chuck540z3 Posted January 30, 2021 Author Share Posted January 30, 2021 Thanks for posting your models and video in the RFI forum. Wow! Both are so cool. While I appreciate your heads up on the level of the sealant glass at the rear, another reason I'm going to leave it as is, is because I use vinyl tape on the inside of the glass like my F-5E below, so I really need to stick with what the kit parts give me rather than modify them. Cheers, Chuck Marine104, Daniel460, Landrotten Highlander and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marine104 Posted February 1, 2021 Share Posted February 1, 2021 On 1/30/2021 at 4:25 PM, chuck540z3 said: Thanks for posting your models and video in the RFI forum. Wow! Both are so cool. While I appreciate your heads up on the level of the sealant glass at the rear, another reason I'm going to leave it as is, is because I use vinyl tape on the inside of the glass like my F-5E below, so I really need to stick with what the kit parts give me rather than modify them. Cheers, Chuck Ok understood, the sealant tape looks perfect there! David chuck540z3 and Derek B 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyhawk174 Posted February 4, 2021 Share Posted February 4, 2021 On 1/29/2021 at 3:52 PM, chuck540z3 said: Hi Chris! Don't look too close, because this model is kind of rough to begin with and it still has lots of challenges, like the deep and wide panel lines noted above. You are a lucky man to have those Canuck decals, which are for the early "RCAF" version, which are apparently high quality and are definitely impossible to find. Cheers, Chuck Yeah the decals are amazing and I am sorry he is gone now. Thank goodness I got most of his sheets for the models I am interested in. Still a toss up on what scheme I am looking to do on my CF-104, natural metal or camo. I always wanted to do the one with the replacements horizontal tail with the camoflauge on the overall green aircraft. I think I will do that in 1/48th though. I am not afraid of NM anymore so maybe that is the way I should do it. Maybe a bit of resin enhancement too. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted February 5, 2021 Author Share Posted February 5, 2021 (edited) February 4/21 Not a lot of progress lately, since I took a week off to recharge my modeling Mojo and decide what the heck to do with all the wide panel lines. Since about 80% of the panel lines are too wide, fixing all of them was not really an option, especially the curved ones. As noted by others above, however, there are some longitudinal panel lines that are extra wide and extra deep, so I decided to “fix” those by filling them with thin CA glue and rescribing them. The trick to this is to not make them too narrow, or they will not match the other panel lines, so it’s really a “50% fix”, rather than 80-90% fix, to keep the model balanced. I’m really happy with the results and took some before/after pics, but they don’t really show that much improvement due to lighting and the dark washes I used before the changes, so I won’t bother here. I also believe (hope?) that with the metallic finish and no dark weathering washes planned, they will be much less noticeable than they are now with the panel line wash I use for checking errors. Another fix required is the width of the windscreen which is too wide, as noted earlier. Checking other builds of this kit, this is a common problem and putty is often used to fill the resultant gaps on both sides. Since the width isn’t excessive, I did two things. The first was to cut off the small L-shaped curve on the right side, which stuck out too much due to its length. More on that below. The second was to sand the clear plastic on the sides, but before I did that, I drilled out small depressions where the recessed fastener detail was present, so that I wouldn’t lose it by sanding. As we all know the hard way, you can’t heat, bend, chip or otherwise stress clear hard plastic without the risk of cracking it, but you can erode it by sanding and gentle drilling. Here it is after some of the detail has been deepened. Note the overlap at the base of the windscreen. Not horrible, but not good either. Next was sanding at the base, with masking tape to protect the mask on the windscreen. After sanding the other side, with dust filling the rivet depressions. The width is now completely on top of the sill, rather than overlapping it on the side. Now back to that L-shaped curve. At the rear of the right side of the windscreen is a curved lip that is often missed and is too small for scale on the kit parts, which is why it is often cut off by mistake. The other 3 corners of the canopy are squarer, so there is no curved lip. Here it is on the real deal and thankfully it even has a small panel line, which I have as well. Unfortunately, this pic also shows raised fastener detail on the outside, which is wrong and likely due to this being a restored bird, so maybe they were temporary? All other pics of the windscreen that I can find have these fasteners flush on the outside. With the windscreen narrowed, I made a small curve out of styrene and glued it in place. Here I also have painted and dry fit the brass cockpit sill parts, which cleans up the overall look of the sides. I will leave these off during painting and attach them later with all the little gizmos attached to them off the model. A side view. This will be painted aluminum on the