32nd Mirage IIID2Z (with ScaleWorx conversion set)

[alain11]

excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! , parts look great , your job does them justice , good job , I like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I NEED THIS SET !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alain

[Mistral]

Thanks Gents  I appreciate your positive feedback .

 

Kagemusha, John has me on a tight deadline...

Alain, I think John will print money with this one - seems to be a popular subject.

 

More progress - firstly, to deal with those kit supplied gun inserts. They need work as the SAAF Mirages gun barrels extended quite a way out and not as per the kit parts . So I drilled out the kit barrels and hollowed out the back end to take a longer brass tube - seen in second photo :

 

 

 

 

 

Now I can glue the upper fuselage to the lower combined fuselage and wings :

 

Wing to fuselage joint glued and no filler required :

 

 

 

 

 

Rear ventral rear fuselage glued. Gap to be filled with plastic card....

 

 

[Mistral]

And now to sort out the dorsal fairing. This needs to drop in between the fuselage halves. So some really careful grinding down with dremmel and sharp knife. Too much and we'll be left with a nasty gap to fill. Once that was done, a ledge must be glued in place to either fuselage half using plastic card - this will allow the resin part to sit on something (the compressor bullet fairing has taken a bit of a pounding from the dremmel tool... - we'll blame it on an ingested bird...)

 

 

Loose fit - I'll only glue this once the forward fuselage is prepped for fit :

 

 

 

 

 

[Mistral]

So with the resin forward fuselage halves glued together, time to deal with the seams. I used Tamiya UV curing putty to fill the gaps. This stuff has pretty much the same consistency as the resin so sands really nicely. I then closed the cockpit up with tape whilst I prepped the nose junction. Some scraping was required to get the nose to sit nicely.

 

 

Seams filled and sanded and nose loose fit - good fit. Starting to look like a D2Z...:

 

 

 

Then nose gear bay slid in from the rear and glued in place with CA glue :

 

 

 

There you go.....working up the courage to start cutting back on the kit fuselage 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cheetah11]

Hi Malcolm

 

Looking good

 

Are you going to use John’s Mirage IIIE intakes as well?

 

Cheers

Nick

[Mistral]

Hi Nick. Yes, they're part of the conversion set. These will be last to go into place....

[Renegade]

Hi Malcom,

You are doing extremely tidy work

Next will be the daunting task of cutting back into the fuselage...

 

Cheers,

John

[Mistral]

Thanks John .

 

Nose gear bay first painted :

 

 

 

So, to the sounds of Pink Floyd's The Final Cut, we progressed with some surgery.

 

Tools of the trade. That little circular cutter is an aggressive piece of kit and must be treated with respect. Pencil marks show cut lines :

 

 

 

The rear of the cockpit section must match the curvature of the resin dorsal insert. Dimensions were slightly out, so a spacer was inserted to bend the walls out by around 0.5mm. Sounds like nothing, but a step in this area will not look good :

 

 

 

On each of the cut lines, I chamfered the inner edges to eliminate any potential interference with the curves sides of the resin parts. It took around 2 hours of very carefully trimming with a sharp knife after the initial cut was done. Trim, trim, test fit, trim, trim, test fit....you get the idea . Great way to celebrate Human Rights Day public holiday in Souf Efrika :

 

And here you go - dry fit with jury rigged supports - it's looking sleek like a D2Z should. She's gonna be a looker ...

 

 

[Kagemusha]

Absolutely worth all the intricate work, great tutorial too. 

[Mistral]

Time to resurrect this build thread. I've been out of action for 2 weeks due to eye issues. But back at the bench now. Based on Nick's earlier question, John and I have been having some robust debate and head scratching concerning the intakes. I initially did the cut on the kit parts to take the new resin intakes too far back and had to stitch a whole bunch of plastic back on - you'll see what looks like a mess in the attached photos. I glued these in place and then we realised that they should be 3mm shorter than what I had. So John has remedied the resin intakes to provide for the correct length - these will be provided in the resin set. Mine are 3mm too long but by this stage I had invested too many hours filling, scribing, etc. to go back.

