The SAAF Forum

Thanks Dean and Bushpig.

The undercarriage saga continues.

The nose gear leg is a salient feature of the Mirage (trademark) stable. It is a solid casting with much detail. The plastic casting isn't.



The snag is the join method, and it would have been better if the leg was one piece, with the wheel "arm" separate. Anyhow, this is a method of getting it to look a bit better. You will notice pencil lines on the attachment tabs which I will cut back to get the gear closer to the bulkhead when mounted.







Main legs completed, awaiting wiring and hydraulic lines.



I bought an Isracast 09C resin engine, which is a thing of beauty.







Their MB Mk4 however, is not.

Madmax most impressive detail work!

Patience is a virtue!

Thanks Geoff.

The wheels and legs are now complete, with simplified hydraulic lines and wiring.



I had to add a bit of styrene to the top of the legs so that they sit properly in the wing mounting.



The Isracast Martin Baker Mk4 is really not up to snuff. I tackled the kit seat much as did with the IIIC, but I hope to have a better answer to this problem soon - stay tuned...











Now for the decals. The Cartograph printed set in this kit are better than those in the C - not quite as thick, but still thick. You know. The biggest modeling bugbear I have is the lack of decent Castles in the known universe. When is someone going to get it right, especially the outline? Until then the old "Printed in Great Britain" jobbies are the closest, but sadly my latest sheet is just off register and the bokkies look smudged. Aaargh!



Glossy and decorated. I am enjoying the NATO Cold War colours...



And still the underside looks the best. Maybe I'll display it upside down.



Beware of these little hinges, they are very fragile. I had to glue on strengthener plates.



A little cut on this decal will hopefully allow me to stretch out the Mirage (trademark) logo to look more like it did in '66.



For those who might almost remember L-R: Willie vd Lingen, Bob King, Ollie Holmes, Bossie Huyser, Jan Guyt, Ed Pienaar, Dennis Earp.



Access doors and T-handles.



And finally a thought about the drop-tanks. The Mirage IIIRZ virtually operated with 1300 litre tanks welded to the wings, and I wanted to put them on. You may recall however that Joker pointed out to Malcolm that these are incorrect as moulded in this kit. Curses! I started to look at ways of correcting them, but saw it was just going to be too time consuming (and my stash of kits is now also becoming a problem with the arrival of a large Mig-29 box quite recently). So, 500 litre "supies" it will be as per Daan's photo.

More on the decal saga. Joker is correct in recommending the Airfix Canberra decals, they will do the job very well indeed.



but interestingly the "Made in Great Britain" decals - despite being very old - still sit down perfectly well without any solvents. The only snag is the blue isn't well saturated and the white has yellowed a bit over the years. They look quite presentable on the underside however...



I then considered a different option. Why not use a photo of a castle to print on a white decal sheet? I have a nice square photo with good colour and even a bit of weathering - pretty real actually. The trick is to get it to size in high definition on a decal sheet. 17 year old son to the rescue! He managed to import the photo to "Word", resize and select different colour options, save it as a PDF and print this uber cool decal sheet for me.





Sure, you have to cut out the castle, but strangely that isn't the hard part - the difficult part is getting the decal off the backing, and I suspect the cutting complicates things.



This is what it looks like on the model, and I am very pleased indeed. Teenage boys aren't all bad!

That's a really smart solution. Why not, photograph the markings needed and print them out as a photograph on decal paper. That mixes things up a bit .

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Hi Madmax


Brilliant solution. So nice to see someone has eventually gotten the shape and the size of the castles correct on a SAAF Mirage III. It just looks right!!!

Joker

Very nice . I've tried this in the past but just cannot get an unpixellated print . How'd you guys print ?

Thanks MARS, Joker, and Mistral. These decals have made a big difference to the model!

Malcom, re the pixellation, I can only think that somehow you are saving the images in a non PDF format. My son tried saving the document in Word, and it dummed the resolution down immediately. He then saved it as a PDF file to the desktop in order to preserve what is a pretty large file. Print best quality on glossy photo paper (it will take quite a while to print). Hope that helps.


I have done some of the menial final tasks in the meanwhile, and am just waiting for mail from the Cape to complete this narrative. The pylons are very bland, so I added some detail to them.



