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

[scvrobeson]

This is true perseverance Brian, and it's something to be applauded.

 

 

Matt  

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks boys. I'll have to check out Home Depot for some LED replacements.

 

I just tonight got the articulating supports JB Welded to the MLG. I'll let that cure overnight and then I'll get the hydrolic actuating arms installed. This will effectively triangulate the MLG assembly, and strengthen them enough allow me to remove the entire assembly with the articulating supports and actuating arms all attached as a single unit. I can then  detail and paint them from there.

 

Cheers!

 

[Kagemusha]

That was probably the most nerve-racking read I've had on here, delighted it's all looking good.

[mattcour]

Ah.. nothing new here... Awesome as always 

[Woody V]

This level of dedication to accuracy combined with basic construction is what separates kit assemblers from model builders, and you sir are a master model builder. BRAVO!

[Oldbaldguy]

Astonishing.  I’d have been looking for my pellet gun about twenty pages ago.

[Rick K]

My eyes hurt!

 

Great job on these little *%^&^%#'s

 

Love the "Dumpster Dive" story.  Been there, done that.

[JayW]

NICE SAVE Brian!!!!  Man what a complex build WRT the min landing gear.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks all!

 

1 hour ago, Oldbaldguy said:

Astonishing.  I’d have been looking for my pellet gun about twenty pages ago.

 

It was a .45 I was looking for. Several times..................

I've not ever really had a build where SO much was off, wrong, doesn't fit together right, doesn't fit together at ALL, is the wrong angle, is the wrong shape or just completely needs to be scratch built.

I've been concentrating on acquiring a new truck for the past week or so, and its consumed all my time with non left for the poor ol F7F. That will change as I have found the truck I want, and although Im paying a couple grand over what I probably would have pre-pandemic it was a "good deal" if you consider the new and used car/truck market climate atm. The used car and truck market is OFF THE HOOK with crazy high prices everywhere, and no stock anywhere. 

Some manufactures who have vehicles that seem to sell at a premium even though its not a "luxury"  brand who shall remain anonymous but they rhyme "Soyota" have been putting a "Market Adjustment" fee on all their new cars/trucks, which is 5,000 for cars and 8,000 for trucks. YIKES!  That puts a new Soyota truck at least 8k over MSRP!  Ridiculous......

So, I found (nearly) exactly what I wanted, but its about 600 or 700 miles away from me in Garland TX. Ive got a shipper willing to transport up here for around $650 something, so figuring in the other option, which is a 1 way plane ticket, gas for the return trip home, and extra 700 miles + on the new truck, and the risk of damage to a brand new (to me) truck is over the price they want to ship the truck up here.

 

So, with all that in mind I've just glued on the actuating supports to the main gear using some JB Weld. This was held in place while the JB Weld dried by a couple dabs of super thin CA.

I was a bit worried about how to keep the gear in position with clamps or small alligator clips, but in the end a small drop of thin CA did the trick. I'm about to finish off getting the dealership in TX the rest of the cash for the truck, then have to arrange shipping today or tomorrow, but Ill probably be back on the Tigercat tonight or tomorrow as I oddly enough have some good MoJo going for her with the gear and exhausts proceeding well, which are two of the last 3 big hurdles. 

 

More later when ur older! 

Cheers

[Out2gtcha]

Ok, been on the hunt for my new truck, and have found it, hoping to actually secure the payment with the dealer today. With that part of the deal out of the way (sort of) I forced myself to sit back down at the bench, as I dont want to loose any momentum that I have with this build, as the Tigercat seems to do that herself.

 

Well failure is failure, and I'm accustomed to things not working out the 1st round on this build...........or the 2nd............or 3rd..........or even the 4th round occasionally. 

The gear was going swimmingly, so completely on-brand and on-time, after I assembled the gear with JB Weld, the flat but joint between metal and resin broke with barely a whisper when I tried to remove it. I then just removed the MLG and all the broken parts, that fortunately broke at the glue joints, with the exception of one of the actuator arms where the glue held, and it remained attached to the articulating support, so I removed those two as one unit:

 

 

 

 

 

You can see above, and here a bit better I have soldered a brass pin on the end of the articulating support that will go through the end of the MLG arm and provide some needed glue adhesion surface area.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see above, I had to also remove the brass ends of the actuator arms, and soldered a tiny brass pin on those too, and will then re-glue onto the actuator arms, and install those in a hole in the MLG to give triangulated support to the gear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ill have to let some of that dry, and still need to drill holes to accept the pins on the actuating arms to get the MLG basics done.

