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


Out2gtcha

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Holy CRAP!

I haven't had a drink in years, but after this, I sat down and had a shot of Wild Turkey  (that or my wifes Tequila was all my choices)..

 

 

I do love me some WT!   I like Makers, WT, and some of the none peaty Scotch whiskeys too. I just don't usually seem to have the money for the bottles, but I'm seriously thinking about investing while the F7F build is going on.  lol

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Good news brothers!!!!    And this time NO VERY bad nor even bad news at all.  This time its "all good" so to speak.  :lol:    I spend the day with the Tigercat, and figured I better get on fixing things before any of this setback takes the wind out of my sails.

 

Pics when I get a min....................

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Brian, you certainly have the talent to overcome anything thrown at you. This one you have wrestled with from the beginning and over come all obstacles thrown at you. The pit, the nose landing gear rebuild, the nose wheel well have all come out spectacular. Thanks for sharing this journey with us. This model will certainly be another epic build by you.

 

I'm also smiling on the super glue comment. I have purchased several knock off super glue variants here in Singapore. They ALL suck! I now have to visit an art store a mile away from my apartment just to try and find some new crazy-glue variants for my I-16 in trying to install an instrument panel. The glue doesn't cure. I spray it with zip kicker and it still sucks. The glue dries up in the tube after a week. Nothing like the stuff I'm use to back in the states. Carry on!

 

This Tigercat is looking awesome!

 

Troy

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I do love me some WT!   I like Makers, WT, and some of the none peaty Scotch whiskeys too. I just don't usually seem to have the money for the bottles, but I'm seriously thinking about investing while the F7F build is going on.  lol

 

The WT was a Christmas gift from a former client...top of the line too...lol

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I do love me some WT!   I like Makers, WT, and some of the none peaty Scotch whiskeys too. I just don't usually seem to have the money for the bottles, but I'm seriously thinking about investing while the F7F build is going on.  lol

I heartily suggest these two:

TheGlenlivet_21YOBox02_fullbleed.jpgPortWood-21-Years-Lifestyle-Image.jpg

 

I also recommend getting some debonder!!!!! I have had to do the same thing with glued resin parts. Debonder is your friend!

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Thanks Ray, I have to invest in some trail fees for my upcoming Jeep safari to Moab Utah in the next few days or Id likely invest in a bottle now.  Unfortunately I didn't have any debonder on hand, and was anxious to get things moving. Way too anxious!
 
 
 
Anyhoo,
I think in part this may have been a blessing in disguise!  It ended up being SO much easier to get the weights added, and get a feel for where the further front nose weight needed to be situated, while all the while, attempting to keep all the panel lines of the fuselage straight, AND try to keep the nose gear true. If it wasn't completely idiotic, Id recommend everyone who builds a Tigercat (which Ive not really seen any on-going builds in forums or the net to speak of) break off one section of the forward fuselage.  :lol:
 
On to some good news. Really good news!  To me anyway..................
 
After I doing a crap TON of dry fitting of the two fuselage halves, I rapidly figured out that the smaller forward nose weight was actually going to show once the fuse was buttoned up. As the instructions don't even show an actual picture of the forward most weight, and just an outline drawing, Im thinking what may have happened is that HpH found out that the main larger weight was not enough and added the forward most weight  as an after thought. 
Im not fully sure how this area looks on the built HpH demo model, as I cant seem to find a picture that captures the lower, back to front angle looking up toward the front of the nose gear well. 
Trust me though, if you add the forward nose weight OOB you will be able to see it if you look in that area. As both the main and forward weights are not really shaped that well, and as one would expect are more "blobby" in un-distinct shape, I dont think it would look like an actual part of the aircraft at all.  So in that light, I decided that I had better add something to cover the bottom of the weight up.
 
I took a piece of flat thin styrene, and glued it to the back side of the smaller forward weight, then gently bent it down around the underside. I then took and shaved that plastic thin enough so it would not interfere with fit.  Overall, I decided that when/if I had to do any removal of material to make things fit (which I ended up having to do a LOT of including where both weights reside) I was going to remove resin and not lead. Im not sure if both weights are a bit overkill, just right or just more than is needed, but Im not taking a chance by removing any of the lead if I could help it. I had already previously shaped the forward lead piece when dry fitting, so it looks a bit odd, but came out ok, and will now hide any indication there is weight in the forward nose section.
 
