USAF F-100D FINISHED!

[dodgem37]

Nice little additions.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Whitey]

Mmmmmm, coming along nicely.

[themongoose]

Hey Eric, I’m following along and have started mine. I am having trouble fitting the wheel bays in the wings. Could you share what you did to get the wings to close up with the resin parts installed?

[ericg]

On 11/11/2019 at 1:02 AM, themongoose said:

Hey Eric, I’m following along and have started mine. I am having trouble fitting the wheel bays in the wings. Could you share what you did to get the wings to close up with the resin parts installed?

Hi themongoose,

 

I sanded down the resin until light shone through it and also thinned the inside of the wing surface down as well.

 

Now that I have the OV-10 finished, I am able to move on with the F-100. 

 

I painted the equipment under the windshield, in preparation for installing the clear part.

 

 

I was going to use the nice resin refuelling probe by Quickboost, but it hangs out too far for me to trust it not to be broken. 

 

 

I cut off the tip and the flange of the resin parts and made them fit some brass tube of appropriate diameter. To save the tube from kinking too much when it was bent, I inserted brass rod inside it. there is a small kink that I will fill and sand later.

 

 

I glued some brass tube into the refueling point that the new probe fits into. I squeezed it slightly into an oblong shape so that it holds firmly onto the probe.

 

 

Here is the new probe fitted. I can remove it for transport and now have much greater confidence if someones camera strap catches on it at a show.

 

 

 

 

[ericg]

Some more work.

 

I didn't like the way that Trumpeter have the canopy hinged at the rear. Looking it at a few other builds online, it is obvious that this part of the model is left until last and probably suffers a bit from get-it-finished syndrome and is just tacked on as an afterthought. 

 

Here is the way it fits without modification to the fuselage. Notice that I have used the Aires canopy framing, which has been painted and glued in place using superglue.

 

 

I like to make my canopies removable for transport if I can and needed to devise a method of doing so on this model. I removed the kit hinge points and drilled and inserted some brass tube into the resin canopy frame. I inserted a a short piece of small diameter brass rod into the tube to act as an alignment peg. I then filed a small groove into a larger piece of brass tube which fits nicely over the first part.  Notice that I have ground away a fair bit of the rear edge of the resin part.

 

 

 

I slightly compressed the aft end of the larger diameter brass tube to make the canopy a press fit and then superglued it into the fuselage.

 

 

 

The new position of the canopy. Notice that it is significantly further back over the fuselage, as per my references. the rear lip of the canopy had to be thinned as per the edge of the resin canopy frame to allow this. I now have a very sturdily mounted canopy, easily removed for transport.

 

 

Going through the excellent F-100 tweak list written by Ben Brown and Thierry Laurent, it is obvious that there is scope for many small improvements of the kit. Most of these are easy to do, and are actually quite alot of fun to try and find references for! Now that I have finished most of the bulky parts of the kit, it is time to refine it as much as possible, and using their list as a guide I am working out which ones I will do.

 

Starting with the tanks. I am building a later version of the F-100 which carried longer tanks. The kit is equipped with 275-gallon drop tanks. The aircraft that I am depicting carried 335 gallon tanks which were 28 inches longer via a plug forward of the pylon. This equates to 22.23 mm longer.

 

Here is the kit tank. In a later update, I will correct the forward fuel filler hole and add a new one in the aft section, as well as fix the fins.

 

 

I made up a 22.23 mm plug from a buddy refuelling pod which was exactly the right diameter and  which had just enough for 2 parallel section of that length. Inside this, I added some tabs from another small tank. I cut the kit tank at the major panel line aft of the fuel filler cap.

 

 

The extra length is apparent in this pic.

 

 

Missing from the kit is the small D shaped light which is there to illuminate the tip of the refuelling probe at night. I used a steel scribing template and a pin to deeply engrave its shape.

 

 

 

Using a micro chisel, I then removed the inside of the engraving to leave the new hole, ready for a light and some clear sheet. It is possibly a bit too big, but once I have the clear part in place, I will make a smaller mask for it before painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ericg]

The tweak list mentions the fairing `scabbed' onto the fuselage either side of the exhaust section. It took me a while to work out what they were talking about, but once you see it, it makes sense. They are the two triangular protrusions at the aft end, as shown here. Notice that they are very thick.

 

 

Here is the fairing from the side. 

 

 

To correctly depict the fairing, a new panel line needs to be scribed, which will clearly define this as a separate part which is bolted onto the fuselage. You can see the old panel line that I have filled and sanded. 

 

 

SMS Primer filler has been sprayed onto the modified area and sanded smooth.

 

 

The next step was to thin the edges of each of the protrusions and I glued some rounded plastic card onto the inside.

 

 

The completed modification.

 

 

Each of the two D shaped divots behind the cockpit were hollowed out, and a new ramp was made from plastic card. Also visible is the 4 new scribed latches on the panel immediately forward of the panel with the divot. Took me a couple of goes to get them right hence the `shadow' of the failed attempts.

 

 

The landing lights were a little too far back, so I filled these with thick disks of plastic card, and repositioned them a little further forward. I also made up some new gas purge vent pipes from brass tube as can be seen

 

 

The area around the cannon ports was very simplified, so quite a few new panel lines were scibed in this area, as well as screw holes.

 

 

Primed! Lots of little circles and squiggles that I have drawn on the model with a lead pencil to identify areas that needed to be fixed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kagemusha]

Stellar work as usual, very much like how you identify and solve the little details, such as the canopy, wonderful. 

[Simmo.b]

Looking awesome mate!!

[crobinsonh]

Great job - I certainly missed a few of these on my build as well. The canopy and rear end work would have made a noticeable difference.

[MikeMaben]

Shaping up very nicely Eric 

[dodgem37]

Nice work, EricG.

 

I like that alignment cut-out.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[ericg]

Thanks for the comment guys.

 

On to the painting stage. I like using the black base method for light colours and metal, so I painted the entire under surface black using another excellent SMS product called Camo black.

 

 

This paint gives a very smooth satin finish which is very hard wearing straight from the bottle.

 

Thus was my mottled coat of the light grey, which will provide a base for subsequent light coats of the same colour.

 

 

I extended the black base up over the rear fuselage and pre shaded the top surface.

 

 

The start of the bare metal effect on the rear fuselage. I split the area up into 3 zones as can be seen. From the front I used Alclad Duraluminum, AK extreme metal Duraluminum and Alclad Gunmetal as the base colours. These were mottled over each area.

 

 

I then used Alclad pale burnt metal thinned with MRP lacquer thinner and mottled it over each panel. This was followed by a further thinned mix of Alclad Gunmetal which gives selected areas a purple discoloured look.

 

 

It moves around a bit depending on the light.

 

 

I then started to sketch the different cam colours on the upper side. I build up each colour organically so that it doesn’t look too sterile. I used MRP paints.

 

 

The rough shapes in place. I have further refined each shape since this pic was taken.

 

An important part of the model is the scorched areas of paint on the rear fuselage. I don’t have any pics of 197 that show this area (although an ultra high res photo of it will show up the day after I finish it) so I have worked off a few pics of different aircraft to come up with a composite. I am leaving the two rear most panels alone and will apply the scorched effect to the front.  I lightened the base colour and have sprayed the outer areas of the panel lines to represent the oxidised paint. Over the top of this will be applied the base colour.

 

 

 

More to come later.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by ericg

[Simmo.b]

Awesome mate, looking the shiz!!

[themongoose]

Scorched paint on the panel lines is d’bomb!

[Whitey]

Looking good mate.