SinuheH

Greg, thanks for your comments  A picture does speak a thousand words. Just imagine the variation when you have 50 pictures all with different photo quality ...
 
Sinuhe, the F1CZ had a three tone colour scheme. The Cheetah C and later Cheetah D colours were two tone but much greyer in hue than the Mirage F1CZ blue-greys.
 
Anyway, all will be revealed when I take photos of it in natural outside light....

Onto her undercarriage. After the weathering I treated the model to a coat of Tamiya TS-80 matt clear decanted from the rattle can, slightly thinned with Tamiya lacquer thinner and then airbrushed on. The result is a noticeably lighter grey with a slight satin sheen. I'm happy as it is :
 

 

 
Undercarriage took a whole hour to get in place :
 

 
And with wing tanks on :
 

 
The artificial light is messing with the photos. The closest colour in reality is what you see on the right wing in the image above. A nice faded grey. Now to tackle the windshield ....

Hi SinuheH, yes it is indeed odd as they were usually pretty strongly toned down however Mistral is correct that there was the odd anomaly see below 
 
Ok I am having no luck posting the pics, hopefully the links will do
 
The more usual low viz Castles

 
Hi Viz Castles

And so my Hasegawa 1/32 Fw 190 D-9 is finished representing Red 1 of JV 44's protection flight and flown by the the Staffel Kapitan Lt. Heinz "Heino" Sachsenberg (104 victories). The models was finished in Mr Paint RLM colours which were a joy to use and the decals were by EagleCals.
This model was supposed to be a straight from the box quick build a year ago - but instead became a money magnet!
After market sets used were the following
Quickboost props
Quickboost Super-charger intake
Quickboost exhausts
Aires cockpit
Aires main gear bay
Barracuda wheels
Eduard canopy mask
Eduard Spiral mask
Eduard landing flaps
Master MG 131 and MG 151 gun barrels - and also pitot tube
HGW seat belts and control surfaces
EagleCals decals as mentioned above.
Added to this list during construction were two of my own AIMS products - 32PE014 Fw 190 Hatches and Latches and 32D024 Fw 190 Oleo Leg markings (I just could not resist getting AIMS into the build somehow
Three other after market products were bought and had to go in the bin but apart from those headaches I really enjoyed building this exotic bird of prey. The model finish was rather simple thankfully as Tamiya 2mm wide flexible tape seemed to fit the scale perfectly. And so with the Mr Paint White Primer masked off the RLM 23 was applied. Once this was masked off the RLM 76 and late war greens were applied free-hand using the many photos of Red 1 as best as possible. Hope you like the finish photos. Please note only the first two photos show the red lowered and locked landing gear indicators as I forgot all about them till after checking the photos. Best wishes and stay safe, John

Thanks!
Today update. I will exchange the exhausts for Quickboost.
 

 

 

 

 

Last update.
 

Thanks all. Here is today update.
 

Great project.
What a coincidence, I have a similar project on my desk. It s a Dragon C-7 from Eastern front.
Good luck

Začal jsem tento Bf 110C-4
1/32 Revell kit
Díly kabiny Eduard v barvě PE
Bezpečnostní pásy HGW
 
















 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Some work on the Kentron V3B infra red air to air missiles. V3B was a local development using what I suspect was a body similar in dimensions to the AIM-9B Sidewinder. The V3B had a unique forward canard surface arrangement. Sometimes the V3B is mistaken to be the same as the Matra R550. However, the R550 is shorter and has shorter chord rear fins and a different canard surface arrangement. The V3B was also not mounted on the cranked pylon like the R550 was. I've seen photos of V3Bs variably in white, light blue-grey and light beige yellow colouring. According to Daan and Nick, the light blue-grey are inert training rounds with the beige ones being live rounds. So I'll go for a beige colour. The launch rail for the V3B was also different to that used for the R550.
 
Kit R550 launch rails modified for V3B :
 

 
I used the kit AIM-9B missiles as the base for my V3B with new fins and canards cut from 0.5mm plastic card with leading edges chamfered using a stiff sanding stick. The yellow tape was added to replicate the forward rail strap :
 

 
Playing around - this is what it'll look like on the wing :
 

 

Anyway, back to regular programming - as noted earlier, the decals are rather bright against the dull grey base. The markings on Cheetah Es were toned down quite significantly and also tended to fade as time passed. Photos show some aircraft with barely discernible castles on the wings and intakes. So I treated my E to a diluted filter of the base grey to tone the decals down. This worked nicely but resulted in plain grey patches. So out came the Uschi vd Rosten masks again and a random darker grey applied to provide variation. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I then applied another coat of Tamiya X-22 acrylic gloss varnish to seal everything in ready for an enamel wash :
 

