TomcatFanatic123

Beautiful work! I may have missed it earlier in this thread, but did you happen to take a close-up picture of the joint of the cover piece that goes on the bottom (the one that the makes up the back of the nose gear bay). I'm at that point now, and that piece is being a thorn in my side...seriously .

A bit more progress to share. I started detailing the nose gear strut. It's not perfect, but it's better than the "plain Jane" offering Trumpeter put into this thing. Here's what I did: 1) Chop off the "whatever-the-hell-that-thing-was" that Trumpter put on top of the hydraulic canister and replace it with something that looks remotely realistic. It's not perfect, but it looks better than Trumpeter's rendition. The wires protruding from it are cut short purposely...I'm going to run some wires down from the gear bay and have them "meet" in an inconspicuous place to look like it's continuous wiring. 2) I was scanning through the DACO book and I noticed that the actuator that runs up into the rear section of the gear bay has tie-down hooks on both sides of it, right where it meets the main strut, just aft of the hydraulic canister. I added those. 3) Drilled out the sorry excuse for a landing light. I know it's still undersized, but I don't have a 1:32 landing light kicking around in the spares box (I thought I may have had one, but I was wrong ). 4) Trumpeter left out the launch bar paddle, just below the approach indexer box. I tried to scratchbuild something that looks remotely similar to it. Like the device on top of the hydraulic canister, my scratchbuilding is far from perfect, but it's better than not having it there at all. 5) On the right side of the approach indexer box, there's a spot where a cable plugs into. I added that thing. Still have to add the cables, though. Anyway, here's pics: Showing 1 and 2: 3 and 4: 5: I also got the drop tanks weathered and flatcoated: And the IFR bay painted: And finally, some sprucing up I did to the back end of the Phoenix pallets. Here's the front ones, still have to do the rear ones: Not a whole lot of progress, but every little bit helps... Thanks for looking!

The chinpod looks really nice! I was thinking of using Tamiya Smoke on it, but your idea of dropping some black paint inside may be even better.

Thanks for the comments, Johan and Phil! I've been in a situation over the past day or two since I had a reaction to an antibiotic the doctor put me on for a sinus infection , but I did get the drop tanks flatcoated, the second exhaust nozzle painted, and pulled out the nose gear strut and began to brainstorm ideas of how I'm going to spruce it up a little bit. There'll be pictures soon, but right now I'm just too lazy to go fetch my camera . Thanks again for the comments, guys!

"Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful Cat!" Drop tanks painted, glosscoated and partially decaled: Thanks for looking!

One of the main gear struts...the detail was pretty good (more than I can say for the nose gear strut ), but I decided to slap some wires on there to spruce 'em up a little bit. The wiring is about 50% accurate, and 50% my imagination. And the LANTIRN pod. Another aftermarket purchase, the out of production (correct me if I'm wrong on that) Teknics offering designed for the Tamiya F-15E kit. I assembled the kit one, got it looking really nice, then when I gave it the once-over, something just didn't look "right". Out comes the DACO book for a side-by-side comparison, and sure enough, Trumpeter, in all their infinite wisdom, has the assembly of it upside down/backwards. Nice . It would've been an easy fix had I caught this before I CA'ed the pylon attachment piece to the pod . The Teknics pod is nice, but not perfect. Painted, glossed, decaled, weathered, and flatcoated body: Painted, glossed, decaled, weathered and flatcoated seeker head: And the completed LANTIRN pod: Thanks for looking!

Here's the gear bays in all their dirty, filthy, grimy glory. Very impressive detail in all of the bays, the only scratchbuilding I added was the main gear bays up where the tires rest when the gear is retracted. Thanks for looking!

Going with the theme of finding myself purchasing aftermarket upon aftermarket for this kit, here's (one of) the Aires exhaust. These are designed for the Tamiya kit (purchased before I knew they were coming out with a set for the Trumpeter kit), but fit the Trumpeter kit like a glove (without the Tamiya engine fairing part). Reason for purchasing these were twofold. One, pure frustration with Trumpeter's offerings and their nearly impossible to remove seams, and two, these just look better, in my opinon. The other nozzle isn't quite done yet... Thanks for looking!

This build was supposed to be OOB, but one thing lead to another with scratchbuilding, then purchasing aftermarket, so I figured I'm going to put some nice seats in this baby. I got myself a set of Legend Productions seats, and they were worth every penny! Thanks for looking!

Been working on this thing since 27 Dec. 2009, and have been avoiding a WIP thread like the plague (it's bad juju for me...start a WIP thread, model never gets done ), but I figured it's time to bite the bullet, so here goes. First up, the cockpit. I scratchbuilt some crude rudder pedals for the pilot before the release of the Steel Beach correction kit. I purchased said kit and will be adding a throttle, and the SSU box for the RIO after I'm done tinkering around in there. I also have to fabricate a canopy-jettison handle for the RIO and pilot. The kit included one for the RIO, but that was apparently my sacrifice to the carpet monster when it broke off . I'm also going to try (emphasis on "try") to deal with that missing part on the side of the pilot's IP cover and that God-knows-why-they-did-it-that-way gap (more like bottomless pit) around the cover. Thanks for looking!

I'm stuck using an emoticon because I'm too much in awe to type anything:

Absolutely gorgeous!! I'm planning on doing mine in the VF-213 markings included in the kit (but leaving off that God-awful lion's head on the nose), but you may be driving me in the direction of ol' Felix there ...

Johan, That's exactly what is worrying me...the height of those sidewalls. I've got the dryfit done, matter of fact, it's all taped up right now (I had just finished 2 glasses of wine when I started dorking with it, so I figured that probably wouldn't exactly be a good time to do anything permanent ). I've noticed that when the pit assembly is sitting on top of the gear bay that it tends to slide around, so before you permanently set it with glue, you must make sure it isn't uneven on top of the nose gear bay assembly. Just a little heads up after looking at your recent pictures. I noticed it looks like you're going to be painting the fins of that AIM-9 the same color as the seeker head. The Trumpeter instructions are wrong on that...the fins are the same color as the body of the missile. Please keep in mind that it is your model and you build it and paint it any way you want to (it's shaping up to be amazing either way), but I just thought I'd throw that out there for you to be aware of.

That is HOT!!!! Wonderful work! Paint job looks spot on, and the weathering is right...not too strong, not too subtle, either. I may have missed it earlier in the thread, but I am interested to know how did the joint between the front and rear fuselage assemblies went. Any problems? Lots of filling and sanding? Watching your progress on this kit has been amazing. I've been working on mine since Dec. 27th, and I still haven't put the front fuselage halves together...I'm running around like a headless chicken going from assembly to assembly on mine...cockpit, one wing, the vertical stabs, the nose gear bay, nose gear and one main gear strut, both AIM-9's and one Sparrow (which I'm not even going to use...don't ask me why I even bothered) are done, and I've done a little bit of wiring in the main gear bay just to add interest to it. You seemed to attack this thing head on...AWESOME!

That is looking GREAT so far! My 1:32 build queue for 2010 is already full (Trumpy Tomcat X2, Academy C-Hornet and D-Hornet), so I won't be getting around to one of these any time soon, but I'm definitely going to be getting one. I started one one of these things when they first came out, but due to lack of confidence in my skills at that time, I ended up giving it away with the engine partially built. If you could jog my memory, aside from the removable engine, do these things assemble the same (or similar) to their 1:48 scale little brothers?