KH T-6/Harvard Kicked Up A Notch: Apr 14/20: Finished!

[Wolf Buddee]

Incredible work as always Chuck!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[CZPetrP]

WOW, good job and honest modeling.

I look forward to progress.

[rigor]

Nice clean work chuck

[spyrosjzmichos]

Wow! The fit of the lower central wing to fuselage looks quite smooth!

[LSP_Kevin]

That's looking superb, Chuck. That landing gear looks so much better.

 

Kev

[dodgem37]

Great work.  Great update.  The difference between kit and PE is remarkable.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Trak-Tor]

That's outstanding!

It makes me want to quit my work immediately and go home and do something similar....

 

Keep it coming, please!

 

Juraj

[mozart]

Very impressive work Chuck, you certainly are kicking this kit up a notch. I can’t agree though with your statement about the flaps usually hanging down when they are parked....not in my experience and research I’m afraid. 

[DonH]

Looking good Chuck! Very meticulous work and great attention to detail.

 

Looking back through the build thread and some of the photos, I wonder if the tail wheel leg in the kit is a bit thick compared to the real deal?

[R Palimaka]

"Kicked up a notch" doesn't begin to describe what you're doing. Some clever solutions to problems, and astonishing attention to detail as usual. I enjoy learning from your builds. I also love your confession that you love to win.

 

I've used very thin foil furnace tape strips to represent fabric tape on control surfaces, but I'm finding that the paint on top of it can be a bit delicate and can chip no matter what I used as primer. Not sure if that applies to specialist hobby types of foil tape? Anyway, I'm sure you'll find something that will work.

 

Richard

 

 

[chuck540z3]

Thank you very much everyone!  I appreciate the encouraging words.

 

6 hours ago, mozart said:

Very impressive work Chuck, you certainly are kicking this kit up a notch. I can’t agree though with your statement about the flaps usually hanging down when they are parked....not in my experience and research I’m afraid. 

 

Thank you Max.  As for the flaps being down, I guess I should have said that my subject has the flaps in the down position when parked most of the time, but not always.  Also, the kit instructions call for the flaps to be in the down position, so I assumed they should be that way.

 

Here's a couple that show not only that, but the wheel wells and flaps are painted yellow like the rest of the aircraft, which will make painting much easier.  Also note that the landing lights are huge and much bigger than the kit parts, which don't really supply any lights.  Thanks to MikeMaden's schematic posted above, only the left port side wing should have both 7" landing and a 4" red light, while the right starboard side has only the landing light.  I will modify these lights accordingly.

 

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, DonH said:

Looking good Chuck! Very meticulous work and great attention to detail.

 

Looking back through the build thread and some of the photos, I wonder if the tail wheel leg in the kit is a bit thick compared to the real deal?

 

Thanks Don and yes it is.  Having said that, it's only a tiny rear wheel, so I will be leaving it as is.

 

2 hours ago, R Palimaka said:

"Kicked up a notch" doesn't begin to describe what you're doing. Some clever solutions to problems, and astonishing attention to detail as usual. I enjoy learning from your builds. I also love your confession that you love to win.

 

I've used very thin foil furnace tape strips to represent fabric tape on control surfaces, but I'm finding that the paint on top of it can be a bit delicate and can chip no matter what I used as primer. Not sure if that applies to specialist hobby types of foil tape? Anyway, I'm sure you'll find something that will work.

 

Richard

 

 

 

Thanks Richard.  I'm still working on it and now that this topic has come up again, I really must find a solution, which is a big part of the fun of modeling for me.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Thunnus]

Always amazed at the instructive content of your updates, the deft execution of advanced and creative techniques and especially the clarity of presentation.  Definitely publication-worthy!

[chuck540z3]

Feb. 4/20

 

Next step is wing assembly, but before I do that, I want to deal with the lights in the wings.  As mentioned above, the port side wing has both a 7” Landing and a 4” red “Passing Light”, while the starboard wing has only the Landing Light.  Here’s what it looks like on the left side.  Note the 4 screws on the corners of the Landing Light and the black background within the light enclosure.

 

 

 

 

The kit lights are Parts D65 & D66, which are just two depressions in the plastic and the instructions don’t mention that they should be painted.  I forgot to take a pic of them before I modified them, so here’s a sprue shot from the ‘net with the parts in the lower left corner.

