Tamiya F-15C Kicked Up A Notch- Dec 1/17: DONE!

[Luca]

another masterpiece from you Chuck

[Marcel111]

Chuck, thx for clarifying this one.

 

Cheers,

Marcel

[chuck540z3]

A quick update after a LOT of dry fitting of the resin cockpit(s).  Before I begin, something that I learned a long time ago is that not all resin or photo-etch parts like Eduard are better than the kit parts,   I always pick and choose and if I'm lucky, as in this case, I have 3 cockpits to choose from.   One other thing is that I'd like to thank "Jer" for his fantastic F-15 build thread here at LSP that has helped me a lot with this cockpit.  Too often modelers replicate the efforts of others without some acknowledgement as to where we got some of our ideas from.  Jer's build is here for those who might want to check it out:

 

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=54151&page=2

 

As I said before, the instructions for both the resin cockpits are absolutely terrible!  This is no surprise since I've done many resin pits before, but when you have extra parts you can't identify and/or there is an expectation that you still use kit parts here and there without telling you so, it makes for a real challenge.  In this case, I have 3 sets of instructions to deal with, so it was a bit confusing to say the least.

 

While the Avionix resin cockpit has a back wall for Bay 5 with a tab for the back wall of the front landing gear bay, the Aires pit does not.  If you follow the Aires instructions, you will not have a rear gear wall at all.  After a lot of dry fitting I came up with the following solution which works fairly well.  Cut off the lower tab on the Avionix back wall and create a notch that straddles the gear well.  Meanwhile, cut off the lower tab on the kit back wall and glue it to the gear well.

 

 

 

 

The canopy actuator on the back wall of the Avionix kit has a bunch of flash at the top and it looks like some detail has either broken off the bottom or it wasn't cast very well in the first place.  The kit part is on the left, which is much better.

 

 

 

 

I cut off the resin actuator and installed the kit part instead.  Further, as I always do now when I want a piston-like rod that is naturally strong, silver and doesn't need to be painted, I drilled a hole in the top of the actuator and installed a sewing pin for the canopy lift.  This part can now be painted separately without masking and glued on later.

 

 

 

 

For the foot pedals, the Aires PE wins hands down.  They even say "McDonnell Douglas in raised lettering if you squint....

 

 

 

 

As usual with resin cockpits, there is a ton of trimming and dry fitting to get the cockpit to fit properly without swelling the front fuselage.  It is always best if you trim the side walls to fit inside the cockpit, rather than outside of it.  After a lot of comparisons of cockpit parts, I went with mostly Avionix parts in yellow and some Aires parts in grey or PE.

 

 

 

 

When trimmed properly, everything should slide into place without a lot of drama or pressure.

 

 

 

 

Here is how things fit right now.  Just about perfect and unlike the Aires cockpit, there is no front to back shrinkage that affects the rear wall of the seat positioning.  I have left off small parts for obvious reasons.

 

 

 

 

 

Something I picked up from Jer's build is the correct position of the rear wall of the seat, which should allow the canopy to close with the top of the rear wall closing the gap.  Without glue holding it in place, the cap part shows a bit of gap which will be gone later.  Note that there is no gap at the front of the glare shield, which is common with Aires cockpit installations.

 

 

 

 

 

Now here is a reason to buy the Aires cockpit, even if you never use any of the resin parts.  Once put together with CA glue, the instrument panel is gorgeous!  The HUD PE parts are at the top/  As I did with my P-51D, P-38L and A-10 builds, I will be painting the back of the instrument panel acetate white to make those instrument dials pop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With PE glued to PE, there is nice relief as well (check out those lower louvers).  The big challenge will be to paint everything properly in order to preserve as much of the detail as possible.  I have a plan.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for now guys.  All this cockpit stuff will take a long time to pull together, so it might be awhile before my next post.  Thank you for your interest in this project.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

[Guest]

Bravo Chuck !.........Harv

[A-10LOADER]

As usual Chuck, very clean work and the attention to detail is amazing. This one is setting the bar pretty high from the get go.

 

 

Steve

 

P.S. Miss you on ARC however.

[chuck540z3]

As usual Chuck, very clean work and the attention to detail is amazing. This one is setting the bar pretty high from the get go.

 

Steve

 

P.S. Miss you on ARC however.

 

 

Hi Steve,

 

I haven't really "left" ARC at all and I still post there.  I just found that posting a WIP thread to 2 forums was way too much work and very confusing.  For a bunch of reasons, I think LSP has a slight edge over ARC for constructive feedback that can help me make this model better, due to the clear focus on large aircraft from a lot of modelers who are way more skilled than I ever will be! 

[Guest Peterpools]

Hi Chuck

Wonderful tutorial and "How To' on combining all three cockpit to obtain the best combination possible. Some mighty fine progress on the front office.

I'm easily picking up and absorbing some new ideas and techniques for working with resin upgrade sets.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Norm In Toronto]

Chuck, another masterpiece in progress!

 

You have become justifiably renowned for providing concise, easy to follow and photographically supported tutorials on your builds and I have a specific request, if possible.

 

I have consistently failed in my efforts to realistically paint resin cockpits (or wheel wells for that matter) as I find it virtually impossible to eliminate "over-paint" on adjacent items, or to cleanly isolate individual plumbing, wiring or other elements. Would it be possible for you to show us your method in some detail?

 

I realize this would require a considerable addition to your workload in this build, but I, for one, would be pathetically grateful.

 

Norm.

