Ripaman Posted May 1, 2012 Posted May 1, 2012 Hi Phil, Great start, and another superb build coming up will be watching your progress Regards Richard
PhilB Posted May 25, 2012 Author Posted May 25, 2012 Thanks for all the kind worms Gentlemen!! I managed to get the two larger trailing edge flaps in. Not going to fit the small ones until the wing is fixed in position so I can "adjust" them to fit. I've been working on the fuse and all the resin thats going in. I've found that both the resin pits I have are too long. It was a real pain trying to sort things out so I decided to fit the Fisher nose on one side so at least one part of the procedure is staying still! Tacked it with thin ca and then lots of nice gloopy 5 minute epoxy: The trunking floats inside. Fisher mold the top of the nose bay and would have you use the kit side parts to make the bay. I have the Aires bay so I sanded off the detail on the trunking and glued it all in. It stabilises the trunking and firms everything up. Not pretty but it won't be seen: One thing with the Aires bay is that the sides are chamfered. Didn't want to know until I chamfered the sides of the kit fuse opening and got a good fit: In all the builds I've seen using this conversion there is a gap at the nose end. really have to decide the lesser of two evils. Easier to fill the fuse gap than mess around in the bay or sand the resin nose down. Back in a minute with the main gear bays.
PhilB Posted May 25, 2012 Author Posted May 25, 2012 (edited) The main gear bays from Aires come as a one piece unit. Thats fine in that you can get a good secure fit and fix on one side but when closing up the fuse it could cause problems on the other side. So I sawed them in half! Had to mark then as it was mind bending getting them in the right place and the right way up! But again got a good fit tacking with ca and then 5 minute epoxy. They are about half a millimetre short in length but I'll fill the gap and disguise it to look like an interior bulkhead: There is a kit piece which fits neatly over the join once the fuse halves are joined. One thing that struck me was after fitting the air brake bay and the bay under the wing was that a dry fit of the fuse was superb. These pieces lock the whole thing together and is a bit of great engineering from trumpeter!!! Next job - Pits (and they will be the pits!!!) Edited May 25, 2012 by PhilB Tomek 1
A.Wolf Grant Posted May 25, 2012 Posted May 25, 2012 Tremendous stuff so far. I'd love to have one of these so will watch along with everyone else with huge interest. Grant.
Out2gtcha Posted May 25, 2012 Posted May 25, 2012 NOICE! Looks like a lot of work, but also looks like it will pay off in the end. Well done as usual man! B
foxtwo Posted May 25, 2012 Posted May 25, 2012 nice to see the fitting of the fisher resin, got one too..... you've made a great job over the wings, never easy to build straight what trumpy made to be "folded"...! Pat
scvrobeson Posted May 26, 2012 Posted May 26, 2012 Cool! You're doing a great job on my favorite version of the Crusader!!!! Are you going to do the flame version, or the Sundowners? Either one would be a great way to paint it! Matt
PhilB Posted June 21, 2012 Author Posted June 21, 2012 Cool! You're doing a great job on my favorite version of the Crusader!!!! Are you going to do the flame version, or the Sundowners? Either one would be a great way to paint it! Matt, its going to be the "Flame mouth" version as its a VF-84 (Jolly Rogers) I've done the F-4 and F-14 in their schemes and I'm tinkering with an F/A-18F also with the bones! Thanks for the kind words Guys. Been a bit of a while but I've been working on the cockpit. I'm using the Avionix pit as the Aires one just doesn't work with the Fisher nose. It sits too high and not enough resin to lower it without taking out the floor. Also I've heard the Avionix is more accurate for a "C". Pit has been painted, various switches etc picked out. The control column is the single type which comes with the Fisher conversion and is correct for a "C" as opposed to the Y shaped stick on later variants. Sidewalls. Only a small lever to go on later in the build. I'm using the Aires IP coaming. I'm told the Avionix is more accurate but its far too narrow to fit the fisher nose. I also prefer the pe Aires IP. This was painted and the acetate backing applied and the dials painted white from behind. You don't get the depth with a pe IP but I've picked out some toggle switches etc so it looks a bit better. The resin central square scope molded into the coaming is also wrong for a "C" which had the earlier circular AN/APQ-83 scope so this will be removed and a scratchbuilt scope made. I'm working on painting and weathering the Aires exhaust so I can get close to closing up the fuse. Phil
Spaced Marine Posted June 21, 2012 Posted June 21, 2012 Excellent tutorial. This is project I have planned & it's nice to see how it really hakes out.
PhilB Posted June 26, 2012 Author Posted June 26, 2012 (edited) Thank you very much kind gents. I've scratched the radar scope for the C model. I used a spare block of resin sanded to size.. Drilled and sanded in some 0.5mm rod for the knobs. I had some plastic tube to make the scope bezel. This was too thick internally so I drilled/reamed it out to a thin wall, cut a slice with a razor saw, then sanded it thinner on a flat bit of wet and dry. No colour pictures of the scope so it got my default radar scope colour of RLM 70 then a drop of Mocro krystal Kleer. Next job was my favourite proctologists type thing, the Aires exhaust. The instuctions have you build the kit exhaust then chop it to accept part of the resin. The normal shaded "remove" bit was feint on mine but there's a big arrow to show where it should go. I had a look at the Squadron Walkround pictures and as usual we got burnt metal/rusty/sooty/burnt soot blah blah blah! So I just got all my chalks and tam palettes out and had a go. Here's the kit exhaust with the resin insert. Painted matt black then hit with white and cream chalk. The inner pe piece looks a burnt/rusty colour on the real picture so this was painted tan then chalks etc applied. The outer pe piece is a greyish burnt soot colour. Aires tell you to put this outer ring in the exhaust tube but after many tries I decided to attach it to the engine front cone. I painted the exhaust tube with a flat grey then used ground up black and white chalk mixed with water. My flory wash just beaded up on this one. When dry and using a finger to remove the colour on the ribs it left a nice powdery grey. The afterburner petals looked a burnt tan with soot and various greys etc. Painted them tan then again chalks/washes and Tam palettes. Came out a nice burnt iron type look. Outer ring was painted grey, dry brushed with silver then Tam palettes. The internal soot streaks were done using the sponge applicator held hard against the ring and streaked. Back in a minute with pictures of this lot going together. Phil Edited June 26, 2012 by PhilB
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