themongoose Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 This beautiful T-38A Thunderbird took a long time and she took a short time. I began a year ago and made good progress through learning to vacuum form a canopy. Then with the pending release of the KittyHawk F-5's I decided to wait it out and gather up some cockpit and clear parts to really make her look sharp. So a year long build timeline with about 4 months of that being actual bench time. The final model is a combination of the Hasegawa F-5E, Belcher Bits F-5A conversion, KittyHawk F-5E/F and some Bondo spot putty! The cockpit and pilot are painted with Vallejo acrylics and the helmet is handpainted. Interior details are scratch built in combination with the Hasegawa side panels and KH seats. The paint is MCW lacquer 60/40 with MrColor Leveling Thinner, 2 coats of MCW clear thinned as well, and wet-sanded to 12000 grit. She's all show AND go with BMF Chrome on the pitot, wingtips, and exhausts. Those exhaust can corrugated metal liners are birthday tiaras for a kids party lol. The decals are a combination of CamPro from the F-4 Thunderbird set and the KH kit. She is adorned with Archer rivets, doors, and hinges to show off her classic airframe! I scribed all the other elements of the fuselage and airfoil surfaces to match the Daco Book as much as possible. Lastly a big thanks goes out to the Aviation Museum of Kentucky who graciously let me take pictures all around their AT-38B Thunderbird including some great shots of the cockpit. Model_Monkey, Jan_G, Cheetah11 and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted March 15, 2019 Author Share Posted March 15, 2019 (edited) And here's some more detail shots to close out the show. Thanks to everyone who helped me make this the best model I've built to date! If you're intereested in the full WIP you can find it here T-38A Thunderbird Edited March 15, 2019 by themongoose Added WIP link Daniel Leduc, Aerobat, Fvdm and 7 others 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 Wowzzers! That is one tremendous looking model! Really well done that that one. Not something you see every day either! themongoose 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Ray Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 That is really sweet! themongoose 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 Very nice! Hopefully, now that you had to go the hard way somebody will understand that this topic deserves a large scale kit!!! Out2gtcha and themongoose 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kagemusha Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 Very nice indeed, and as Thierry alluded, your hard work must surely mean a mainstream kit is sure to be released the day after tomorrow. themongoose 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted March 19, 2019 Share Posted March 19, 2019 7 hours ago, thierry laurent said: Very nice! Hopefully, now that you had to go the hard way somebody will understand that this topic deserves a large scale kit!!! 1 minute ago, Kagemusha said: Very nice indeed, and as Thierry alluded, your hard work must surely mean a mainstream kit is sure to be released the day after tomorrow. Im surprised an IM T-38 didnt come out before he was finished! themongoose 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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