outside, along with the other parts of the windscreen frame. There are four lights on the tail that have raised surround detail, which is kind of rough and also wrong. Like the navigation lights in front of the wings, they should have flush circular rings around them with 12 fasteners instead, so I sanded them off. After modifications, along with other details enhanced with a scriber and rivet tool. These lights are quite complex in the DACO book with certain quadrants different shades, but the top ones are predominantly red and the lower ones predominantly white/silver, so I just left them that way since they are so small. One cool thing about the tail section is that it shows some subtle “oil-canning” due to ribs on the inside of the tail, which are barely visible in this pic. Normally I would sand this ribbed imperfection off, but since the real deal often has a rippled effect in this area, I left it as is. I hope it shows up better later with a metallic finish that tends to show every ripple- and flaw- in the plastic. The other side, which shows it a bit better. This model gives you the option to leave the tail off, exposing the engine during maintenance with a stand for both, which is why there are brass plates to finish off the rear of the fuselage and front of the tail. For most builds like this one, I want to glue the front to the rear, which has nothing but a weak join of the plastic parts with no tabs or other reinforcement. To strengthen this join, you could leave off the brass and add styrene strips to the inside before gluing everything together. Instead, since I like the tab of the brass at the top holding the engine in place with CA glue, I added styrene strips to the sides of the brass, making it flush with the join. I then gobbed on plenty of regular Tamiya cement to the styrene strips and the circular join, and held everything together tightly with my hands until the glue set. The join was then rock solid, but also lumpy with a wobbly fit with a few gaps. After many hours of sanding and filling with CA glue, the join now looks pretty smooth, with lots of attention paid to the join on the vertical stabilizer to get it closed and smooth. This pic shows the other side and how the longitudinal panel line is now a bit narrower, matching the width of the other panel lines. My small photo booth will need some modifications to fit this long lawn dart into it from now on- and I don’t even have the nose cone installed yet! All that’s really left to do to the fuselage now is to attach the wings and nose cone before I begin to paint, but there is still much more to do. I plan on adding more raised rivets to the rear with Archer decal rivets before paint, along with a few thousand of the HGW wet transfer rivets after the first coat of paint. This should be fun- or not- so we’ll see what transpires! NEW TOYS! I have noted in a few forums that some of you have purchased some of the David Union line of routers and sanders from Troy Molitor. As you may know, I love new modeling gadgets and if any of them can make my modeling a bit easier, I’m all over it like a cure for Covid, so I contacted Troy and bought the following: #400 Ergonomic Sander with several head shapes for different sanding tasks. I haven’t used any of this stuff on plastic yet, but this little sucker can go from slow sanding to lightning speed in an instant by turning the rear wheel. Self-adhesive sanding pack selection, along with two Madworks handles for many future scribing and other tools I plan to buy soon. And what I could really have used on this build with all the resin that I’ve been dealing with, is the #550 Elite “Router”, which is basically a small "Dremel tool". With a wide spectrum of speeds, both left and right rotation, and many bits that come with it, it’s like a fine dental drill that makes my Dremel tool feel like the blunt instrument that it really is. I am really looking forward to using these new toys, but that will likely be on my next build, since all the heavy lifting on this project is now over. If any of you are interested in these and other cool David Union products, contact Troy at his email below. FYI, I have no commercial interest in Troy's business or discounts for promoting his products. I'm just trying to help you and another LSP regular with his growing business. Trexxtools@gmail.com That’s it for now boys. Continue to stay safe while you enjoy one of the best pandemic hobbies possible! We are so lucky. Cheers, Chuck Edited February 5, 2021 by chuck540z3 HerculesPA_2, chukw, Anthony in NZ and 32 others 35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek B Posted February 5, 2021 Share Posted February 5, 2021 Great update Chuck - thank you. Derek chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Molitor Posted February 6, 2021 Share Posted February 6, 2021 Great update and look at those picture of those awesome new tools! . Thanks for the plug and great support Chuck! Enjoy. chuck540z3 and Anthony in NZ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmctaggart Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 Chuck. Great build so far. I will definitely come back to study in detail once I also start my CF-104, so thanks for breaking trail. I am also late to the party but if you are still looking for pics of the Military Museum's 104 let me know. I took about a 100 a few years ago before I decided to get the kit (just in case) so they may