Kfir

Michael Kohl
I felt the strong urge to build something israeli. Having a Fouga Magister and a Kfir in my stash I opted for the latter. With a Super Mystere and a Mustang in two tone camouflage it is now time for the three tone one on the Kfir.

The Kfir.
France was the main arms supplier of Israel until the end of the sixties. She terminated that role and even installed an arms embargo in 1967, denying Israel even arms already payed for. So Israel produced the Kfir out of a mix of reverse engineering the Mirage IIIC already in service, industrial espionage and own development. In service from the mid seventies on, it´s air superiority role was soon taken over by F15s and F16s and the Kfir was mainly used as a ground attack aircraft.

There are quite a few of these aircraft scattered throughout the country, mostly the earlier C2 version. You find them in Museums, at the center of roundabouts or in front of Airforce Camps. The upgraded C7 you will find at the Airforce Museum in Hatzerim, close to Beersheva.

My version will be a C7 with the ordnance of the cover art picture.

DerMattes
Watching 🙂

Christian Lehmann
👍

Marius
Watching! Good work so far.
I have two of these kits awaiting their turn in some years (...). So you'll do the three tone desert scheme?

Michael Kohl
Welcome mates. Nice to have you around.
Yes Marius, three tone is the goal.

Michael Kohl
Well, inpatience got the better of me as I wanted to put on a first coat of primer. Now I realise that I forgot the mirrors at the canopy and that the canopy frame should have received a coat with interior color first. Grr.
Mistake one will stay like this, mistake to I will try to correct by washing of the primer at the canopy with IPA.

Finn
Watching

TH SCALE MODELS (Thomas Haberl)
Sehr fein, Michael! 😊

Mikel
Dont worry too much the interior color of the cockpit frame.
Most people wont notice any color difference there.
And pics of the actual kfir show a black color on the inside.
Sometimes it seems more like a convention for scale modelling than an actual fact, to color the inside frame in the interior color.

Shar Dipree
Very nice, looks great so far. Following!

Michael Kohl
Welcome mates and thanks for the encouragement.

Mikel, thanks for your input. I think you are right. I checked again and while the windshield might have the interior color at the inside of the frame (on an American machine), I found a pic of a scavenged Israeli C7 with the canopy open and it is definitely black on the inside.
But I will leave it as it is now anyway.

Dave Flitton
Excellent information! I will apply that to my model as well.

Martin Grafeneder
Great work 👍

Michael Kohl
Hi Dave and Martin. If my experiences will help avoid trouble and enhance fun I will be more than pleased. Right now I have this on hold as I do not like the look of the preshading. I will have to decide now on how to procede. Probably I will redo the paint job with a different approach.

Marius
Sorry to hear about the stepback. It happened to my last two models too. What I did is to sand down lightly and gently the current paint to some extent and gently go over all details once more with a scribind tool (those ones which are like a pen and are only pointy), so that details become crisp again. I did this over all bolts/rivets too. It took me less than 3 hours overall. Then I applied new paint and I was generall happy with the result. If you consider this effort to take less time than starting your model from 0, then it's probably worth it indeed.

Michael Kohl
Hi Marius. Thanx for the heads up. The technique you suggest is actually exactly what I intend to do. Detail is still quite crisp, so I might limit the rescribing to selected areas. I will see.
By the way: your Phantom serves as a role model for me. That is the quality I strive for in my build. Cross your fingers. (I know you will 🙂 )

Michael Kohl
Well. What do I care about the rubbish I said yesterday!? 😜

Trying it out successfully on a fuel tank I finally opted for another technique. A slight rub with IPA removed just the coloured layer and the shading without damaging the primer too much. Done mostly with cotton buds I even had good control over the process. Here the very expensive tightly rolled fine Tamiya cotton buds shined as they didn't disintegrate even with more forceful rubbing and allowed me to reach into all the thight spots.

Michael Kohl
Second round of the three tone camo.

Alec K
Nice progress, interesting to follow as always 👍

Nicolas
Watching

Michael Kohl
Thanks Alec for the nice compliment.
Welcome Nicolas.

Robert Podkoński
How have I missed that? Watching with interest, of course!

Michael Kohl
Robert, you are welcome any time. Thanks Jos and all the other mates for sneeking in and leaving a like.
I touched up the three tone camo but the Mr. Hobby Color paints did not behave nicely when brushed. So even even after the repair I've been unhappy with the result. I sanded the thick paint layer with a high grit, masked the dark brown color another time and airbrushed the defective areas. Not perfect but much better. Now onto the last detail paintings.

CaptGPF
Looking forward to the final result! Looks great so far!