Anthony in NZ Posted August 14, 2020 Share Posted August 14, 2020 1 hour ago, chuck540z3 said: Although my F-4E is quite different from your FGR.2, there are still many similarities that should be modified, like wingtip angle, outer pylon placement, titanium panels and lots of other things I have long since forgotten. Another similarity is that I had Scott Wilson along for the ride as my Wingman to help with details, while it looks like Derek B is helping you in the same way. We are both much better modelers for all their help! Cheers, Chuck Yes mate, we are all better off for having guys like them in our community. I certainly appreciate your build still being on line, thanks. You are correct there’s a lot of similarities and kit issues Keep up the great work chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted August 15, 2020 Author Share Posted August 15, 2020 3 hours ago, Anthony in NZ said: I certainly appreciate your build still being on line, thanks. You are correct there’s a lot of similarities and kit issues. Warning! My Photobucket account expires this month sometime, so download any pics you might want ASAP. I’m not giving this hosting site any more of my money for terrible service and ridiculous pricing. Cheers, Chuck Anthony in NZ and Dragon 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony in NZ Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 OK....thank you sir, will do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenshb Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 Interesting take on the salt weathering. Must remember that trick - thanks for sharing. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vvwse4 Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 Looks great!! chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocat Posted August 15, 2020 Share Posted August 15, 2020 Interesting and useful update, thanks. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spyrosjzmichos Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 Lovely progress Chuck! Looking forward to the next update! chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted August 16, 2020 Author Share Posted August 16, 2020 (edited) Thank you Gentlemen! August 16/20 I mini-update, but a very important one. It doesn’t matter how good the Barracuda resin nose looks unless it fits the rest of the fuselage seamlessly, so there’s still quite a bit of work to do. I glued the nose on using thin CA glue on the outside lip, followed by thicker CA glue oozed in behind and rotated around to get most of the back glued as well, for a solid bond This resulted in a bit of glue leaking out of seams, which was easily cleaned up with CA glue debonder. As mentioned earlier, the fit is pretty good, but far from perfect, with some parts of the join too high that need to be sanded down. A few examples: The sanding is easy, but restoring eroded detail is not, so it takes a lot of time and tools to do so. Here I have a pin scriber at the top to create curves, followed by a needle in a pin vice for rivet depressions, a Mega Tool to restore Dzus fasteners, a sharp Trumpeter scriber (hence the tape), followed by a duller scriber at the bottom to restore panel lines. Before I sand anything, I deepen all detail so that I can find it later. The raised side is now gone, as well as the raised top, among other imperfections. Fortunately, the junction of kit and resin nose is the end of the engine cowlings that don’t fit perfectly flush due to constant removal, so this seam line can be a bit off and still be fairly accurate. One thing I noticed when replacing the detail is that the top fuel door is completely missing on the kit parts, replaced by a square decal (#74), so I scribed a more realistic looking one using the decal as a template for size and location. As mentioned earlier, the horizontal fuselage and nose panel line (top of exhaust) do not meet and should be slightly offset. I’m very happy with this after-market improvement from Barracuda and I highly recommend it. Although subtle to some, the shape of the kit parts is way off and spoils the most characteristic feature of the Typhoon and Tempest- the mean mouth. Kudo’s to Anthony in NZ and others at Barracuda for creating it! Cheers, Chuck Edited August 17, 2020 by chuck540z3 Scotsman, scvrobeson, chukw and 21 others 24 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbo Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 Lovely work Chuck. It looks seamless now and that Tempest is looking appropriately mean! chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 Nice work Chuck. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted August 28, 2020 Author Share Posted August 28, 2020 (edited) Thank you Gents! August 28/20 A short update, after a LOT of work! The next Steps are #28-30, where the landing gear wells are created and the top and bottom wing halves are glued together. Before I did any of that, I checked the condition of the big kit Parts B1- B3 and found both good and bad. Like the fuselage halves, the good news is that there is plenty of good detail throughout. The bad news is that there are many surface flaws and the plastic is generally rough. An example on the bottom Part B1. Are those rivets raised or depressions? Note the slightly rough finish on the left. Finding many other flaws, I started to sand them off…. And sand and sand, until I sanded the entire wing bottom smooth. The top wing Parts B2 and B3 had their own issues, with rough plastic and many rivet depressions that were shallow and not crisp. More sanding……. After many, many hours of re-scribing and re-punching the detail that was removed by sanding, I used Tamiya panel line accent color as my go-to method of looking for trouble. This is iterative. You add the wash, check for flaws, fix them, then add some more, fix a few more flaws, etc...... A close-up. Since this is the bottom that will rarely be seen, I did a “60% job” of replacing about that percentage of detail. I’m picky, but I’m not crazy…… Now the top wing parts got the “100% job” (every rivet, every panel line), because you will see all of this detail easily- and I am a bit crazy! This single part on the top probably took 4 hours of sanding and detail repairs. It's hard to compare, but the rivets and panel lines are now much sharper than they were before sanding. For those who might think all these rivets are over the top and unrealistic, they won’t look that way after paint and clear coat. I promise….. Dry fitting the wing halves together, I found that they didn’t mesh very well, mostly due to pins that were too wide and poorly cast, so I cut them off completely. With them out of the way, the parts fit together fairly well now. Although I haven’t done the landing gear wells yet, I thought I would check the wing fit, which can be problematic on many aircraft models. Dry fit, they look pretty good and filling gaps will be easy. In a couple of weeks, I should have the landing gear wells assembled and painted. According to many build threads of this kit, they can be a real PITA, so we’ll see what’s up with that! Cheers, Chuck Edited August 28, 2020 by chuck540z3 TaffyMan, Christoffer Lindelav, scvrobeson and 27 others 30 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrish Posted August 28, 2020 Share Posted August 28, 2020 Dry meticulous work! looking very good chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlbertD Posted August 28, 2020 Share Posted August 28, 2020 I'm sure glad this thread popped to the top. For some reason I missed it earlier. Your a great teacher Chuck and it's very much appreciated. Sakai, chuck540z3 and Basta 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cees Broere Posted August 28, 2020 Share Posted August 28, 2020 Superb work at recreating that detail. Regarding the wings, do you need to fit a wingspar? The dihedral of the centresection is dead flat and the PCM-kit was a bit wobbly in that respect and I had to fit a plastic spar. Keep it up Cees JayW and chuck540z3 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted August 28, 2020 Share Posted August 28, 2020 Good show, Bro. Sincerely, Mark chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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