F7F-3 Tigercat - BuNo 80405 - VMF 312 MCAS - El Toro, CA 1946

[Phartycr0c]

Again, outstanding work and a great recovery.

 

The consolation to this is that at least working with resin, as messy and difficult to work as it is, when it does break, it breaks cleanly allowing the joint to go back together just as cleanly. 

 

I was going to suggest asking HPH for a replacement fuselage side as Im sure they want to see more of their kits built and completed rather than started and abandoned but youve done a stellar job of repairing the bodyside. 

 

I do feel your pain but keep up the good work, I'm half tempted to break out the Sea Hornet as a "sympathy" build which would be my first foray into a full resin kit.

[Out2gtcha]

congrats Brian, looking good man!

 

 

Oh wow!  Not a good sign when people post photos of hard liquor on your build report!  So sorry to hear about the fuselage cracking Brian!  I was afraid of the last straw effect on this one but I guess when the going gets tough, Brian gets going.  Great fix and it looks like the build is back on track.

 

 

Brian, a lot  has been said already on the subject, and any additional comment on my side would be more or less a waste, since i feel you ARE my Tigercat-hero on this remarkable enterprise (no hugs pleeeeeze.... ), but all your "adventures" with this project remind me to have a bottle of "un-cure" right next to the CA glue in case things go south...........

Your in-progress reports are great reading material, thank you very much

 

J.

 

 

Brian

What a recovery and way to go! . Amazing work. I can honestly say, I never would have had both your patience and incredible skill to get this far and work though so many problems and issues. Even working out how to close off the nose gear weight was ingenious.

My next two or three builds after the SBD are resin kits and have been taking a boat load of notes. I'll be testing medium Zap-a-Gap as compared to the Loctite I normally use and never have followed up using the two part epoxy with thin CCA... more testing for sure.

Just looking at the photographs, kudos on your progress - brilliant work

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

 

Maybe I'm just using the wrong super glue. I've been using the BSI odorless stuff. I'll pick up some Zap-A-Gap Medium then to see if that works better

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt 

 

 

Catching up on this Brian. Wow, what a journey so far. What a tremendous effort. I know you will get this one sorted. It looks like all Hph kits are made with such small tolerance that scale issues arise. Hence the need to alter/adjust parts that go on the inside of the fuselage. I experienced this too with Me410 build. But closing the fuselage for good is maybe the biggest hurdle you have overcome and with care and patience you will get it to the end!

 

 

Again, outstanding work and a great recovery.

 

The consolation to this is that at least working with resin, as messy and difficult to work as it is, when it does break, it breaks cleanly allowing the joint to go back together just as cleanly. 

 

I was going to suggest asking HPH for a replacement fuselage side as Im sure they want to see more of their kits built and completed rather than started and abandoned but youve done a stellar job of repairing the bodyside. 

 

I do feel your pain but keep up the good work, I'm half tempted to break out the Sea Hornet as a "sympathy" build which would be my first foray into a full resin kit.

 

 

 

 

 

Shawn, John, Jack, Peter, Matt, Wouter, Pharty, thanks one and all for the kind words!  It indeed has been journey, and its not done yet!  After closing off the fuselage, sanding down the CA/micro-balloons mix, then applying some Mr Surfacer 500 to let that dry, I had a good sit down and good long thought about what part of this project I wanted to tackle next.

I thought about delving into something like the nacelles or engines or the like to see how those went. I then thought about the next steps needed to get the air-frame itself straightened out, and thought better of it.

 

 

I decided that I just needed to bite the proverbial bullet, and tackle what needed to be tackled next, as I had put off even thinking about it for too long up to this point. I needed to sort the wings out. 

I had up to this point, been putting it off and putting it off. It was time to sort them out.....................

 

 

Back in a bit with some pics! 

