themongoose Posted January 19, 2019 Author Share Posted January 19, 2019 ?'s always welcome! Q1: What brand of putty / filler is that you're using? Looks like it sands and blends really nice. Bondo Glazing & Spot Putty. Made to go on super thin so it seems to work well for this type of fine work. You're right it is really easy to sand. I'm using flexible ladies fingernail files. Q2: Great pilot figure. Did it come with one of your donor kits? Yep, Came with the F5E kit. The F5F kit has a standing fig and one with a map so neither did me any good. Q3: At one point I thought you were vac forming your canopies (thought I saw this in another thread) , but the ones in your pictures here look like they are clear parts from a kit. Is that correct? Yes I have several vacuum form canopies. Once I saw a release date for the F5F kit I decided to wait and see if it's canopies would fit. They are an exact match for the old Hasegawa kits so they mated up fine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 20, 2019 Author Share Posted January 20, 2019 Character established! I finished up the nose tonight. I've gotta say I think this turned out pretty great. I was limited by the Belcher Bits kit profile which was based on the hasegawa kit so there was only so much thickness I could add without putting a step in the profile starting at the cockpit I made up some templates for the horizontal and vertical profiles. Then sanded slowly till the profile matched the template. Here's where that issue with the height of the fuselage comes in. What I did was make sure the profile on the top and the bottom matched the drawings. The overall scale thickness is then left about 2mm thinner than it should be. If you checked out my earlier posts you know it's already 4mm thicker and any more would make it look like the plane was pregnant! So of course I had to put as much together as I could to see if the profile looks the part now. Check this out and let me know what you think? LSP_Kevin, Azgaron, Starfighter and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 20, 2019 Author Share Posted January 20, 2019 All finished with the major profile changes for the front fuselage. Canopies are all fitted and lay down pretty nice with a uniform gap between the cockpits. Now it's time to fill it with foam and tape it up until all the fine putty work is done and sanded. I'm hopeful those big spacers down the side will cover nicely and not show through the body-work. johncrow, LSP_Kevin, BradG and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
checksix Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 It's difficult to tell without seeing the entire fuselage, but it looks like your nose profile is going to work! One thing I noticed is that the little cone shape at the front base of the canopy seems too exaggerated. It's actually fairly subtle, and the shape seems to carry through the canopy and matches the interior cockpit glare shield. Here's what I mean: You're going to have a great model. I'm really enjoying watching this unfold... BradG 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 I have to agree, what a massive improvement over the original nose, and to my eye it looks spot on. I think that fairing in front of the screen just needs reducing just a little. Other than that....wonderful. Regarding the extra bodywork concern you have, what I tend to do in these instances is cover all the joins up etc with thin CA. Now contrary to belief, I find that larger buildups of CA will still shrink over time, but only very slightly. Thin buildups of CA seems to stop this. Sand/fill smooth like you are prepping for rescribing and then spray Mr Surfacer on and go to another part of the kit. You will notice (possibly) some areas that will shrink over the coming days or once the Mr Surfacer has settled properly there are scratches in the surface that might need spot treatment. Clearly from what you do you are a very talented model maker so please don't take this as any form of criticism, it's just big corrections like this can come back to bite us when we come back to look at the model on the shelf a few months later when everything has settled. One final thing is, when rescribing I use a photoetch razor saw. The reason being that if you are trying to drag a scriber through different mediums you can get a very uneven panel line. A saw evens everything out. Keep up the awesome work, I am really enjoying this!!! Cheers Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 20, 2019 Author Share Posted January 20, 2019 (edited) Anthony no worries, I've always got more to learn and truly I enjoy hearing how others would do it. Just the reason I threw it out there as I've been bit before with things showing up a month later LOL it's always funny later isn't it. 3 hours ago, checksix said: It's difficult to tell without seeing the entire fuselage, but it looks like your nose profile is going to work! One thing I noticed is that the little cone shape at the front base of the canopy seems too exaggerated. It's actually fairly subtle, and the shape seems to carry through the canopy and matches the interior cockpit glare shield... Awesome pic, really shows the profile well. None of my pics seem to show it as clearly. 1 hour ago, Anthony in NZ said: I have to agree, what a massive improvement over the original nose, and to my eye it looks spot on. I think that fairing in front of the screen just needs reducing just a little... I think you guys are right. There is some of the fairing built into the windscreen and the drawing does not come to the point that you see on the pics. I extended the point out thinking that they didn't show it for clarity but I think the lines on the drawing represent the total length. I redid it using the same piece. Once I had the top view cut I took the flexifile over it to take some of the hump off. Let me know what you think of this? I will add some putty in those corners by windscreen once everything is set in place. The piece was just so small I couldn't keep them on there. The width is being driven by the windscreen. It seems to make it wider than it is in the pics but I checked vs the drawing and the width matches up. Still has me a bit puzzled. Maybe it needs some primer on it now, so that everything is a consistent color, in order to tell if it needs any finer adjustment? Edited January 20, 2019 by themongoose added question Azgaron, Out2gtcha, BradG and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 That's it mate!! Much better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 I love that moment when you put a coat of primer on your model and like magic all the rough spots, sanding marks, and lumps and bumps show up clear as day! Where were they before? It sure felt smooth to me :-) I worked some putty around the nose pitot and I used Mr Surfacer 500 to round out the fairing and blend it into the nose. Mr Surfacer really shows how much work I have to do yet. Looks manageable though. I think the transition of the fairing looks much better than the sharp edge I had previously. Lots to do around the pitot tube and up where the nosecone mounted to the fuselage. Finished up the sides, Sanded this to 600 grit in preparation for the MrS. I also extended the coaming a little further into the windscreen so the transition will look right. From the side view here you can see how the angle looks consistent now. This I'm extremely happy with. The side extensions I grafted in have disappeared. Just a few pinholes and maybe one shallow area around gun port was. This will finish out nicely. Once I have everything smooth then I can work on scribing based on the drawings and pictures I have. LSP_Paul, LSP_Kevin, BradG and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Very nice! Cant wait to see more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Awesome!! I would say that you nailed it with the new shapes....lovely work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 How about creating a mold of the nose before you continue the build? I would love to do a NASA version of the T-38... Cheers: Kent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 2 hours ago, kkarlsen said: How about creating a mold of the nose before you continue the build? I would love to do a NASA version of the T-38... Cheers: Kent I think I could do that. Are you talking about a plaster cast kind of mold, like the ‘perfect cast’ material i used for a vacuum formed canopy form? No undercuts or odd angles to this so it seems straightforward. I’m willing to try it. kkarlsen 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azgaron Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Nice work! Håkan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 8 hours ago, themongoose said: I think I could do that. Are you talking about a plaster cast kind of mold, like the ‘perfect cast’ material i used for a vacuum formed canopy form? No undercuts or odd angles to this so it seems straightforward. I’m willing to try it. Hmm, haven't got any experience with plaster casting. I would need a cast of the double canopy too? It looks like there's a terrible amount of work involved, maybe even enough to scare me off? Cheers: Kent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 25, 2019 Author Share Posted January 25, 2019 5 hours ago, kkarlsen said: Hmm, haven't got any experience with plaster casting. I would need a cast of the double canopy too? It looks like there's a terrible amount of work involved, maybe even enough to scare me off? Cheers: Kent haha made me laugh! I stopped once due to the canopy. The trick there is to contact Kittyhawk and have them send you a clear sprue from the F-5F. Changed the whole game. I’ll see what I can do about molding the nose as then we all have options at least. kkarlsen 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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