Finger English

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Finger is the name given to project that turned the IAI Nesher (Dagger) of the Argentine Air Force into a more powerful gun platform, trying to resemble the modern IAI Kfir.
Beginning in 1982, the planes that survived the Malvinas/Falklands war were turned into this standard, even when the conflict was still raging. The prototype of Finger I was finished in June 1982 and flew during the war (C-427). The first plane completely converted was C-408.

Little by little, all the rest of the planes were turned into Fingers, but without the originally proposed Marconi equipments. Eventually, the modifications to the two wars veterans were:

Originally, Fingers kept their SAE color scheme without the roundels and serial numbers. Towards the end of the '80s, though, different air superiority greys were tried, and an overall light grey with dark insignias and stencils was adopted. Sadly, all the kill marks were overpainted. Due to the low budget the AAF has, there aren't two planes with the same grey and currently the shades go from an almost dirty white to a dark greyviolet. Sometimes some panels are natural metal or anti rust red. This means that, although you want to model a certain plane from a picture, stencils and colors are up to the modeler imagination.

The easier way to have a Mirage in 1/48 is to buy the III B/C of Heller. Of course, differences between a III C and a Finger are noteworthy. But being the only cheap and available kit, it was the one I chose to make the conversion.
Plastic is soft and light blue. The areas to be modified were: exhaust, ventral tank, nose, and the length of the fuselage behind the cockpit.

To work in order, I started from the tail, then moving to the nose. First task was cutting the original exhaust zone along the panel line, as this one is too long (see red zones in Image 1). I copied this couple of pieces in rubber, using the Esci kit as the master. Araldite resin with yellow color was used to mold the parts. With a cutter, I cut out the moveable parts of the wings, as I wanted them place in a sloppy position (down). It was also necessary to cut out the oval base of the ventral filet, as the IAI's got another shape. To be able to glue both fuselage halves and have a good base to avoid problems and deformations, the lower part of the wings must be glued to the fuselage halves and upper part (piece 52). Fit is quite tricky and difficult. Then all the resin parts were glued in place with Cyano. A very evident step between the resin and plastic pieces was smoothed after no less than 5 sessions of putty and sandpaper. Using airbrush and white paint, I painted the area and found some overlooked blemishes. So more putty and sandpaper later, this part was ready.
	Image 1

Then I turned my attention to the upper wing halves, but a little misplacement of the bottom halves caused a 2 mm gap between the fuselage and the upper left half. To make the union stronger, I glued plastic bits taken from sprue. (green zones in Image 1). Even with these reinforcements, this soft plastic really tested my nerves as the putty was several times cracked under the slightest pressure. Same gap was found under the right wing, but it was easier to deal with as the surfaces were more firm.

Such a boring and demanding task made me leave the plane aside for some time, and I built something more friendly, like a Tamiya or Hasegawa...
Afterwards, with new strenght, I finished the lousy step (again, with some with paint airbrushed to check for deffects - see picture Entero I or II) to move to the ventral tank. It was also copied from Esci using the same technique. Before resing was completely dry and hard (24 hours), I took advantage of the flexibility of resin and glued it to its place below the rear part of the fuselage. This allowed me to make it follow the curvature of this part of the plane. More numerous sessions of putty and sandpaper followed…

With this ended, all the rear part of the fuselage and wings were ready.
On the tail the oval support of the antennas, also made in resin from scratch, and the pointed antenna were glued.

From the nose of the single seat version (IIIC) I cut the radar radome. To improve the cockpit interior, I took color copies in transparencies using the Esci decals. Then I got an instrument panel and side consoles that were better than the plain ones of Heller. Seat come from Airwaves and the ejection handles were scratch built using plastic taken from the new clothes price tags. With these parts ready, I glued the cockpit and fuselage nose without adding the gunsight yet.

Therefore I had to scratch build an extension plug. This was done with a semicircular part for right behind the cockpit and 3 little pieces for the sides and back wall of the nose landing leg well. This well was now longer (as the nose section had been moved forward and had, therefore, to be made shorter).

Once the resin copies of my scratch built parts were ready, I glued the semicircular one to the rear part and the cockpit part of the fuselage using "three" hands. Alignment was complex and the risk of breaking them off was high. To help in this task, the extensions for the wheel well were also fit at this step. Union of the wheel well doors and fuselage is quite bad…where had I left my Putty!!!??? After leaving glue to dry for a couple of days, I made the triangular base that goes below the air intakes. For this I used an old credit card. As this was not standard to the kit, more sessions of putty were needed to "lead" the borders of the triangles and make them join the "channel" that runs between the air intakes and the fuselage. (pieces 1 and 15 - see right image) When the superior and inferior surfaces where good enough for me, I glued pieces 50 and 51. Again, putty and sandpaper were used to smooth the union of the triangles and the base of the air intakes. With this ready, I glued pieces 18 and 19 (exterior part of the air intakes). More putty and sandpaper was needed to conceal the fuselage to air intakes union, specially close to the gun muzzles…I believe I must have spent a whole Putty pouch during the construction of this kit!
	Image 2