 
I then took a different approach to my normal weathering. I mostly use pastel but decided to highlight the very nice riveting and panel line detail on the bottom surface. I used Tamiya black enamel panel line wash for this. Like all Tamiya products, this worked great. Excess wash was removed with a cloth and some turpentine using a genie rubbing action. Wash which collected in hard to reach areas was blended in with a soft brush dipped in turpentine. What results is a nice oily and very patchy finish so typical of modern grey camouflage jets - again, very happy how this turned out. I was careful to not have the panel lines show too stark a wash effect. Here's the wash going on :
 

 
A random patchy weathered effect results :
 

 

 
Will wait for wash to dry properly and then treat to some final localised weathering and stains and final satin varnish :
 

 
 
 

Howzit Sinuhe ! Long time no hear. Are you still in Switzerland ?
 
I have tackled the KH Harvard but did it up as a Portuguese one - all part of the African colonial war history, so it sort of counts....it's not a bad kit but the undercarriage legs look a bit short...

A brief departure form the Cheetah - for Sinuhe - one Portuguese T-6 : 

This is going to be a great thread to follow..... keep up the excellent work!
 
 
 
 

Hi all,
 
Just finished this, lovely kit - but the Meng additions are average - Instructions/ Decals. The wings were bent, but easily reformed.
 
Work in Progress here:
 
 
https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=11486.0
 
 
 
Guy
 
 

 


 
 

 



 

 
 


 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Those castles look good Malcolm, a big improvement on previous ones. The Cheetah's wings are looking great too!

More goodies arrived from John at ScaleWorx - balance of resin parts including canards, vertical stab and refuelling probe. Casting is excellent with no pin holes / bubbles. Surface detailing is good - parts individually packed in small ziplock bags :
 
IMG_6028 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
Canards - restrained panel details look correct based on photos I have of #842 :
 
IMG_6030 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
Decals printed by MavDecals in South Africa - interesting to see high vis castles - at least the spingbokkies are gold as they should be - so  many kit manufacturers who provide SAAF decals don't get the gold bokkies correct :
 
IMG_6029 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
 

Rear bulkhead hydraulic plumbing and electrical wiring details have been added using thin lead wire :
 
IMG_5942 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
IMG_5939 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
John provides a really neat replica of the throttle lever. This is installed by drilling a small hole in the bottom of the part and gluing a 10mm section of plastic rod. This is then fed through a hole drilled in the throttle slide. Note that the throttle lever sits at an angle. John has also provided nice replicas of the map holders which are located each side of the cockpit just ahead of the control stick :
 
IMG_5939 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
Everything then primed with Tamiya fine grey primer, decanted from the rattle can and airbrushed on :
 
IMG_5944 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
The only items added to the seat are the two upper harnesses - these hang from the head box and stand proud of the seat - and the foot restraint straps.
 
The Cheetah E cockpit was painted in an attractive light blue-grey colour unlike the black interiors of the Mirage IIIs - I used a mix of Tamiya XF-25/XF-66 greys to replicate this colour. Details were painted using Revell acrylic paint - I find these have a nice consistency for brush painting. Additional interest was added using AirScale cockpit placards :
 
IMG_5983 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
IMG_5985 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
IMG_5988 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr

Here are some photos of the Cheetah E. This is #842 at the South African Air Force Museum at Swartkop Air Base in Pretoria. It was the only Cheetah E painted in this experimental two tone grey camouflage scheme :
 
125_2527 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
125_2568 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
125_2575 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr

This is my first post of a build work in progress on Large Scale Planes. I’ve been lurking for a while now. So now time for my first post which will be the South African Cheetah E.  I’ll be using the Italeri 32nd scale Mirage IIIE kit with the ScaleWorx resin conversion set. John from ScaleWorx (Renegade on this forum) has kindly entrusted me to do a test build of his new conversion set. John has a separate thread on the Works In Progress forums pertaining to his conversion set.
 
Here’s the kit box art which I’m sure you’re all familiar with :
 
20200812_183113 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
Here’s the resin conversion set – box art and parts breakdown :
 
SW32-06 Box Art SAMPLE Only by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
IMG-20200812-WA0051 - 800 by Malcolm Reid, on Flickr
 
The ScaleWorx set is very comprehensive in providing all parts required to construct a Cheetah E. The resin set also includes the corrected length intakes, corrected diameter main wheels and correct length main undercarriage legs, correctly detailed main undercarriage doors and the Atar 09C exhaust, all of which can be used to correct / upgrade the base Mirage IIIE kit i.e. not Cheetah E specific.

Some eye candy while we wait...