[Out2gtcha]

There are several hurdles to the HpH F7F kit. Some of these are minor, and to some others are down right deal breakers. The kit has a lot of advantages to it, and also has some wonderful detail that can in some ways only be represented in this medium.  HpH has done a wonderful job in the detail department.
However the nature of the resin manufacturing process, as well as the nature of the industry itself, being closer in general to cottage than industrial also means there are (or can be) chances for tolerances to be off in the manufacturing itself. Some of these issues can and probably should be avoided before leaving the factory, and some are just unavoidable or impossible to catch 100% of the time. Whichever class you put the Tigercat wings in, they needed to be fixed.
You can see the issue here, as lining up each wings lower half at the wing tip light cutout, puts the panel and rivet lines off by a significant amount. The main issues appear outboard of the engine nacelles. Inboard is not nearly as bad, and can be adjusted easily with much less work, but the outboard sections are an issue:
 

 
 
 
The F7F port wing has its leading edge panel/rivet lines off by 2mm & in some spots as much as 3mm. The Starboard wing is much better than the port, but needed to have some adjustments too.
There have been several schools of thought in my head about this, and some great ideas put forth by some well known and excellent LSP modelers here. Ive taken all into consideration when thinking about how best to fix this issue.
 
First up, it would be possible to strategically chop up the wings in such a manor as to remove the 2-3mm section needed, and shift the entire wing section down the needed amount, cut the end cap of the wing off, and re-glue things back together. There would be some advantages to this, not the least of which would be that re-scribing would be kept to a minimum. Looking things over you can see how the wing halves sit together in their OOB state. Overall the wing halves themselves line up quite well when it comes to aileron, flap and root sections: 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
Two main things I wanted when fixing this issue:
 
1. - If I had to fix or mod anything, it was going to be the lower wing halves, as the uppers not only would show the most, but when looking at them together they were not off like the lower wing sections were
 
2. - I didnt want to cut up, nor re-scribe any detail on the upper wings halves at all, as that would much more readily show, and knowing how much less perfect anything I re-did would be compared to the OOB detail,  I didnt want to do that. 
 
Here's the rub:
When I started looking at what it would take to fix this by chopping out the wing sections to move them to accommodate the amount the panels were off, I found in order to use this method I would likely have to modify the upper wings too.
 
If you look at chopping out a section of the lower wings, shifting that section down, removing the end cap, then adding it back there, you really cant do it without doing it to the upper wing section too, as the aileron, and flap sections would no longer fit like they should. When you shift just the lower section to do this without moving the upper wing section it really throws off the above mentioned areas:
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
This would unfortunately break my second want for fixing this. Now there would be a way to do this by possibly more minimally chopping up the upper wings, but honestly everything fit so well and looked so good up top, I didnt want to take a chance on messing anything up up top, nor taking a chance on having to modify, chop up, or otherwise have anything else not fit, so I decided that this was not the method to fix this if I didnt want to mess with the upper wings.
In the end I decided that a tried and true method for me has been rescribing using the frisket film method. I don't like re-scribing, and it never ever turns out as nice as the OOB detail is especially when compared to the OOB HpH detail, but using the method I was planning on using, and considering the area to be fixed on one underside wing half only, I felt that the re-scribing would be kept to a minimum, and I would not have to worry about touching the upper wing OOB detail at all, nor would I have to worry about fit of the wing halves, nor fit of the ailerons, flaps or wing fit to the fuselage in the end. 
 
So on I went.............
 
The frisket film method is one I used before when taking off raised detail, or having to move panel or rivet lines around after taking off bad/ill placed or raised ones. 
This involves taking clear adhesive backed frisket art film, placing a section over the area to be re-scribed, and tracing all the detail onto it, including all panel lines, rivet lines, hatches and access panels, then removing the film, storing it on a piece of wax paper. Then after filling in all the previous detail & smoothing things out, you lay the traced frisket film back on the model and re-scribe the detail where it needs to be. This is exactly what I did:
 

 
 
 
 
 
In the end you get this, after you remove the frisket film and place it on a peice of wax paper to keep the adhesive in good shape:
 

 
 
 
 
 
I started off with the inner port leading edge section inboard of the nacelle as it was easiest to do, and was the smallest section that had to be modified on each wing half. I used some medium Zap-a-Gap CA on all the panel lines, smoothed that out, the slathered Mr Surfacer 500 on:
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
MORE.....................

