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F7F-3 Tigercat - BuNo 80405 - VMF 312 MCAS - El Toro, CA 1946


Out2gtcha

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Thanks again one and all! It really does keep me motivated on a complex and occasionally MoJo debilitating build like this.   

I have actually in fact found a viable solution to the problem of the ignition wires being too bright and new however!

 

I experimented with a bunch of trials with the braided cord.

Trial #1 was adding a straight wash to them with no clear (trying both clay based and enamel based washes) and just as I had suspected, the washes climbed right up the braided material, and really made mess of things. Especially the clay wash, as it just left chunks of black or brown behind with 0 opportunity to wipe any of the excess away.

 

Trial #2 came when I did some experimentation with Johns idea of adding a clear to them to make them less absorbent. This actually worked! What I found however is even though the clear did prevent much of the wash from getting on them, the clear made the braided material very stiff in the end when enough clear was added to fully protect the lines, and they no longer looked as realistic. And on top of that, if you missed coating even one single place on them, capillary action would wick the wash into that little spot, and then inside the lines so it leaked to the outside of the lines underneath the clear. Again, a pretty big mess, especially if I had to had paint or spray 72 individual lines.

 

Trial #3 was when I had a breakthrough after the wash experiment. I was sort of dejected as to how to weather the material, thinking that all the stuff I was experimenting and all the stuff I generally used to weather things like this was wet, AKA washes. I was thinking to myself how nice it would be if I somehow had a "dry" wash to add to them......................then lightning struck!  I DO have what equates to a dry wash, Tamiya weathering pallets!

So I quickly busted out my Tamiya weathering pallet of "soot" and started experimenting with the braided material......

 

 

BINGO! That was the solution. The dry powdered soot clung to the material in a realistic way, but because it was powder only, it never crept or went anywhere but where I generally placed it with a soft but thin brush.

After 45 min or an hour of very gingerly placing the powdered material on the ignition cords, then carefully blowing the excess off, I had one engine weathered. 

 

I also got both front trans units glue on to the engines as well. It doesnt take much to see which one I weathered and which one I didnt:

 

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The lines are actually even dirtier than the pics lead on, as the light still seems to make them appear shinier and brighter than they actually are, but Im very pleased with the results. The weathering pallets took all the super bright/new look off of the ignition lines and blended them with the rest of the engine weathering very nicely. 

 

After another careful 45 min or so I had both engines lines weathered. 

 

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Much better

 

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Once again, my bench lights make things look a bit more uneven than they are IRL, as one of my original lights burned out, and had to replace it with a different type, so the left one appears a bit brighter, which it actually isnt.

 

With that task completed and can now move onto the main finishing areas of the R2800s, which are the 2 magnetos and 4 distributor housing covers. All 6 of those pieces will have additional wire to them, as well as the front trans cover will have additional wire added to it as well.

 

Cheers!

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Thanks again all! Very nice to have you along.

After an extremely filling Thanksgiving dinner with just the wife, daughter and her bf, I thought it would be amazing laughable embarrassing funny to see a back story of all the parts involved with these two 1/32nd scale engine kits inside this F7F kit..............

 

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And in the end, I'm not sure if it was worth it all or not with as much (or little) as you may be able to see once the cowls are all buttoned up.

 I'm happy with how they turned out, as both twin wasps are now about as done (minus the exhausts which have to be put on later once the cowls have been finalized) as Im going to get them. 

Once again, my camera and lights play havoc with oranges and yellows, so the ignition wires still look really bright, but trust me are not that bright in normal light.

Magnetos, distributor covers and connecting hoses are all now installed on the completed engines:

 

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Test fit of the props and cowls went well too (props still a bit dusty after 2 years of setting) :

 

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Like I said, not going to see much once everything is installed:

 

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I have to admit, they do look pretty keen with those giant props and cowls on:

 

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WHEW!!  Two small kits down/aka one one thing (engines) accomplished, now its on the dreaded wheel wells!  Ill go from R2800 hell, to resin bulkhead hell.  No matter, its full steam ahead lads! 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I think that I saw a couple of these washed up on the beach last week...

