themongoose Posted November 7, 2019 Share Posted November 7, 2019 Ooooh-hoooo I've somehow ended up with a good bit of aftermarket for this build! That's what brought it to the forefront for my next project. I've just found individual pieces for it cheap over the years and so I decided to go ahead and get the rest that's available for it. Check out the treasure chest I've amassed - From Eduard I've got the self-adhesive placards, slats, air brake, undercarriage, and wheel well sets. For cockpit choice I've got both the Verlinden and the Aires sets to work from. The Aires set I picked up at Nationals a few years ago. last day, last hour and they had the whole table 50% off. Couldn't pass it up. The aires set has canopy and wheel well upgrades in addition to the engine details. It looks pretty good. Honestly I don't know which cockpit tub I'll go with as they both look crisp. Will have to check accuracy for my bird and make a decision. Thats a master Pitot tube in there along with the Zacto nose enhancement for a facelift. Then lastly I was looking at all the Eduard pieces and just didn't like the fuselage PE they had. It all sticks off the surface too much. That's when I remembered seeing an email about Archer Fine Transfers announcing a new sheet. I used their hatches, hinges, and other resin bits on my T-38A and now they have redone the sheet at 1/2 the thickness of the original. This should do perfectly for the access hatches, fuel doors and the like on this AC. I'll post details up on this as soon as possible. I don't think I've seen a review on them yet. There's been alot of these Huns done and I think I have every one of them on a separate tab on my ipad for review as I get going. Given that, I plan to post fewer mid-term updates as most people have seen it all on these. I'll try sticking to the finished assemblies and just post up some details on the new stuff, like the Archer panels and the foiling, especially the Titanium tail and the archetypical bluing and burnt metal look they have! LSP_Kevin, Victor K2, MikeMaben and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMaben Posted November 7, 2019 Share Posted November 7, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted November 10, 2019 Author Share Posted November 10, 2019 Already i need some help I’ve seen several builds with the resin wheel wells and they look really sweet. I haven’t found one that describes what it takes to get the wing to close up though . Could anyone who’s done this drop a few notes in here about how best to do this? Here’s what i have so far... can’t be much thinner without going through the resin base then here’s what they look like sandwiched between the wing halves going to post in tips and techniques section as well. I’ve got time on this one so i really want to do this right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zank_Frappa Posted November 10, 2019 Share Posted November 10, 2019 If I were you I'd try thinning the plastic on the upper wing half down. You could use a grinding head in a dremel, but personally I'd use a #10 or #22 to slowly scrape the plastic away until the resin part sits like it should Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted November 10, 2019 Author Share Posted November 10, 2019 Thanks Frank. I did just that and used old faithful, #11. Well I think this is the best it can be. I sanded the wing surface, and trimmed down the sides of the resin bits. Lost a tad of detail but probably not noticeable. I managed to save 2 hydraulic lines along the side wall so those will provide the extent of the detail on the wall. Out2gtcha, Gazzas, Victor K2 and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted November 15, 2019 Author Share Posted November 15, 2019 Approaching my first real accomplishment on this one. I followed crobinsonh and ericg builds and decided I wanted to make the fuselage changes so the cockpit looked right. Great guidelines in their builds. I had an idea that i think turned out cool and will save some time. when i cut the 2mm off the backside of the ammo panel I did it such that i got a perfect slice Next i took this piece and switched sides with it. That turned the rivet line around so that it would be facing aft. This replaced the 2mm wide piece of styrene. i cut 2mm out of the coming to move the whole cockpit forward. Really this seems to be Aires intent as the side panels don’t fit right unless you do this. Here’s the final result vs the look of the 1:1 Thunderbird getting the IP to sit down and not stand proud witha PITA! would still like it to be 1mm lower but I’m just throughthe floor of the cockpit on the edges and the top of the intake duct is really thinned out so this is the final position. I’ve tested out the canopy and it just barely fits ... but it fits. LSP_Kevin, Fvdm, johncrow and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted December 17, 2019 Author Share Posted December 17, 2019 Hello Again Fellow Modelers! Time to post up an update. I've got everything dryfitted to the fuselage now. I've been slowly working on doing a significant part of the painting before I install the gear bays cockpit and such. I'm very happy to show these at this point. I've got about a dozen pages open on my iPad to all kinds of builds