I then moved onto unmasking the props and then getting some masking tape markers in place to be able to put the HS and prop pitch text on them:

 

 

 

 

 

That was as far as I got with those, as the HpH wet transfers, that at this point are about 5 or more years old, came apart in the water with the HS logo remaining on the paper and the clear plastic sheet (that SHOULD have held the decal on with it) came away clean without anything on it. Bummer. Oh well, Ill have to invest in some HS logo decals from somewhere............dont think those should be too hard to find. 

 

 

Next up I thought maybe I could score a win by unmasking the wheels, which I had just gotten done fully painting, but not weathering yet. 

Well, best not get too hopeful for ANY kind of win then!!!

 

It looks like there is some paint missing on the nose tire as well, but its just the light, and its only one of the mains that had paint peel down to the resin:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Son of a........@!#&*!!!!

 

 

Ok, Im fine, its all fine. DEEEEEEP breaths. Back to work.

 

I took and sanded down that one main and then masked off the MLG rim and set to work with a bit of primer, sand then apply some MRP Tyre black, then some lightening of the tread to match the other one and we have a fix:

 

 

 

 

 

They will look better once weathered up and some of teh sheen taken off the DSB. 

 

I feel even remotest thing going right like this a win at this stage. Sometimes its not that I dont want to finish things up, it just feels like every time I touch something, something else unrelated goes awry.  Strange feeling for a model, but at this point Im just pushing blindly through the storm. 

 

Cheers. 

 

 

 

 

 

[JayW]

Oh man - deep breaths, no rushing.  Walk away for a while.  This is a great build - don't let some small mishaps spoil it.

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks Jay!

No, Ive surprisingly still got a lot of motivation for her even with all the continued mishaps.

 It's almost an expected outcome most times now!

 

If things start going too right, I do start to get a bit worried.

 

 

I also forgot to paint in the white on the small center caps of the main wheels and the open end/port side of the nose wheel.

 

[theseeker]

Definitely the "cats" pajamas!

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks all.

Well I have finally gathered all the funds for the new truck, but of course looks like things are all shut down yesterday and a skeleton crew today at the dealership in TX after 3" or 4" of snow. So spent the day on the phone mostly trying to get a bank wire transfer completed. 
I did however, manage to get to the hobby store after the bank and got a new set of mini-twist drills so I could continue on the landing gear of the Tigercat. 

 

Since the marriage of the hardened steel supports and resin but joint did not work out well, and basically fell directly apart, I have since moved on to fix that by drilling holes in the main triangulated part of the MLG. That just left the actuating arms to go, as one end is a nice socket that accepts part of the wheel well base previously made but the other end that attaches to a resin stud on the MLG itself was also a but joint and had to be addressed as it was key to the "triangulation" I wanted to get for the MLG.  This was so I could finish detailing and painting the MLG away from the model, and put them on after things were painted without damage to them, and have them remain strong. 

 

You can see here the rough 1st step. I had to break off the OOB resin nub that had one end of the actuating arm attachment, then make a suitably sized brass tube to epoxy in its place to receive the end of the actuating arm. Of coarse this will get finished off and sanded down after it cures:

 

 

 

 

 

The wheels are also finished save some grease stains for the white center caps and a bit more dirt weathering for the tread since there seemed to be a lot of dust and dirt at El Toro:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully tomorrow I can see about finalizing shipping on the truck from TX to NE, then will try to work a bit more on the gear and maybe finish weathering the wheels. 

 

Cheers! 

 

 

[Woody V]

5 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

Hopefully tomorrow I can see about finalizing shipping on the truck from TX to NE

 

If you're getting a brand new truck, I hope you're having it transported on a haul-away and not driven. 

I had a new car "delivered" from a dealer 350 miles away and the jerk drove it so hard the brake rotors were warped.