Jack Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 Yo....mastercrafter, i just checked in again after a while, and boy you do your work justice, great tutorial (which i will try to follow eventually, ....er, hopefully... ) !! Lee White 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 Brian, Love the way your vent looks. Great way to solve the problem! Too bad that bird at the museum is in such rough shape. Gaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 4, 2018 Author Share Posted February 4, 2018 Nice work on those intakes Brian! Me I am a bit lazy so will go with the FOD covers instead! You'll have fun with the engines mounts! Think you will re-do them in brass instead of the resin things they give you! Aligning them is a real pain! Keep up the good work! Yo....mastercrafter, i just checked in again after a while, and boy you do your work justice, great tutorial (which i will try to follow eventually, ....er, hopefully... ) !! Brian, Love the way your vent looks. Great way to solve the problem! Too bad that bird at the museum is in such rough shape. Gaz Andre, Jack, Gaz, thanks for the kind words! The last couple days have been light modeling days for some reason, but Ive spent the time I HAVE had at the bench fetteling with the intake vents, and getting the wing shoulders worked out in preparation for wing attachment, which might be a little bit off, but wing half attachment is coming up very soon. Pics in a minute.............. Harold 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 4, 2018 Author Share Posted February 4, 2018 I was hoping to get the wing halves attached today/tonight, but smoothing out the intakes has taken a bit more time than I suspected. I also have been getting the cockpit headrest firewall smoothed out with some primer then some MRP interior green, as there is no gap or panel line around the headrest bulkhead on the 1:1. The thickness of the resin fuselage halves shows there, so I had to fill that seam after the pit was installed and fuselage closed, which is what I did, and now the the bulkhead is in primer, waiting to dry, so I can shoot some int green on it, fix the last couple of switches, and attach the IP hood and gun-sight (which I've also been working on!). Pics of those later, as there really wasn't much to share there yet except paint drying........... First though I had to make a small mod to my JH models stand for the Tigercat. I have up to this point, not damaged it, but have lightly bumped the nose gear on several occasions, and loosing, damaging, or otherwise knocking it out of place at this point in time would be disastrous. So I CAed two small square plastic bits to the base of the forward section of the model stand, and then taped two thick pieces of balsa wood on either side of those, up to the sides of the fuselage to keep myself from damaging or bumping the nose gear: While the vents and headrest bulkhead are drying, I got out the large hardened steel rod, and X2 wing shoulder mounts for the wings to see how they fit: These parts are an exact fit, fitting tight and well, as they are needed for not only strength, but also to make sure the wings are aligned at the correct angle. You can see on the above pic the concave side that fits against the fuselage, and also the resin rods that protrude out of the rear holes for alignment, as the hardened steel rod goes in the forward most of the holes. The fit here is excellent, right up to the fuse, even dry fit as they are here, and will go a long way to not only adding strength but rigidity and alignment as well. I have also fit them inside the ends of the wings while holding the wing halves together, and the fit there is excellent too: I'm heading back downstairs to the modeling cave to check on the primer on both the cockpit bulkhead and the vents. I'm hoping to be able to not only shoot the MRP int green on the bulkhead tonight, but also get the vents glued in, so I can shoot some MRP DSB on them. Similar to the headrest bulkhead, I will have to wait until the wing halves are joined to fill the gaps on each side of each vent in the wings, but I think this can be accomplished without too much trouble using some acrylic resin putty and a small trowel to smooth the sides. Then it will just take a small respray of DSB in those areas to smooth things out, and get a more seamless look. Cheers till next time! LSP_Kevin, Hubert Boillot, sandokan and 8 others 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 Still plugging away at the big girl! The last week has seen my bench time cut down a bit, but still managed to make some strides with the big Tigercat, including a major hurdle crossed with the wings............. Trak-Tor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 Starting off, I bit the bullet and decided I had the wing inlet pieces fitting as good as they were going to fit, so I glued them in. Then I made sure the cap I fitted to the end of them as secure, and that it cleared the inner parts of the wing properly.Then I punched out some circles to mask off the circular center vent section, and sprayed the resin parts with primer, then some MRP DSB. They needed a bit of sanding and touch-up, which I completed prior to the wing assembly, but after these pics: Next I slathered some trusty ol JB Weld on the center re-enforcing wing section that provides some strength, and keeps the wings straight, as well as the resin pins put in each half earlier, which you can see oozing out of the center section of the wing: I made up a mix of my usual thick CA and micro-balloons as a filler material and went over all the exterior wing joints to clean them up and fill the many spaces and gaps created by snapping the wings off their pour blocks a bit before I had cut through them enough. I also went over the trailing edge joints with ultra thin CA as those joints were pretty gap free. Its hard to tell with the DSB being so