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Scratchbuilt 1/24 Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat


Jim Barry

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I found this great bearcat pic on this man's flicker photo stream which is MASSIVE.  Lots of great planes from what looks like years of airshows and museums. 

 

https://www.flickr.com/people/ajw1970/

 

 

Surf the albums. Lots of high res pics of things. 

 

 

Grumman_F8F-2_Bearcat_(121707_-_N3025)_(

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One thing that stalled the project years ago was the difficulty of doing the canopy right. What was getting me was this "angel/devil" thing where one side of me was saying "hey that's great!, you did it!" and another side saying "it sucks you lazy loser  and you have to do it over again".  I was busy at work and things were boiling over and I just could not get over what REALLY had to be done. I just needed to fix the template, smooth it to a glass finish, correct the size and re pull another one. I'm fine with that now.  Breaks are good. 

 

Another thing that was bothering me was all the sanding and applying lacquer based primers and all. The toxic thing was just bothering me and living in a respirator and goggles was simply unpleasant. I'm coming around to it just being part of the deal and will work harder next time to get the underlying form correct without so much sanding work. It's an attitude, I guess. Part of the "success" is the difficulty and sacrifices. 

 

Happy New Year everyone! 

Edited by Jim Barry
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39 minutes ago, Jim Barry said:

One thing that stalled the project years ago was the difficulty of doing the canopy right.

 

Jim - when the time comes, I want to see exactly what you do.  On my builds of 21ST or Blue Box 1/18 models, each time I have had to deal with the compound curved bubble canopies, which invariably are either out of scale, have serious framing flaws, or both, and are too thick. 

 

My current project, the Corsair - its canopy is nicely shaped (I think), and not even that thick (0.06 inch for 1/18), but the framing is just awful.  Almost deal breaking awful.  I am faced with either living with it, sanding it off and redoing it while magically still having a good mar-free glass surface left, or having it blown somehow. 

 

My Thunderbolt has a noticeably oversized canopy (and windshield) - I lived with it and it's the worst inaccuracy of that entire build.  

 

My P-38 has a scratch built enclosure (that is how bad its canopy and windshield were), except the compound curved top hatch where I had to use the toy part and attempted to correct some of its serious issues (only partly successful).

 

My old Mustang has a very late model bulging canopy (not supposed to be on a -D15NA), which was so full of shape issues I just won't go into it, some corrected, some not.  I scratch built the windshield, it was so bad.  I would have loved to have a correctly shaped blown canopy for it.

 

Now I have another Mustang in the cue - probably the same canopy and windshield issues.

 

So I am 4 for 4 so far.  If you can do it for the Bearcat, maybe I can do it too. 

 

My only experience with a vac-formed canopy was a 1/32 resin P-47D kit from Rutman years ago.  Unfortunately that canopy was wrongly shaped (too large), and details were almost absent including edges, as if the plastic didn't properly suck down (??).  I couldn't use it so I actually purchased a Hasegawa Thunderbolt so that I could use its canopy and windshield (and a few other parts that were improvements over the resin parts)!  So, I am wary of vac-form parts.  Is that warranted?

Edited by JayW
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2 hours ago, JayW said:

 

Jim - when the time comes, I want to see exactly what you do. 

So, I am wary of vac-form parts.  Is that warranted?

Jay/Jim  Take a look at my ongoing Prowler build--have been dealing with the same issue.  Won't say I've *solved* the problem, but have done enough smash molds and out right vac molding that it's getting easier.  My problem has been that I've gone through 4 different canopies in the build at this point.  I keep cracking them or generally abusing them to the point they give up the ghost.  On the plus side, each new one gets easier to do...  Same for the pods I had to make--made a quick and simple vacu-form box to make 'em.  End results are better than I had imagined at the start of the process. 

 

Bottom line, is once you get a good solid shape, you can make as many molds as you want.  Becomes somewhat liberating in that you realize that if a part is off, it's nothing but a tweak to the shape and another effort.  With all the amazing work you're putting into these builds, I think you could easily accomplish the canopies.

-Peter

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nice to see this back :)

 

canopies are my nemesis - but you have to face into it..

 

I must admit things got waaaaaay easier when I bought one of those little dental vacform machines for $100 - that or I ask John Wilkes (Tigger on here) to do them for me

 

..either way making a buck to mould from is a must - once thats done you have options

 

Peter

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Thanks for weighing in all! Sure keeps the motivation up. I'll try to pass on any tips if canopy version 2.0 is a success. 

 

3d Printing the buck? Not sure I know of an experience with that but makes a lot of sense to me. 

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17 hours ago, Jim Barry said:

What was getting me was this "angel/devil" thing where one side of me was saying "hey that's great!, you did it!" and another side saying "it sucks you lazy loser  and you have to do it over again".

 

HaHaaa !!! Glad to know I'm not the only one goes thru that dilema.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Slight delays making good headway. One way I got BACK into the Bearcat commitment was to dust off the skills. A Hasegawa 1/72 P-3C Orion has been in my stash for years and I felt some time at the bench with it might be good to get the mojo back. Nothing too fancy. It's not LSP but it's big..bigger than the Bearcat. I was sort of thinking I'd just black out the windows and not get bogged by a cockpit but AFTER I glued the halves together, I felt guilty and so I sawed the front off the plane like an executioner and inserted the cockpit. Kind of fun for a disaster. The P-3 is dear to my heart since I grew up (and still live) next to Brunswick Naval Air Station where the P-3 flew over my head for like 33 years (1977 to 2010). A good friend flew for VP-10 (Red Lancers)  and so I'll make some decals for it.  A static display P-3 is minutes away for reference. It's a beauty! 

 vFnW4I.jpg

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  • 3 months later...


The Bearcat is getting close to number 1 on the deck again, but I did get distracted by this idea I could get a 3D image ( on the Internet)  and print an mp 40 (I use shapeways)  finish it and mount it for hobby room decor.  1/4 scale. It worked! Kinda related to the Bearcat which is also a beneficiary of 3D printing.
 

pmDnbK4Aj

 

 

pmVFiHH9j
 

 

po1RHIL9j

Edited by Jim Barry
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  • 2 months later...

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