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

[Shaka HI]

Your fans will wait, Chuck, no worries.

 

[chuck540z3]

Thanks Guys.  The only reason I throw my progress (or lack thereof) out there is based upon some personal experience with other builds that I have followed here over the years.  Just when the modeler seems to be getting very close to the end, the build stalls or disappears and you wonder what the heck happened to it.  Worse yet, some guys actually started a new model before they finished their old one.   NOOOOOOOO!     Without mentioning names, a Buddee of mine did just that when building what is likely the most spectacular WWII British fighter I've ever seen, or at least until Peter came along with his 1/18 scale freak of nature. 

 

Anyway, this model isn't one of those cases, or at least I hope not.  I haven't even applied a decal yet, which is a build step I usually like.  We'll see.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Joel_W]

Thanks Guys.  The only reason I throw my progress (or lack thereof) out there is based upon some personal experience with other builds that I have followed here over the years.  Just when the modeler seems to be getting very close to the end, the build stalls or disappears and you wonder what the heck happened to it.  Worse yet, some guys actually started a new model before they finished their old one.   NOOOOOOOO!     Without mentioning names, a Buddee of mine did just that when building what is likely the most spectacular WWII British fighter I've ever seen, or at least until Peter came along with his 1/18 scale freak of nature. 

 

Anyway, this model isn't one of those cases, or at least I hope not.  I haven't even applied a decal yet, which is a build step I usually like.  We'll see.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Chuck,

   You couldn't have said this any better. I have this "discussion" with Pete almost on a daily basis.

Joel

[Lucio Martino]

Chuck,

I am in a deep crisis of abstinence, and I guess I am far from being the only one.

Just post some picture of your Eagle, no need of any explanatory writings.

 

Best,

[chuck540z3]

Chuck,

I am in a deep crisis of abstinence, and I guess I am far from being the only one.

Just post some picture of your Eagle, no need of any explanatory writings.

 

Best,

 

 

 

[kikka]

dear chuck . 

 

i look at your builds pictures like the center page on gentleman magazines !

 

keep posting , i have room in my library !

[LSP_Kevin]

 

 

Wow!

 

Kev

[Joel_W]

Chuck,

  The gloss coat is simply amazing. I'm assuming that your rubbes and polished it out, or are you able to achieve that level of prefection straight from the AB?

 

Joel

[Ironwing]

Chuck

 

As always, Craftsmanship of the uber kind with a marvelous tutorial. Its so nice to see your willingness to share all that you do. You give reason to follow you and heed your advice. Well done...

 

Best

 

Geoff

[Troy Molitor]

Man this ones looking awesome Chuck. Lovely camo and gloss coat here. Can't wait to see it standing on her legs.

 

Troy

[LSP_Ray]

Incredible, Chuck!

[chuck540z3]

Sept 21/17

 

 

Thanks a lot guys!  To tell you the truth, the gloss finish on the Eagle was finished months ago, but since Lucio wanted to see a pic of something….. 

 

I really should be decaling this Big Bird, but I still have some detailed work to do on plastic, in this case the wing pylons, missile rails and fuel tanks.  Thankfully I have some detailed pics of this area, as well as Jake's book to explain what is what.  In totally random order, let's look at a few of them before I show what modifications I have made.

 

Starting at the top, the LAU-128 missile rails which have an ADU-552 adapter connected them to the pylon.  The kit parts and adapters are for the old school LAU-114 missile rails, which have all been replaced on USAF aircraft to accommodate AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, so replacements must be found.  Note the position and angle of the front clips.

 

 

 

 

The side view, showing the internal detail within the rail and the position against the pylon, as well as the older sway braces, which are not found on F-15E's.

 

 

 

 

A close-up of the sway braces and where the fuel tank contact points are, just fore and aft of them.

 

 

 

 

Not a great photo of this detail, but between this pic and those in Jake's book, it appears that there are 3 main contact pins/ anchor points that hold the fuel tank in place.  There may be others and there are certainly more fuel lines, etc., but these appear to be the main ones.  Also note the reinforcement raised screws where the sway braces hold the tank and the visible gap between the pylon and tank.

 

 

 

 

The rear of the pylon and tank show 2 identical “ball fittings†at the rear, which apparently allow the smooth ejection of both fuel tank and pylon when required.

 

 

 

 

And finally the rear of the pylon, which shows a circular fuel vent to drain the tanks.  Although you won't see this on my work below, I drilled a hole in the rear of the pylons to replicate same.