 

In image below a couple of things need to be sorted : the vents just inboard of the gun troughs must be blanked and filled, the intake inner edges must be closed (this is corrected on the revised resin intakes), you can see the stitching with plastic card to sort out my ****-up on the intakes - more work than was necessary - what's the old saying ? Measure twice, cut once , panel lines to all be recruited once filling is complete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by Mistral
Image added

[Mistral]

Ventral fairing added. Blended in with Perfect Plastic Putty and Tamiya light curing putty. Gap on exhaust halves filled with plastic card :

 

 

 

Primed using Tamiya grey primer - some minor blemishes to be worked away :

 

 

 

The spine section must be faired gently into the fuselage ahead of the vertical stabiliser. As noted before in this thread, the spine double curve in the kit parts must be reduced to a single continuous curve as has been done in the image below :

 

 

 

Using "Dymo Tape" as guides to rescribe the two access hatches :

 

 

The two dorsal intakes were added to suitably shaped thin plastic card bases as the raised detail on the kit was sanded away whilst filling up the mould mismatch steps which this kit suffers from. Resin spine has been treated to Tamiya grey primer - I use this straight out of the can and then smooth down using 8,000 grade micro mesh cloth :

 

 

getting some shape....

 

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by Mistral
text edit

[Mistral]

Intake seams filled, panel lines rescribed where necessary, intake reinforcing strips added using 0.5mm thick plastic card - these are distinctive features at top and bottom of intakes near the leading edge :

 

 

 

Nose with a plastic card backing ring added - there was a slight step as a result of me sanding back on the resin cockpit tub forward bulkhead too much. The pitot probe is loose fitted and is one of the Master masterpieces... :

 

 

 

Nose glued in place using cyano glue. Filled with Tamiya light curing putty. Panel line later rescribed :

 

 

Small intake added to lower starboard nose. Still to be added are the two pitot probes just ahead of the windshield. The circular "window" at the cockpit / nose junction is actually a plexiglass cover over a tube which runs right through the forward fuselage to the other side. In case of emergency (e.g. nose gear failure), a spigot can be attached through this tube to allow the nose to be lifted and the aircraft towed away - thanks John for clarifying this. I always wondered what it was for - I always assumed something to do with hydraulic pressure... :

 

 

 

Lower fuselage just aft of nose gear bay - filled and primed. Small gun chamber intake added. These seem to have been variably fitted to the SAAF's Mirage III series. Some minor panel line rectification work to be done :

 

 

 

[Mistral]

So then, all resin parts glued in place and primed with Tamiya grey surface primer :

 

 

 

 

 

Looking so much sleeker than my overweight feline companion in the background 

 

 

Just to add, the elevons and SAS control surfaces and their actuator failings went on beautifully this time with no filler required. Also note the blade antenna at the top of the vertical stabiliser, both sides.

[Mistral]

Comparison with hanger friends - IIIRZ :

 

 

 

With IIICZ - D2Z will be in a similar colour scheme - hard edge, semi gloss. Single seater looks so much chubbier  :

 

 

 

[Mistral]

Next, the wing mounted JL-100 combined fuel tank / rocket pods. These were carried by the SAAF Mirage IIID2Zs in both training and combat sorties up on the border. John has provided the correct pod diameter, nose configuration and inboard wing pylon - the kit's pylons are too short and too shallow. John also provides the little arming latch on the lower side as well as the rocket exhaust shrouds. These were located only over those exhausts adjacent to the outboard wing pylons. The purpose was to reduce the chance of flames from these exhausts impacting on the IR sensors on the outboard missiles. Once again, thanks for the clarification John 

 

 

 

I added small location pins using thin brass tube. These items are rather heavy and will need some positive location onto the wings :

 

 

 

 

All treated to the standard Tamiya fine grey surface primer :

 

 

 

Here you go.... Temporarily in place using Prestic :