[Out2gtcha]

Next it was time for the main event. The detail is significant here, and as such I have no illusions that what I replace here will not only not be perfect, but will be missing some things, as well. 
Im sure in the end this will not be perfect at all, nor will it likely match  the underside port section perfectly. But, in the end I know it will all fit as the kit should have OOB. I used some medium Zap-a-Gap again here on the larger section.
Its not pretty at this stage but necessary, as with the amount and depth of the detail I felt Mr Surfacer 500 alone would not be enough;
 

 
 
 
 
 
I also applied the same CA to the smaller inboard leading edge sections. After the CA had dried on all sections, I went through and sanded those sections smooth with 320, then 400, followed up by 600 wet/dry sandpaper. I then applied a layer of Mr Surfacer 500 to fill any remaining gaps or detail in the areas to be re-scribed. This also included the large main section in need of fixing on the starboard underside as well as a couple of small key sections on both upper wings that in the end was unfortunately unavoidable, but had to be done to get both sides to match up:
 

 

 

 



 
 
 
 
 
At this point its still in process, all rescribing is not complete yet, and I had to go back over and fill in two rivet lines I messed up, but you get the idea. The result is actually quite pleasing, even though at this point it looks a bit rough, with some black clay wash applied to see what I was doing, as a bit of a "ghost image" could still be seen of the original detail through the CA, and it really through the eyes off when working on where the detail should go:
 








Nothing even remotely as good as the detail was OOB, but it will mainly all be on the lower wing sections that will be seen much less, and in the end there will be no worries about fit of the wing halves to each other, fit to the fuselage, nor fit of the ailerons or flaps. 

A quick test fit reviles what I had hoped for, and that is fully aligned panel and rivet lines from top to bottom.

 

Its not perfect, and still needs to be smoothed out as well as have some of the panel lines shallowed out as some are way too deep, but Ill take it! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Im back off to the modeling room to see if I can finish off the scribing and smooth things out. After looking the instructions over for this bit, there is really nothing left to do but glue the wings together, as most of the detail in the wing vents will have to be added after I glue the wing halves together so I can smooth the vents out. I think I would destroy the PE dividers that are supposed to go in there if I glued them in now.

The only question is how much of the inside of the wing vents can be seen if a judge or other shines a flash-light in there. I will ponder that, and add some bits to block off areas if a lot of it can be still be seen with the halves glued together. 

 

Thanks for looking in on me, and more later.

Cheers! 

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Fantastically impressive and courageous work, Brian! You've really shown the way here.

 

Kev

[bdthoresen]

Brian-

Looks great man! Loving the work so far. I have been thinking about what you have been saying about the kit, and ultimately I agree with your sentiments. A 300.00 kit should not necessarily have these minor issues. But saying that, if you had built the vacuform kit, I think the issues would be way worse. I do love what you have done so far. Once this annoying task is complete, you can get back to the fun stuff!

 

Keep ‘em coming!

 

THOR

Edited January 28, 2018 by bdthoresen

[vespaboy48]

Picking up so many tips from you guys on here. Brian all i can do is look in awe at the work your doing and hope to one day be a quarter of the modeller you are!!

 

Mark 

[Wouter]

Oef, you're a brave man Brian!

[RLWP]

[Jack]

Brian-

Looks great man! Loving the work so far. I have been thinking about what you have been saying about the kit, and ultimately I agree with your sentiments. A 300.00 kit should not necessarily have these minor issues. But saying that, if you had built the vacuform kit, I think the issues would be way worse. I do love what you have done so far. Once this annoying task is complete, you can get back to the fun stuff!

 

Keep ‘em coming!

 

THOR

 

eh....what's wrong with the vacform kit........well, just "kiTTing"......

[bdthoresen]

eh....what's wrong with the vacform kit........well, just "kiTTing"......

Um, you of all people should know exactly what I mean as to the quality of this kit versus the old Combat kit! Masterful work on your part.....

 

THOR

[LSP_Ray]

Great work, Brian! I still want to look at cut and paste, but your method sure looks doable!

[Martinnfb]

[MikeMaben]

  

[Bstarr3]

Wow, Brian. Sorry you had such chaos with your build, but good job recovering it!