topic ramblings as it is 1:205 AM - tired but can’t sleep.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

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3 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Kai

You have overcome so many obstacles and fit issues, no question your No No question, your Mirage will cross the finish line. Italeri’s poor engineering is one thing and can’t be excused but the poor fit of the Isracast’s AM parts Is the same!
I now have resting in my stash, the kit and the Isracast parts and seeing what work and aggravation you have gone through, I have no desire in the near future of tackling such a frustrating and poorly engineered kit. Down the road, who knows.
For me, I do work in other scales, especially large jets - just helps keep the fun factor up and the juices flowing for me. After the ZM He 219 now on the bench, two 48th Tamiya Tomcats await their turn.   
Being away from the hobby for over a few years and after getting down to building again, I keep asking myself : where are the NEW Tamiya 32nd scale kits and not just releasing variants of previously issued kits? Most awaited new kit for me is Tamiya’s 1/48 F-4B and I’m willing to bet the fit Is perfect and the issues (intakes as an example) will never appear. A rework of their ancient Tomcat would also be a welcome gem.

Please excuse my off topic ramblings as it is 1:205 AM - tired but can’t sleep.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

Peter,

I can fully understand you! With so many beautiful models in your stash the Mirage III C wouldn’t be my first choice as well.

The Tamiya 48 scale jets are really beautiful kits and always well engineered! Will be fun to build.

The F-4 is also one of my favorite planes. Although I‘m a 32nd Scale addict I have some Hasegawa, Academy and a ZM in my stash. 
Instead of bringing a new F-4 in 48 scale to the market, a 109 or 190 in 32nd scale with the quality of their Corsairs, Spitfires and Mustangs would have also been a good choice or even a new tool F-4 in 32nd Scale.

What I will buy for sure when released is the new Revell SR-71. It’s an iconic aircraft!

I also will get the 32nd Scale Viggen from JetMads this year. Also a beautiful plane with a stunning camo.

That‘s it for today. But off topic is always interesting and inspiring.

Looking forward to seeing the progress of your He-219 here! Will be a follower in the 1st row.

Cheers

Kai
 

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23 hours ago, Kaireckstadt said:

I don’t remember how much weight I put into the nose, sorry. Typical for Italeri they don’t mention how much to put in it. 
I check it by lifting the model a little bit at the fuselage at the line where the main gear is attached. When the aircraft bow moves down it’s enough weight. 

I use the same method like you Kai, but a little more refined, with the help of a relatively exact kitchen scale.

Cheers Rob

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Und Next update of the Drama.

Again against the instructions I first test fitted the intake plates and found out, that the pins on the backplate were too short when the brass-parts attached. So I had to lengthen the 3 pins on the  backplate.
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Also the flow-parts on the fuselage below the plate were improved with plastic sheet. Otherwise they wouldn’t have touched the backplate:

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Then I glued all parts to the fuselage. 
It was a bit fiddly, but the fit was ok.

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Then I compared the result to photos of the real plane 

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I should have done this before. The 2 pins on the outer sides are not present at the real plane and the one in the middle is thin.

So I removed the 3 pins and still have to rework the area with some sanding and adding the thin pin under the cone.

Lessons learned: if you are building the Italeri Mirage always compare the assembly step to the real plane.

I will show pics of the rework in the next post.

Then I added all scoops to the fuselage. All had to be reworked due to flash on them.

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Final step was to glue the flaps and ailerons to the rear of the wing.

And what did I detect when test-fitting: The inner flap of the right side was 1 mm too small. I had to add an insert. I love Italeri! 

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The fit was ok then.

The deflection of the flaps was based on pics of parked aircraft. 

On the other side no insert was required

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The pylons on the underside of the wing have a bad fit with gaps to the wings. What should I say: didn’t expect anything else! 
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Only the ventral fin fitted perfect:

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Finally some overview pics of the model. It’s getting more and more a Mirage...

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That’s all for today. Now a sanding and rescribing session is ahead of me. I love it...

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Edited by Kaireckstadt
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Unbelivable, I admire your dedication with the bird. In the end it will be worth it, but my patience would have worn off by now. There are good kits out there and bad kits too, but this is a mixed breed, it's too bad for a big market company and insofar inexcusable :2c:.
But you have gone so far with the Mirage, I'm absolutely sure, it will be a stunner.

Cheers Rob

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Kai

Your dedication to the Mirage build is extraordinary and of course, as well as your abilities to resolve the endless sea of fit issues and problems. 
Thank goodness at least one part actually fit with no issues; the tail.