After shaving and sanding the styrene down, I painted it with some interior green to match the rest of the well:
 
20180120_174431-XL.jpg
 
 
 
 
 
Next, more dry fitting, dry fitting, dry fitting. You can also see here around the edges, and behind the front weight, that I have already had to do significant shaving of resin to make the amazing number of things in the forward fuselage come together and fit. I removed and reinserted the front weight probably 10 or 15 times, going back and forth between removing the weight to Dremel off some of of the thickness of the resin and dry fitting to get the forward weight to sit where it needed to:
 
20180120_174510-XL.jpg
 
 
 
 
 
In the end, you will only see the green styrene part, that seems to hide any hint of lead if one looks up under the nose well:
 
20180120_174507-XL.jpg
 
 
 
 
 
Now it was on to the scary bit! 
I have significant experience with full resin and resin mixed media kits (unfortunately) and I have used several different methods to bring the major parts of these type of kits together, so they stay together.  Some worked and some didn't, but I found for me the best technique requires a few things:
 
- A good 2-part epoxy
- A good thin CA
- Sanding/removing any paint, primer or other glues off the mating surfaces
- Isopropyl alcohol
- Giving the mating surfaces a bit of a key by scrapping them with a sharp flat straight razor even if no paint or primer or glue resides on them
- Painters tape or other cheap tape for temporarily holding things together 
- Patience  
 
 

Not normally used to having alignment pins on these type of kits, I found them very useful at this stage.  The pins kept the rear section of the fuselage in check where it had to be so I really didn't have to worry about it, and would not end up with a warped fuselage like I did with my Walrus.  During the dry fit trials at this point, even though Im keeping the tail hook in the up position, I found the F7F has a significant space around the end of the tail hook, as it actually hangs out of the fuse even when retracted. This lead me to re-think my plan of not adding the tail hook bay floor as I was going to leave it out. I wasn't sure if you could see up inside the bay where the tail hook hung outside the fuselage but again, I was taking no chances, so I freed the tail hook bay floor from its resin pool, and glued that in before starting.
 
I mixed up a batch of my favorite 2 part epoxy JB Weld and got to work.
My process started by going along and scrapping all of the mating surfaces of all 3 sections of the fuselage, including the broken forward starboard section with a clean new straight razor. Next I took and slathered the JB Weld along all of the mating pins with the exception of the forward most pin in the nose, which would have abundant strength due to all the things in the nose, and its eventual very solid nature. Starting at the tail, I squeezed the fuselage together so the JB Weld oozed out, and then put cheap (compared to Tamiya tape) painters tape in the areas in-between where the pins were to hold things temporarily in place. I went along with some 70% alcohol and wiped down any and all areas where the JB weld had oozed out. Then starting again from the tail forward, I took a small trowel tool, and saturated the fuselage joint demark with ultra thin CA, removing the painters tape as I went, so there was no danger of bonding the tape to the resin. 
Then, once I got to the forward areas, I stopped adding any thin CA until I had the weights added. With all the previous dry fitting I knew well and good everything was going to fit, and the nose gear was as straight as it was going to get.

 
I then glued in the upper port side of the nose gear bay (since the starboard forward fuselage section was not added at this time, I had very easy access to it) to the port side fuse and made sure the gear was straight and true.  After the port side of the nose well was rock solid, I added the main weight, then the forward weight and saturated the bottom and top of each with thin CA. This was probably an unnecessary step, as the weights are SO tightly crammed into the fuse, that adding the broken starboard fuselage section really held everything including the weights really tightly. I just wanted to make doubly sure the weights were staying put since they weighed within an oz or two of 1full lb combined. 

 

Once the weights were glued in and solid, I pinched the upper fuselage area together right ahead of the cockpit by hand, and flooded it with thin CA to trap the weights in and close off the small gap there.

I then glued on the broken forward starboard fuselage section using JB weld on the forward most section, and saturating the crack itself with thin CA, paying attention to carefully aligning the panel lines, not only across the crack of the broken section, but also aligning the panel lines across the top and bottom of the fuselage joint. I aligned the panel lines on the cracked section to the rest of the starboard fuselage first, then worried about the rest.