The drop tanks have been sanded down and the raised seams scribed instead (you will notice that the re-scribing isn't an exact science ). The fun part was experimenting with the finish. I have used a 2000 grit sponge to "brush" the metal and then sprayed Alclad Chrome over that. Not perfect but has potential for future polished metal aircraft...





I then gingerly tackled the canopy. You may recall that I cracked my C's canopy and had to buy a whole new kit to complete it (thankfully the gents at JIX eventually got me a replacement canopy)! I highly recommend using the Montex masks for this kit - makes life a lot easier.





The Isracast exhaust was attached to to the kit engine after much fitting and sanding. I'm not sure how one would actually use the Isracast resin "mini" engine instead?



Final work on the seat included the harnesses, which are quite complex, so I have simplified them. The Eduard Mirage set doesn't have the right hardware for the adjusting buckles, so I tried my Bf109 spares. Fail. look at how broad the 109's belts are in comparison to Martin Baker's!



Nearly there now.

Looking good. As always exceptionally neat work . Thanks for the tip on converting to PDF. Will try that.

Finally received what I was waiting for - an ejection seat from Scaleworx!

I wanted to see what we have available locally, how it compares to the the Isracast seat, and my own modifications of the kit seat. I must say, it fares very well. Here it is in John's blue resin, professionally packaged as you can see - and it handled the rigours of our post office unscathed.



Here you can compare my mods in black, Scaleworx in the middle and Isracast on the right. John has got the proportions right, and on this his latest Mk4 he has included the seat belts in resin.





John also included his Atar 09C exhaust, and it could save you quite a bit of time if you were contemplating modifying the kit part...



The seat paints up well, although it requires a delicate touch to get the belts looking neat.



In future I would personally opt for the belt-less seat and rather add my own as it is much easier to paint, and more defined. The resin belts are a time saver however and it is ultimately up to the individual.

Just out of interest, look at how similar our seat proportions are. Needless to say it fits flawlessly in the cockpit. For those of you busy with or contemplating this build, the Scaleworx resin is certainly worth investing in!

A strange thing happens when you see photo's of your own model - the mistakes become glaringly obvious. Maybe this is one of the benefits of posting the build online, an impartial critic in the camera! I thought everything was peachy until I saw how the camera bay door hung, and how cruddy the fuel caps looked.





So, back to the workbench where I discovered un-removed masking and a poorly completed AOA probe. Finishing off just can't be rushed and it was only a day later that I was finally able to take photo's of the completed project.

A Tamiya kit this is not. If however you persevere, much can be made of it. It forms a sound basis for what is surely the only currently viable Mirage III in 1:32 scale.

The colour scheme I finally chose might not have Dudley Trollip's name on it, but it is the same aircraft he finally delivered to the SAAF Museum. It represents a bit of a time warp back to the days when we were clearly in so much haste to buy them, that they arrived in their NATO fatigues. I'm sure there was a lot to be learned about photo reconnaissance from 1966 until the RZ's and R2Z's were deployed in the Bush War, but it was clearly done well. In many ways, it was the recce boys who really shone for the Flying Cheetah's during this period, and the wearing of a "Tac Recce" badge on ones overall was a matter of great pride.

So, here she finally is...













I think the work on the wheels was worthwhile, as she now really sits like a Mirage III - elegantly of course.





And of course the underside which is so well moulded, and I still don't know for sure if it is metal or paint. This is vaguely in-between.





I am quite pleased with the "tin canning" effect on the gun and fuel bays.

I did arguably go crazy in the wheel wells. I think it was worth it.





And on the undercarriage legs...





One of the highlights of this build was the castle decals my son produced for me. Well done Brett!



Talking of decals - Joker also came to the rescue with spares of these, and the advice to paint the small grey panel that NOBODY else notices above the rudder.



Here are some detail shots of the cockpit. The work on the "dash" also shows up surprisingly well.









And even the gunsight...

The delta shape of the Mirage III is as pure as one gets, and the "waisting" of the fuselage is, well, appealing in a French kind of way.





Isracasts 09C exhaust is beautifully cast.





Just a look at the starboard side...









And some nostalgia to end it off.

An absolute stunner!

Beautiful photography too.

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How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?