 

i-NJ6CsPt-X3.jpg

 

Seriously, fantastic work Brian - hopefully this means that you have passed a major milestone and now have the required mojo to complete it (good luck with the continuation).

 

Derek

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Thanks all.

These last few days have all been about the nacelles/wheel wells. They are seriously complex with not only the number of parts, but the fitment. The nacelles themselves are each made up of two horizontal side bulkhead rails, followed by 8 small vertical bulkhead pieces a side, times 4, + the main forward U shaped bulkhead, all made out of very thin resin that is extremely fragile. 

The only good news here is that I got a lot of the most tedious elements out of the way 2 years ago before I put it down, in having already cut out the seemingly hundreds of holes in the bulkheads. This was done with a variety of sharpened brass tube. This just left the parts themselves to be cut out and sanded smoothed which in itself is a tremendously tedious task as each rib has to be labeled and kept track of, and which side it does on:

 

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One tube for port and one for starboard:

 

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Each of the 4 main horizontal ribs had notches for each vertical rib, and were even easier to snap in twain

 

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Since it was now time to deal with the nacelles and wells, I knew it was time to then fix the port nacelle, which had its trailing end filled with resin. So in seeing  this 2 years ago I promptly cut off the trailing end of the nacelle, and hollowed out the resin with a cone sanding bit in my Dremel. However, right after that the overall tediousness of the build caught up with me and I put the whole thing aside. 

 

Fast forward to 2020, and I had to make a tiny jig to seat things right, as there are some complex curves to the rear of the Tigercat nacelles I used some extra tick gap filing CA to glue the rear portion on, then slathered on the MS 500:

 

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Height and shape seem about right when comparing the sbd nacelle:

 

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Once the port nacelle had set up and had things sanded a bit, I set about dumping each sides clear tube of bulkhead pieces out, and gluing them in one by one. I did end up adding a piece of small hardened wire to the forward gear well bulkhead, as it was very flimsy, and the bulkhead didn't look right bowed in:

 

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All the bulkheads are installed, and the interior of the nacelles, firewalls and upper internal nacelle roof parts are ready for primer:

 

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A view down into what you will see once installed, which is much less, especially once the gear is installed. The gear bays will definitely be busy when done however:, as I have a lot of small detailing to do and things to add that will need to come after paint, but before weathering:

 

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Off to the spray booth these went, and got a few coats of MS 1500 black. In fitting the overhead parts of the rear bulkhead parts I found they were too long, but already installed. So to get them to fit, I cut them and took a small suction out of the center (the nacelles get "squeezed" together a bit to fit in the end) and will fill in later before full paint:

 

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While that MS 1500 was hardening off, I started assembling the starboard engine mount parts. THIS is a section that has driven my OCD around the bend.............

 

 

 

There is absolutely NO direction on how to install these or even WHERE exactly to install them (no marks, holes or indicators what so ever as to where to drill) so this was all guess work and cursing. In the end, to my utter amazement I somehow managed to get the two main holes drilled fairly correctly and two of the cross braces initially installed:

 

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Laying the recently sprayed nacelle over the engine bearer portion, so far yielded great results:

 

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I guess it was at this point after ALL the tribulations of this kit I should have known something was about to go horribly wrong..................

 

SURE ENOUGH!!   I busted out the port side engine bearer parts and then had a bit of a head scratcher moment when I started comparing identical parts from the R and L sides:

 

 

 

 

Same part from the port side compared to the starboard side

 

?!?!?!?!

 

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Ummmmmmm

 

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This was getting ridiculous, and reminded me of the factory misaligned wing sections. Yikes. Well looks like Im off to the LHS to get some similar styrene rod to make my own mount!

 

Cheers till next time

 

 

 

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Oh man, this is indeed getting to be "murder" sometimes, sorry to hear of all these shortcomings in an expensive kit (have the big cat in the stash myself), but you're doing a great job trying to solve all these glitches and correcting it all, afterall it must be rewarding to have your ideal and favorable aircraft eventually in your show case, right?!!

 

keep up the good work,

 

Jack.

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