Jump to content

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


Out2gtcha

Recommended Posts

Guest Peterpools

Brian

Merry Christmas my Friend and the work you have accomplished on the nose gear alone is surely a Christmas present to all of us wishing to be able to accomplish this level of work.

Absolutely incredible work

Keep 'em comin

Peter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys! Very kind of you on this cold Christmas day.

I'll likely be back on this tonight, and see if I can get the parts in primer to see how much work they are going to require before paint.

Hopefully not much! I really need to get these finished up and painted so I can get the parts installed in the bay that need to be prior to fuselage assembly.

 

Once I get the gear painted and weathered, as well as a bit of weathering on the well, I will commence the cockpit work! Yay!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks all! It's been up and down the last couple days, as last night I broke part of the folding brace, and had to use some JB Weld to set it, as I couldn't risk soldering after all that assembly and other plastic parts.
Hopefully with the GFs relatives coming over today for a late Christmas, i might get some more bench time.

 

I can see that you have left the rod in the leg a little bit longer, so you can stick it into the nose wheel, will give some extra strength - great idea.

Hey Heinz,
Thanks for looking I'm on me. Honestly, the only real reason I left the rod long like that is so later I can use it to adjust how long I need to make the oleo area to make sure the model sets level.
The rod will get cut off flush with the bottom of resin part, so as to make the look of the tire a bit more realistic w/no rod going through it.

I'm hoping with the solid brass strut, and brass reinforced nose gear fork, it will be plenty of strength. I hope.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha, you and me both. Honestly, I think the OOB gear is plenty strong, but the look of the brass rod through the tire is something has HAS to be fixed. I realize they did it for reinforcement, but in the end there are much better and more realistic ways of accomplishing the same thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Vulcan32

Just a joke.

I´ve started to build the Tigercat, that means I´m preparing all the parts and put them into small bags, every step one bag. what should I say, I´m looking forward to return to my dayjob.

I will try to go another way with the brass rod, but you´re right, it has to be fixed. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Next up I decided  to take a stab at the wings and see if things were more on par with what this kit should be. I chopped the wings out of their pour blocks, and cut out the upper wing engine vents, and underwing landing light hole.  I added the underwing light and PE ring first:

 

20171112_205224-XL.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

With all of the issues I just had previously, I figured I better test fit, so I cut out all the small resin posts HpH has you put in previously molded holes, to see how the wings lined up.

 

 

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!   This issue unfortunately is even worse than any of the other issues with fit I encountered with the fuselage.

The issue is this, and I had Shane (who also has the kit) check his to see if its the same:

 

- the upper wing sections both look really good, and all alighns up with respect to rivets and panel lines, no issues here:

 

20171112_204943-X2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

- The lower wing panels look fine too; from the root of the wing till where the engine nacelle gets glued onto:

 

20171112_205019-XL.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

However......................if you look close, you will see there is a line of rivets RIGHT next to the wing tip cap on all wing sections except the starboard underside.

This pushes all rivet and panel lines about 1 or 2mm to the outside and completely off alignment with the upper wing section. You can see here compared to the port underside. You can see the tip line of rivets on the right, on the port side, and on the left you can see the missing row of the starboard side:

 

 

This part of the Tigercat has always been a bit of a mystery as to how it should look. The Monogram 1/72 being an older kit can forgiven for lack of detail due to the age but the 1/48 AMT (Now Italeari) does not have the proper detail either. l will be following this build with particular interest in the wings and how the wheel wells should look. Hopefully l can duplicate it on the Monogram one l want to do up as an 3N night fighter. Awesome work on the nose wheel wells! l filed the pictures away for future reference.

 

Hacker....man of many scales

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brian, it looks like this model is going to take up all your ingenuity and skill, but i'm certain it'll turn out to your satisfaction (as said before) but remember this is a limited run resin model, which will ofcourse need carefull consideration and approach on certain parts and fittings (despite its price tag), but in the end.........it'll be much much much better than the "only availlable other option" , but i'm telling you something you didn't know already ofcourse......

 

I couldn't give you any more good advise or hints on how to handle things which you didn't find out or heard about already, since i didn't tackle mine yet, but i appreciate your in-progress report with all its ups and downs and i hope to be able to match your level of expertise myself.

 

happy new year

 

Jack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...