and info to try and improve my skills here. Big thanks at this stage to crobinsonh and ericg who's build threads I've accessed extensively (they may have noticed their view count go up ). In the below shot I made the hydraulic cylinders behind the headrest. Now I need to give them a wash to bring out some of the details. I've struggled using an acrylic wash over the lacquer clear. Going to grab some oils tomorrow and do it that way. Even after waiting 3 or more days for the clear to get good and hard the acrylics seem to stick in the paint and I have to scrub them off. I still can't figure out why I am so incompetent at this technique Out2gtcha, Victor K2, Gazzas and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 Quite a successful few days on the F-100. The jigsaw puzzle that is all the parts to glue into the fuselage in order to assemble it are painted and weathered! I ran out and bought the classic mix of oil paints. Followed my buddy’s instructions and it all turned out well. The acrylic washes on the lacquer clear i use just don’t mix is my conclusion. Here’s all my puzzle pieces i see i have a fix to do where the interior green got chewed up somewhere along the way. Glad i looked closer at the pic. I have the nose wheel bay installed in one side of the fuselage now. Plus I got the jet engine dry fit and the nozzle length adjusted. This turned out to be a trigonometry exercise in conjunction with a big hammer, I mean sander . After putting 3 pieces together inside the fuselage you have to cut off about 12mm of the jet exhaust to fit up the resin piece. First i had to measure out the total length of the nozzle vs the length of the fuselage. Matched that up with the Aires cut line. Then did a ratio based on the side shot i had of the plane from the Air Force Museum in Dayton. Next I discovered that the angle was a little off...the tail wouldn’t mate to the fuselage correctly, it was 1 mm low. That’s where the trig came in. I had to sand just 0.33mm off the top of the jet pipe to get the end of the exhaust to move up 1mm. Guess I could have just sanded a little and checked it over and over again BUT WHERE’S THE FUN IN THAT Landrotten Highlander, Victor K2, johncrow and 8 others 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 Great progress! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 Looking good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted December 31, 2019 Author Share Posted December 31, 2019 (edited) Thanks for looking in on my project and for the positive reinforcement Feels like I’m making progress now. The first part of the jigsaw puzzle is together! I’ve never done a more complicated fuselage. Took my time though and everything lined up. the front piece is just sitting in place to check fit. Looking at some of the past builds I’d say Trumpy made changes when they did the Thunderbirds version. The panels fit better and the raised section leading up to the canopy exists on this version whereas-it was just a step on others. those clear looking seam gaps have CA in them. Really they were my fault and not kit fit issues. Worked on the exhaust while all this was drying. Hard to take pics but here are a few plus a comparison to the 1:1 scale model up in Dayton. Here i used 5 different Vallejo Metal Colors to try and capture the effect on the petals May need to dull it down more. The matt varnish seems pretty shiny under the lights. ive got 2 more days off and hope to make alot more progress. Will be happy if I can get the whole fuselage assembly done before going back to work Edited December 31, 2019 by themongoose Pic and text TenSeven, Anthony in NZ, Ol' Scrapiron and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 1, 2020 Author Share Posted January 1, 2020 These turned out sooo good I had to grab a picture in the paint booth! Since I had to paint the inside of the Zacto intake I decided to keep going once the booth was set up. Now i can finish the nose and the tail, make the joints up and start foiling the middle. It may seem out of order but i found taping over foil somewhat tenuous when i did the F-84G so going to mix it up this time. Back to work tomorrow so probably nothing happening till next weekend. Happy New Year LSP! TenSeven, Brett M, Victor K2 and 7 others 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 These slats are some complicated things! Crobinsonh gave me advice on what to do and not do. What a great modeler! There’s a full day in these so far. Everything is ready for paint and foil...which I have to do before I put the fingers in to mount them. Any advice on cleaning the PE before painting? It’s annealed. I used lacquer thinner to take the soot off. That left a light discoloration that i cleaned off with a brass wire brush. Makes me wonder if it needs cleaned to get paint to stick or if this was just the brass tarnishing? johncrow, Gazzas, TenSeven and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Aweseom can and beautiful painting on the tail! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMaben Posted January 5, 2020 Share Posted January 5, 2020 Uh Oh ... brain surgery ahead ... Call the nurse ... themongoose 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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