or may not help. I am also interested to see how you tackle the rivet issue so keep the posts coming. For what its worth here are a couple of the bird. Also here are a few of the fasteners around the canopy. Sincerely, Gord Paul in Napier, Uncarina, Rockie Yarwood and 5 others 6 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 (edited) 27 minutes ago, gmctaggart said: Chuck. Great build so far. I will definitely come back to study in detail once I also start my CF-104, so thanks for breaking trail. I am also late to the party but if you are still looking for pics of the Military Museum's 104 let me know. I took about a 100 a few years ago before I decided to get the kit (just in case) so they may or may not help. I am also interested to see how you tackle the rivet issue so keep the posts coming. For what its worth here are a couple of the bird. Sincerely, Gord PM sent Gord and thank you so much! I was really looking forward to photographing that bird for this build, but as you know thanks to Covid, the Cold War hangers are closed. SO disappointing, but your pics might be just what I need. As above, what I am most interested in is the positioning of the thousands of rivets on the fuselage. I'm going with the HGW wet transfer decal rivets, which I think will look the part. I got the nose cone on which was no easy task. The plastic is very rough and the sprue attachments damaged the edges. Thankfully the cone is a bit too big, which allowed my to sand it a LOT! All good now, with some fastener detail added according to references. For those who might be wondering, the radome goes all the way back to the base of the windscreen where you can see the two latches on the top. With the nosecone on, this model has blown through the confines of my small photo booth that I use to take all my detail pics. I guess I'll just have to put up with it until I finish the model and get it into my bigger photo booth, which is a real pain to set up and take down. Cheers, Chuck Edited February 9, 2021 by chuck540z3 scvrobeson, levier, dodgem37 and 23 others 26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncarina Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Thank you Chuck! I ALWAYS get an education when seeing your builds take shape. Cheers, Tom chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel111 Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Thanks for the tool tips! Apart from my usual admiration of your skill, I am admiring your stamina on this build also... boy does the kit look rough... about as rough as the A-10? Cheers, Marcel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 (edited) 22 minutes ago, Marcel111 said: Thanks for the tool tips! Apart from my usual admiration of your skill, I am admiring your stamina on this build also... boy does the kit look rough... about as rough as the A-10? Cheers, Marcel Thank you sir! No the Trumpeter A-10 is in a whole league of its own for being generally very bad in every respect. As you may recall for that build I broke tradition and didn't title it "Kicked Up A Notch", but "Trumpeter A-10C, Putting Lipstick on a Pig of a Kit!'. Lol, it was so true too. Still, it turned out OK in the end after 20 months of hard work. If I may once again..... Custom made door decal from Jake Melampy's Modern Hog Guide book (used with permission). "Oh Thank Heaven for 707!" Cheers, Chuck Edited February 9, 2021 by chuck540z3 Marcel111, Landrotten Highlander, blackbetty and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landrotten Highlander Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 I got the trumpeter A-10 in the stash. any chance of pointing me towards the link of your blog (tried a search but got nowhere) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 4 minutes ago, Landrotten Highlander said: I got the trumpeter A-10 in the stash. any chance of pointing me towards the link of your blog (tried a search but got nowhere) Sure, but with some reluctance, because it's 8 years old with bad photography, all my pics are watermarked thanks to Photobucket and the ARC website is a bit of a mess these days. If you're patient, you might find something to work with here: Trumpeter A-10C- "Putting Lipstick on a Pig of a Kit" Cheers, Chuck Landrotten Highlander 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landrotten Highlander Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Been reading your blogs for some time now, and I am sure it will provide me with plenty of information and inspiration. Thanks for the quick reply And don't bother about the quality of the pics, its the quality of your work that counts in me book.... chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chek Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 22 hours ago, chuck540z3 said: Sure, but with some reluctance, because it's 8 years old with bad photography, all my pics are watermarked thanks to Photobucket and the ARC website is a bit of a mess these days. If you're patient, you might find something to work with here: Trumpeter A-10C- "Putting Lipstick on a Pig of a Kit" Cheers, Chuck You can open the PB images individually in a new tab and see and/or save them un-watermarked. If you save the pages, you can import those photos into the page's data folder to replace them as the file names are identical. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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