[chuck540z3]

 

I have consistently failed in my efforts to realistically paint resin cockpits (or wheel wells for that matter) as I find it virtually impossible to eliminate "over-paint" on adjacent items, or to cleanly isolate individual plumbing, wiring or other elements. Would it be possible for you to show us your method in some detail?

 

I realize this would require a considerable addition to your workload in this build, but I, for one, would be pathetically grateful.

 

Norm.

 

 

Hi Norm.  Thanks for the kind words and sure, no sweat on providing a step by step tutorial on how I paint cockpits.  They aren't perfect by any means, but I am getting better with each new build.  For example, I recently turned this.....

 

 

 

 

Into this....

 

 

 

 

And this....

 

 

Into this....

 

 

 

Since the A-10 seat is the same, I have a bit of a head start on this Eagle seat with some new ideas I will try on the Aires version, which thankfully has separate seat belts which are easier to deal with than molded on ones.

[Norm In Toronto]

Hi Norm.  Thanks for the kind words and sure, no sweat on providing a step by step tutorial on how I paint cockpits.  They aren't perfect by any means, but I am getting better with each new build.  For example, I recently turned this.....

 

 

Very much appreciated Chuck!!

 

You're about to make an ol' man very happy.

 

Norm.

[VIPER0177]

Another great build from Chuck. I will be watching the great work as always with your builds Chuck.

[Ironwing]

Looks like the maestro has begun anew...looking forward to your symphony...

 

Geoff

[Vandy 1 VX 4]

Chuck DVD is on its way Fyi

[scvrobeson]

Already looks like this will be a fantastic build of my favorite airplane.  Really looking forward to this build Chuck, I'll be following along.  I like the way you're mixing the aftermarket parts together to get the best result

 

 

 

 

Matt 

[chuck540z3]

Thank you Gents!

 

March 3/16

 

 

I spent all last night working on the seatbelts for the Aires seat and I wound up doing nothing constructive.  3 hours of NOTHING!  Very frustrating.

 

The Aires pit comes with brass seatbelts and very finely detailed buckles and other hardware, which I annealed to get the brass parts to soften and look more natural than metal.  About half way through I realized, how the heck am I going to be able to paint the seatbelts, then thread them through the ultrafine buckles and clasps without rubbing all the paint off?  Further, how do you paint the tiny hardware silver without making the paint too thick, filling the detail and the tight tolerances of the seatbelts?  My guess is that the Aires plan is to assemble everything, then brush paint the belts and hardware.  Well, I might be able to do a credible job of painting the belts, but the buckles and other silver items would look like crap.  I checked some other builds using this cockpit and seat and I didn't find any solutions that I liked, so I looked for “Plan Bâ€

 

At first, I thought I had it.  Cloth F-16 seat belts from HGW!  I used HGW cloth belts on both my P-51D and P-38L builds and I loved them, even if the buckles are a bit too big.  Apparently HGW used to make them, because I found them here at Scalemates:

 

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/594496-hgw-132550-f-16-seatbelts

 

 

Alas, they must not make them anymore, because I couldn't find them anywhere.  Poop!  With the brass Aires buckles and the cloth belts, I thought I had a winner.

 

“Plan C†was the pre-painted Eduard seat set for the F-15E (32-601).  My experience with Eduard pre-painted stuff isn't good.  Besides being too thick, the paint often chips off if you bend the parts, which is exactly what I had to do with these belts.  The good news is that there are obviously seatbelts for two seats in this kit, so I was able to experiment with one set before committing to another.  Without going into gory detail, what I did was warm the belts over a candle before I bent them.  I did not really anneal them for fear of burning or discoloring the paint, but I did get them quite warm.  When they cooled a bit, I bent them according to the instructions and some pics of Aces II seats I found in Jake's book and on the ‘net.

 

The configuration of seatbelts for this seat are all over the place, depending on vintage and aircraft.  So are the color of the seats, which were originally sage green but are now black sheepskin, sometimes on just the seat, but sometimes on the back as well.  I even found some seats with a pull handle at the front like a NACES F-18 seat and the Eduard PE set even has one that you can install.  What you see below is a compromise between what the kit parts supplied and what I see in pics.  Not perfect by any means and many will find fault with the configuration of the upper belts, but these follow the Eduard instructions and at least one or two pics I found.  Everything is obviously just dry fitted, but I wanted to conform the metal belts to the seat parts before I painted them to avoid scratching them later.  With a little work, they are basically “drop in†now and will require very little glue to hold them in place.  With a little pastel work to remove a bit of the shine, I think they will look much better when installed permanently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To get the seats to fit at the right height, I had to make some adjustments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out that you shouldn't cut much of the lower resin block off as the Aires instructions indicate, so I had to replace some of the resin with a block of styrene to get the seat to ride high enough in the cockpit

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily I had the Avionix seat to steal parts from, like the speed sensing pitot “ears†and a nifty little top of the seat rocket rail that I liked the looks of.  The pitot ears for the Aires seat are also made of brass and you need to add your own tubes, so the Avionix ones were a lot easier to install and they don't look too bad.  Other Aires brass completed the upper part of the seat and I stippled the seat with thinned putty to replicate sheepskin when it gets painted black.

 

 

 

 

I also added a bit of detail on the back of the seat, even though you won't see much of it installed in the cockpit.  The brass X-brace is Aires as well.

 

 

 

 

That's about it for now, but I think I'm ready to start painting cockpit parts.  Thanks for checking in.

 

Cheers,

Chuck