IAI Kfir C1 plus

Italeri’s rendition of the early Kfir. On the surface it looks like a decent enough kit. I did not want to model the US version but with a little research I was able to design some custom Isreali decals, with the roundels coming from the spares box. 

Cleaning up the first parts and immediately ran into problems with one of the inlet leading edges that was damaged. Nice and thin though. 

Fit of the wing was so-so, first round of filler applied. Assembled the center tank and discoverd that the surface flakes off. Uh-oh… 

More filling needed on the wing 

The cockpit is very basic. Side consoles are missing, fit is again so-so. Boy, what did I get into… 

Spruced up cockpit and ejection seat. 

Trial fitting the wing showed interference from the landing gear bay roofs. Cut them off and installed them in the fuselage instead. 

Getting the cockpit parts ready for installation. Made a decal for the instrument panel, hence the white base layer. 

Forcing the fuselage together. Gaps all over the place… 

Added some detail to the cockpit aft bulkhead and installed inlets after painting them white. No surprise by now that filling is next. 

Throughout the entire build the surface kept flaking off at random, leading to repeated filling and sanding cycles. Highly annoying… 

Assembly continues. Fit of upper surface is terrible requiring lots of tweaking, forcing, filling and smoothing. The flaking-off driving me to madness. Done with this kit by now… 

Persevering and another shot of primer sanded smooth. Good (enough) to go now for the spray booth. 

Used Humbrol Trainer Yellow for the high-via triangles, followed by the black edges, some panel pre-shading and light blue (Revell 49). So far so good, but I did damage the repaired intake lip during masking, which was repaired again… 

Next the upper colors: Humbrol H63 yellow pale stone but this came out way darker than expected. So I followed up with a 50/50 mix with white, followed by the tan (MM 1742) and green (Revell 365).  

Always the moment of truth: peeling of the masking tape. Not too bad, but some paint lifted here and there. Again... Not sure why this keeps happening to me. 

Fixed the two bigger patches by airbrush, causing a somewhat lighter left elevon. Oh well, we’ll call it a field replacement. 

After a gloss coat with HG51 it is time for the decals. I used a mix of kit decals, spare decals and printed decals. For some of the latter I needed a white backing first. 

After the decals another gloss coat to prepare for light weathering with Revell weathering powders… 

… followed by a Tamiya matt coat. After removing the final masks I have some touch-up on the canopy to do, but otherwise things came out nicely. 

Underside looking good too. Did not spent much time on the wheel wells though I did add some detail to the nose gear well. 

Installing gears, doors and underwing stores. Modified the missile pylons as they sat at a wrong angle. Also had to trim the mid main gear doors to fit. This kit keeps fighting me until the very end… 

But finally done! Canopy sits loose, intended to open it but had no courage left to tackle mounting it. I’m done with it!