 

 

 

[chuck540z3]

Now some pics of plastic.  This kit gives you only one fuel tank for the center line pylon, which I'm not using, so Gary at GT Resin was kind enough to send me a spare kit tank for the wing pylons when I purchased some of the resin parts that you have seen earlier.  This setup poses a few problems, not the least of which is that the sway braces are for an F-15E, which are attached to a BRU-47 bomb release unit necessary to drop precision-guided munitions, which F-15C's don't have as shown above (assuming I understand Jake's book correctly).  Also, the pylon detail is quite minimal and vague.  I cut off the rear ball fittings and modified them, as you will see later.

 

 

 

 

For the LAU-128 missile rails and ADU-52 adapters in 1/32 scale, you have 3 choices that I know of, including a Cutting Edge missile set that comes with the updated parts.  I have all three with the GT Resin and Wolfpack sets shown below.  In this first pic, you can see that the 2 sets are fairly similar, although the Wolfpack set has those front clips while the GT version does not.  The GT set also looks like it was cast from a 3D printer with its layered look.  If you deepen the surface detail and sand them, you can make them look almost as smooth as the Wolfpack rails.  The surface detail on the Wolfpack is there, but also a bit vague.

 

 

 

 

On edge, the GT parts are much more accurate for scale, while the Wolfpack ones are too skinny.

 

 

 

 

So overall the two sets are sort of tied in terms of quality, depending on what you want.  You need to sand smooth and add the front clips to the GT rails, while the detail on the Wolfpack rails needs to be enhanced if you are willing to live with the narrow profile from the side.  Since I will have an inert AIM-9X missile on outside port side and an ACMI pod on the outside starboard side, this narrow profile will never show, so I went with the Wolfpack rails instead.  If I was going to leave the outside rails empty, I would have gone with the GT version.

 

 

The first thing I did was to cut off the tab and sway bars off the tanks, followed by careful filling and sanding to remove any seam marks.

 

 

 

 

For the “old school†sway braces, I found that spares from my Trumpeter A-10 kit were just about perfect for size, albeit crude like most of the parts in this crappy kit.  After removing seam and pin marks, I removed the poorly shaped pins and replaced them with smoother styrene rod.  Since you'll never see the bottom of the pins, you can drill right through them.

 

 

 

 

After many modifications of panel lines and added rivet detail of the pylon and missile rails according to references, I glued the parts together, while adding 3 pins made of drill bits that I cut down to size.  As I indicated much earlier in this build, I use cheap drill bits all the time to hold stuff together, often without the need for glue.

 

 

 

 

After sanding the seams of the tanks, I added Archer resin decal rivets to the raised fastener detail on the bottom that is now missing and the area surrounding where the sway braces attach.  The gloss around the new rivets is Future/Pledge, to seal them in after the application of MIcrosol.  Holes were drilled for the pylon pins and I added a small pin at the rear to center the tank where it attaches to the pylon.

 

 

 

 

This pic shows why I removed the rear ball fitting, which I also drilled out and added styrene rod, and why I didn't glue the sway braces to the pylon.  Left as is, I can paint them in a steel color and add them later without masking.  The grooves for the sway braces in the pylon need to be deepened about double from where they started to accommodate the new parts.

 

 

 

 

Using pins and styrene rod, none of the parts need to be glued.  The friction of the pylon to tank is strong enough to hold the sway braces in place, while the styrene rod of the rear ball fitting is nice and tight.

 

 

 

 

A close-up of the rear.  Note that the anchor pins are where they should be and barely visible, just like the real deal.  You can also see the rear hole for the kit missile rail adapter has been filled with CA glue.

 

 

 

 

My next update will be after I have painted all of the above parts and added some surface detail, like steel colored fasteners.  Thanks for your continued interest in this very long project.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited September 21, 2017 by chuck540z3

[Breaker]

Nice work Chuck. Are you leaving the lines engraved on the tanks? Photos I've got seem to show it as a welded raised line rather than a recessed line. 

[chuck540z3]

Nice work Chuck. Are you leaving the lines engraved on the tanks? Photos I've got seem to show it as a welded raised line rather than a recessed line. 

 

Good question.  I'm leaving them as is, but I will be careful to not get any dark wash into the grooves to enhance them, just like most of the other panel lines on this model.  After paint, I'm hoping they fade away a little bit, but you're right, they should be raised weld marks rather than recessed panel lines.  This brings up a topic that I struggle with all the time with every build:  If some detail is wrong, is it worth the effort to fix it and will it make the model look better?  In this case, the answer is no, but I hope it's because it's the right decision vs. I am sick and tired of making any more modifications! 

 

Cheers,

Chuck