 

 

 

 

I decided to add some lights of my own, so I thought I would use some model car headlights instead.  By my calculations, 7” lights are 5.5 mm and 4” lights are 3 mm.  A modeling buddy has the car lights in 4 mm which he was going to let me use, but then he mentioned that they really were not much more than rhinestones, which got me wondering what Amazon might have available?  Sure enough, a quick search and I found these:  900 plastic rhinestones in 15 colors, delivered to my door in 24 hours for only $8.99 Cdn.  That’s only $0.01 each!  The clear and the red ones might work and the rest can be used by my 3 granddaughters as stick-on earrings, so there was no downside if they didn’t work.

 

 

 

 

While I waited for the rhinestones to arrive, I painted the lighting area black and modified the light holders.

 

 

 

 

This is what the rhinestones look like, with clear or colored plastic with a mirror-like finish to the flat side, where there is also a thin adhesive sticker.  Note there is also a tiny flaw on each of them, where they were no doubt cut off a sprue of some kind.  Unfortunately, 5 mm is way too big, because the lights need to fit within the thick clear plastic light windows.

 

 

 

 

After 2 failed attempts, here is what I finally went with.  I filled the two depressions on the light assembly on the left, which is for the right wing, then drilled a shallow depression to hold the rhinestone/light.  The assembly on the right was modified as well, with the depression for the red light widened and deepened to accept a 3 mm light and raised slightly, to compensate for wing angle.   The mirror finish was sanded off the bottom of each stone, leaving a bit of a dull finish, while the bottom of each rhinestone was painted with chrome paint, as were the depressions, which look a bit rough, but they will be covered.    For the light frame, I used airscale instrument bezels which are a bit too big for scale, but I liked them more than other smaller versions I used as prototypes.   Artistic license I guess…..

 

 

 

 

Here is one of my earlier attempts with a smaller ring for the light housing.  It worked OK, but I wanted something more noticeable.

 

 

 

 

I like this look better.  The lens on each light was painted with 2-3 coats of Future/Pledge to bring back the shine.  On one set I used Micro Kristal Clear, but I found it to be too thick and lumpy and not as good looking as the Future.  Note that the lights were glued at a slight angle, to compensate for the swept back wing angle.

 

 

 

 

With the thick light covers on, however, everything becomes distorted, especially from straight on.  The edges of the plastic also refract light like fiber optics, causing a whitish hallo around each cover, which doesn’t look natural.

 

 

 

 

I discovered a fix for this problem many years ago when applying clear canopies to canopy frames, which have the same issue.  If you cover each edge with a black Sharpie, light can’t refract inside any more and further, CA and plastic cement mix with the black ink without crazing it as would happen with black paint.  I now do this to all of my canopies before gluing them in, which makes the plastic look thinner than it really is.

 

 

 

 

And now some pics of the final product, with more Eduard PE to surround the light housing.  Note that the sides of the clear plastic have disappeared with the black ink.  From the front, the lights are distorted a bit…

 

 

 

 

But from other angles you can see the light s very well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putting the wings together, I discovered a few more things.  The big gaps on the ends at the bottom should be filled and the navigation lights should be cut off, since there are clear plastic replacements in the instructions, which indicate Parts GP 11 and GP 12.  Like many clear plastic parts in my last Kitty Hawk F-5E build, these parts are wrong and should be used in the rudder instead, which calls for GP 9 and GP 10, which show that they have pins to insert into the rudder.  GP 11/12 have pins, while GP 9/10 do not.  Also, for some strange reason, there is a hole for the pitot tube (Part D38) on BOTH wings, so the hole on the port side wing should be filled as well.

 

 

 

 

Finally, I found a solution to the ribs on the rudder and elevators, where I sanded down the kit plastic and used Archer rivets instead.  While the raised rivets look better than before, they are still too high, so should be covered with something.  Everything I could think of to use to cover the rivets would be too thick for scale, until it dawned on me:  Just sand the rivets down!  With the acrylic X-22 sealing in the rivets, they were tough enough to be sanded down about 50% with an 800# grit sanding stick.  While they still show up strongly on the bottom after sanding due to strong color contrast, I can hardly feel them with my fingertips, so after a coat or two of paint they should be nice and subtle as they should be.

 

 

 

 

I love experimenting and trying new things, which spices up the build journey.  Sometimes I win and sometimes I crash and burn, but when things work out for the better, the whole effort is very rewarding.  Next up, the wings, with many changes from the kit instructions as well.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited February 4, 2020 by chuck540z3

[ChuckT]

Very nice Chuck.

 

Looking forward to the next update,

Chuck.

[Brett M]

Excellent work and explanation as always! Looking forward to more.