There will definitely still have to be some re-scribing done here after the fact, as some of the panel lines do not align from port to starboard side fuselage sections, even away from the broken area.   Its just not possible to get them all perfectly aligned at the same time. I will have to adjust these later during the re-scribe process.

 

The end result is, IMHO, about as good or better than I could have hoped for, even before I cracked the fuselage!  There really is no gap to speak of at the cracked section on the starboard fuselage after the fix, and it will take just a bit of sanding and some panel line rescribing to get things back to normal.

 

Ok, I will stop blathering on, and get to the results of all this effort!

 

PICS ON NEXT PAGE.....................

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On to some actual pics instead of me droning on quite so much...............

 

After things had all been glued in place, I took and mixed up a batch of medium "Zap-a-Gap" CA (my favorite CA by FAR and one that works wonders on most resin without being brittle, or having a tendency to crack)  with some micro-balloons filler material that is easy to sand, even when rock solid, and filled all of the fuselage gaps top and bottom.

 

After getting everything glued in and solid, I took a look at my handy work, hoping against hope things were still square, most importantly, the nose gear itself. There was really no fixing it at that point even if there was, as things were REALLY solidly glued in place..................

 

BINGO!  Mission accomplished!  WHEW!

 

20180120_184405-XL.jpg

 

20180120_184642-XL.jpg

 

20180120_184346-XL.jpg

 

 

 

Even though its still not 100% perfect (non of my $#@* ever is anyway! :lol: ) I was ecstatic to see that the gear is fairly true, and the fuselage is now 100% together and SUPER solid:

 

20180120_184200-XL.jpg

 

20180120_184126-XL.jpg

 

 

20180120_184519-XL.jpg

 

 

20180120_185550-XL.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

No issues with the cockpit fit here either, for which I was also glad. IP hood and gun-sight will be forthcoming after the fact. Still a few switches to replace from the initial debacle, but with the hood still off, this shouldn't be too much of an issue:

 

20180120_184742-XL.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Even the cracked area came out decent. I got my ham-fisted fingers in the CA while it was drying, but its a trivial thing, and I would have had to sand this area down anyway, so it wont be a huge issue. The main thing is that the panel lines on the starboard side still match up as well as they did before I cracked that side apart:

 

20180120_184556-XL.jpg

 

20180120_184614-XL.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

This is by far and away one of the largest, and definitely the most expensive OOB, but also THE heaviest model I have ever built in my lifetime of building models. Maybe the heaviest I will ever build.

I didnt have any new AAA batteries for it, and the ones I had in it were quite old, so it shut off before I could take a pick of it but I put the completed fuselage by itself on my digital scale. I did however manage to read what it said before it shut off though................

 

The completed fuselage with nothing else added already weighs and astounding 13.74 Oz.  This is going to be one BIG and HEAVY kitty! 

 

 

 

 

Thats it for this update lads. This was a BIG STEP in this build. Getting the fuselage together with all the junk inside, including the stuff I added and modified (which was most all of it!) possibly is the largest hurdle to overcome in the kit, if you factor in the strength needed for the nose gear, and all the custom work done. In the end the nose gear will not have to support the majority of the actual weight of the lead in the nose, as the more that gets added to the rear behind the CG (some of it WELL behind the CG), the more actual load is lifted off the nose gear.
Once completed, the model will likely weigh near neutral over the nose gear, with just a touch holding it to the ground, and in the end the MLG will take the brunt of the weight of the completed model.   I hope. At least that is what I have figured by my own calculations. 

 

Cheers until next time! 

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Must be chugging a lot of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale's, eh? You got it whooped now!

Thanks buddy!

 

I still miss those giant bottles you gave me!!

I can only get the smaller ones around here.

I'm still thinking about rounding up some loot for a good bottle of whiskey, as I KNOW there are more trying times ahead.

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Guest Smitty44

Thanks buddy!

 

I still miss those giant bottles you gave me!!

I can only get the smaller ones around here.

I'm still thinking about rounding up some loot for a good bottle of whiskey, as I KNOW there are more trying times ahead.

 

All I can say is if you meet me in Phoenix I'll bring some more! My turn to pick you up from the airport.

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