Can’t wait to see her in the paint shop where all your hard work will come shining through

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

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Hello Kai,

Pffffffff, there seems to be no end to the fit issues with this kit. But when you are done with the rescribing, sanding, etc, (and endless flows of beer), you will have a stunning looking Mirage in the end. The reward will come when you get to the painting stage, keep up the good work,

Frank

 

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22 hours ago, DocRob said:

Unbelivable, I admire your dedication with the bird. In the end it will be worth it, but my patience would have worn off by now. There are good kits out there and bad kits too, but this is a mixed breed, it's too bad for a big market company and insofar inexcusable :2c:.
But you have gone so far with the Mirage, I'm absolutely sure, it will be a stunner.

Cheers Rob

Thank you Rob!

The kit is really sometimes challenging but there is unfortunately no other available except the ancient from Revell.

Kai

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16 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Kai

Your dedication to the Mirage build is extraordinary and of course, as well as your abilities to resolve the endless sea of fit issues and problems. 
Thank goodness at least one part actually fit with no issues; the tail.

Can’t wait to see her in the paint shop where all your hard work will come shining through

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

Thank you Peter,

Me too but it is still a long way to go...

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14 hours ago, Trigger said:

Hello Kai,

Pffffffff, there seems to be no end to the fit issues with this kit. But when you are done with the rescribing, sanding, etc, (and endless flows of beer), you will have a stunning looking Mirage in the end. The reward will come when you get to the painting stage, keep up the good work,

Frank

 

Thank you Frank,

this  is what I hope too. The main work 
is nearly done so the time to the paintshop shortens every day! 

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Hello,

I went back to your build after some time and I was shocked by the amount of adjustments you had to do! But I must thanks, because it's a very good advise for my own model I have started to build recently. If you want you can go and see my thread that I will be posting in minutes.

Alberto

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11 hours ago, alberto49 said:

Hello,

I went back to your build after some time and I was shocked by the amount of adjustments you had to do! But I must thanks, because it's a very good advise for my own model I have started to build recently. If you want you can go and see my thread that I will be posting in minutes.

Alberto

Thank you Alberto! 
Nice to hear that someone else takes the challenge to build this model.

For sure I will follow your build here!

Have already taken a look. 

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Yesterday I reworked the intakes with a lot of sanding where I removed the pins mentioned above. Now it looks like as it should. 
Also started to sand the nose and the tailcone. Will loose a lot of detail I have to rescribe and rivet again. 
But it’s getting more and more to shape...

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Hello Kai,

Great progress, but what a hell of a job, I can remember from my mirage that the fit of the nosecone was also a terrible fit, maybe that's why I abandoned it, I don't know anymore. Great to see another build underway by Alberto. Keep on sanding and scribing, the end is in sight! And then the painting stage....... can't wait to see it,

Hang in there,

Frank

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2 hours ago, Trigger said:

Hello Kai,

Great progress, but what a hell of a job, I can remember from my mirage that the fit of the nosecone was also a terrible fit, maybe that's why I abandoned it, I don't know anymore. Great to see another build underway by Alberto. Keep on sanding and scribing, the end is in sight! And then the painting stage....... can't wait to see it,

Hang in there,

Frank

The further the build goes the more I can understand you Frank!

I only hope that there won’t occur many issues with the landing gear or the stores (tanks and rockets).

I also have the E-Version in my stash which I plan to build as a late Swiss RS with canards and other goodies from Matterhorn Circle. But this moves now to the very end of my list...

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5 hours ago, Kaireckstadt said:

The further the build goes the more I can understand you Frank!

I only hope that there won’t occur many issues with the landing gear or the stores (tanks and rockets).

I also have the E-Version in my stash which I plan to build as a late Swiss RS with canards and other goodies from Matterhorn Circle. But this moves now to the very end of my list...

Yup, I know what you mean, ........................(made the same mistake)........... bottom of my list too.........

IMG_1667.jpg.ce5b52f56eb3e08d5abe16d9bf7eac5c.jpg

 

Frank:hsmack:

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Excellent !
A nitpicking comment, but you are striving for such excellence, that I thought I’d share it: the plate on which the intake « mouse » slides IRL (« behind » the mouse) looks a bit thick on the kit compared to the original, especially on the left intake. Or maybe it is just that the mouse is not as pointy as on the right side ...

Hubert

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29 minutes ago, HubertB said:

Excellent !
A nitpicking comment, but you are striving for such excellence, that I thought I’d share it: the plate on which the intake « mouse » slides IRL (« behind » the mouse) looks a bit thick on the kit compared to the original, especially on the left intake. Or maybe it is just that the mouse is not as pointy as on the right side ...

Hubert

Thanks Hubert!

That‘s no nitpicking! You are totally right! Thanks for the advice! You should always tell things to me which you observe. That’s the one of the reasons for In-Progress-Posts. 4 eyes always see more than 2!


I will sand the leading-edges thinner to a more realistic look! And it’s necessary on both sides. 
 

Thanks again and your comments are more than welcome!

Kai

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