Eduard's 1/48 scale
Dassault Mirage IIICJ

by Sasha Miloshevic

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After fifteen years I returned to the hobby with 1/48 Eduard’s Mirage IIICJ Weekend edition. It took me around eight months of very slow, on and off work to finish it.

It represents an IAF Shahak 52 in the second half of 1970, after achieving six (out of ten) aerial victories, and well before its demise in April 1974.

The model was built mostly with what was in the box, but I tried to improve it as much as my (rusted) skills allowed.

In the cockpit, I made seatbelts from masking tape, fashioned a new ejection handle and a few more details to the seat from stretched sprue. I also added some detail to the front of the instrument panel and made a new gun sight.

I corrected the leading edge angle of the inboard pylons and sharpened the fuel tank tips with putty and superglue. I thinned the leading edges of the outboard pylons, cut off the missile rails and glued them back after some sanding.

As for the landing gear, I shortened the oleo struts on main gear, widened the main tires by sandwiching plastic discs between the tire halves, sanded flat the bottoms, and repositioned and added detail to the front wheel fork.

The model was brush-painted with Humbrol enamels. For some reason I couldn’t achieve an even finish with 119 dark tan, 120 green being somewhat better. Fuel tanks and cannon cover are in buffed chrome silver 191.

I painted the dielectric panels on the fin and spine with MM acrylic light gull gray/black. Next was MM acrylic gloss clear coat, followed by the decal application.

I used the kit decals to produce tail numbers, the front door number came from the old spares (kit decal is too small). Mr Mark Softer did its decal job impressively, after which another coat of MM acrylic gloss clear sealed it.

Weathering

For panel wash I used artists’ acrylic Charcoal Gray of DecoArt - Americana line, mixed with water and dishwashing liquid, and it worked very well.

Next I applied several different oil washes and filters (black, white, Prussian blue, raw and burnt umber).

Everything was sealed with Humbrol Matt Cote, except the radome (Humbrol 33 matt black polished to a high shine).

Photography

I photographed the model in a softbox, with a Canon 400D/50mm (f22), using a tripod.

Eduard’s Mirage IIIC is a nice kit, albeit with a few shortcomings (misaligned molds, slightly warped front fuselage, landing gear in maximum extended position...), but most of the issues can be rectified with some effort. The build was slow and frustrating at times, but I regained my skills and learned a lot in the process.

Now onto finishing the half-built 1/48 Italeri (Esci) A-4F Skyhawk, which I started working on while pausing with the Mirage build.

Happy modeling!

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Model, Text and Images Copyright © 2011 by Sasha Miloshevic
Page Created 5 April, 2011
Last Updated 5 April, 2011

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