dark, but in the end, the intakes turned out pretty well, but its harder to tell from this crappy pic, especially with the center masking disks still in place: I still have BIG qualms about the shape of the wing tips, which HpH has for some reason chosen to put a strange flat angle to from the middle of the wingtip extending to and through the landing lights, which makes the clear resin part for the wingtip oddly shaped as well. I will likely correct this with filler/Milliput, then find a clear toothbrush or the like to make the wing tip lights out of. You can see the odd shaped angles in the first pic prior to the wings being joined. The wings solidified, and actually turned out pretty well. They look pretty rough at this stage, but in actuality, most of the hardest work is done: The center shoulder parts have been glued on one side only to facilitate gluing them onto the fuselage (which I will do after I get the fuselage re-scribed) and seem to give a fairly closely correct angle for the wings. The shoulder parts are easily dry fit together, and the wings fit fairly snugly to them, so its a good way to see how big the big twin kitty really is going to be.....................and that is pretty dang big! Especially when you compare it to my A6M2 paint mule. This was an unbelievably large single seat fighter! MORE...................... Gazzas, sandokan, monthebiff and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phartycr0c Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 (edited) Fantastic work as usual Brian, attention to detail is second to none. Having seen your build, I remember I was in POF Chino a few years back when I took these photos. Not sure if they will be useful as they are not walkaround photos as it were but your welcome to them if you need them. DSC_0046 DSC_0045[ DSC_8909 Edited February 12, 2018 by Phartycr0c Out2gtcha and sandokan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 While the wings were setting, I also had been working on filling the gaps around the backrest bulk head which if left OOB makes a panel line around the bulk head itself, which in turns let you see the thickness of the fuselage around the edge of the backrest bulkhead. I filled this with CA, then masked off the rest of the pit, sprayed a bit of primer, then re-painted it with MRP interior green. After that all dried, I removed the masking around the fuselage, and decided to take the vertical fin and glue it together. After that dried as straight and true as I could have hoped for, I realized that I had enough parts to see what the entire airframe looked like as a whole unit for the first time. The horizontal fin is a solid chunk of resin (one of the reasons the F7F needs over 10 oz of lead in the nose!) and didnt need gluing, so I set about dry fitting the model together for the first time to see what I had................. The vertical fin, horizontal fin, rudder, wings and center shoulder parts are all just dry fit here, and are precariously setting in place. The dry fit stage relieved that there were gaps when sliding the wings on for the first time, so I removed them, and ground some of the shoulder parts off, and that got me a much better fit between the wing roots and the fuselage. In this first pic, you can also see the funky straight angled in section from the middle section of the wingtip to the wingtip lights. Anyone who has the JH Models stand will understand just how big this model is when looking at these pictures.........................this is going to be one of the largest, and heaviest models Ive ever made...............but also by far and away IMHO one of THE prettiest! : The rudder will require some slight sanding, as you can see here it is just ever so slightly too tall and creates a gap around the vertical fin/fuselage joint, which wont be too hard to remedy at all: Ive also been dabbling on the other much smaller model on the smaller side of my bench in-between working on this big girl too, as I've found it a good detraction from the large amounts of attention the HpH F7F requires. Cheers till next time! dora9, Wouter, Greg W and 13 others 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wouter Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 (edited) holy crap, you weren't lying. That thing is huge! Bigger than the my Ju388, which is a 3 man plane..., I'll have that one on the same stand. I'll post a pic for reference if you're interested. Edit: oeps, I have think I have a larger stand. Winspan tigercat 15,7 m - wingspan ju388 22 m. Still big though Edited February 12, 2018 by Wouter Out2gtcha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 I have the JH stand made for 1/32nd and 1/24th size kits. IIRC there are only two sizes, one for 72nd/48th and this one. If you have a JH models stand its likely this one...............but there are several other manus that make wooden stands. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 Brian, You're perserverence has paid off. Good job! Gaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Maxim Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 Really nice Brian. It's really starting to look like a Tigercat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 I likey... .Harv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Ray Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 Looks good mocked up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn M Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 I have the JH stand made for 1/32nd and 1/24th size kits. IIRC there are only two sizes, one for 72nd/48th and this one. If you have a JH models stand its likely this one...............but there are several other manus that make wooden stands. Cheers wow, that really puts the size into perspective! Great work on this, keep chippin away! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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