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

Fitting issues with the Italeri 1/32 Mirage III


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Gentlemen,

  I apologize for my lack of skills in English composition, but I will do my best to write a little about the new Italeri Mirage.

  I am fully aware that Italeri kits are not up to the standards of Tamiya, Hasegawa, etc. but for the price of their new Mirage III, I was expecting a little better quality, regarding the fitting of the parts.  The parts on the sprue trees look quite nice, and the assemblies of internal components fit well, but when it is time to assemble other components, for example the jet intakes, the kit just does not fit well.  I also had a bit of trouble with the wing assembly, because if it is flush on one end there will be a gap on the opposite side.  So far this model has been very putty hungry, and frustrating.  To make it a good nice looking model, you will need a high level of expertise, which I do not have, and lots of patience.     

  I am building the kit with the Atar 9C, to represent one of the few upgraded Israeli Mirages at the time of the Yom Kippur war, unfortunately, the Isracast tail assembly does not fit well, for that reason I modified the kits tail to make it work.

  I think the kit can make a nice looking model when completed, but I do not think it is going to be an easy build.

 

 

Here some photographs of the build so far.

IMG_3857_zps2qpwrdi8.jpg

 

 

IMG_3858_zpssij7lzcd.jpg

 

I used the Eduard cockpit upgrade.

 

FullSizeRender_zps5aec4eoc.jpg

 

 

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Some lead wire for hydraulics

 

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FullSizeRender_zpsixhym662.jpg

 

 

FullSizeRender_zpssgv5rqik.jpg

 

Lots of putty.

 

944E3C21-0A47-46AA-9A73-81A7A8785D76_zps

 

 

BA14767F-8425-4554-9701-9DBF6A2D496C_zps

 

 

2E8BC1B0-3632-4571-92FB-B02367E45A87_zps

 

 

227B9E67-A162-4722-9D64-A01EE8DA6DAB_zps

 

 

 

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I'm with you on the detail vs price of the kit. They (Italeri) could have done better. However, with a bit of TLC you can create a great model out of this. As the few I have seen built look awesome. So, keep that elbow greased up and beat this kit into a submission. ;)

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Guest DannyVM

At the moment i'm busy with my Italeri Starfighter, same problem, but like mentioned before, with some patience and good filling the job is easily done.

 

If i take a look at you're model, i see that you did a very nice and fine job on the Mirage. That cockpit is simply stunning, great work.

 

Congrats

 

Greetz

 

Danny

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I think it's interesting to note Italeri are now Business Partners with non other than Tamiya...you would be forgiven for thinking therefore Italeri's product would reflect this partnership through infrastructure sharing and quality control - Tamiya's Board of Directors may well to note this works both ways, in that we as the modelers should be looking at this and asking the question of why their Business partner is putting out product that is well above price point for what you get when compared to Tamiya who also put out product to a set pricing structure yet we all know what we are going to get...and we get it. I have looked at this product, considered the price, and put my money elsewhere (Revell 1/32 109/Fw190) instead. Padubon;- I think you are doing a fantastic job, especially in the cockpit area - it's just such a shame a Manufacturer commercially in bed with one of the greats of our hobby puts out this standard of product, in this day and age, when clearly they can (and I jest in the direction of the 35 scale motor torpedo boats here) put out far, far better. Just my opinion guys.

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Dennis,

Thanks for the comment. Can you imagine fully engineered 1/32 tamiya Mirage III? I am willing to sell a kidney to buy it if it ever happened.

You are right about the partnership between those two, too bad Italeri did not match the Tamiya's standard.

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Youngtiger,

  If you are planning on getting or already have one of this Mirages, you will notice that the assembly of the lower wing goes all the way to the bottom of the intakes.  This design will make it very hard to erase the seams inside the intake.  What I did was to cut the lower wing part at the very front, just ahead of the gun wells, along the seam of the upper intake piece, which sadly has about a millimeter gap.3912E126-ED8D-424C-862B-D94D726E8B15_zps  By doing this I was able to erase the seam much more easier than the way the model comes.

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I got one of these recently and for me the only disappointment is that the instrument panel is for an E, not a C. Also, the dials are blank on the panel and there are no dials on the decal sheet. Fisher do a lovely resin set but it is cost prohibitive. 

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14 hours ago, avro683 said:

I got one of these recently and for me the only disappointment is that the instrument panel is for an E, not a C. Also, the dials are blank on the panel and there are no dials on the decal sheet. Fisher do a lovely resin set but it is cost prohibitive. 

Hello, 

If you are interested, I have the fisher set and I did not used it. Let me know if you want it.

IMG_4172.JPG

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