3D Printed McDonnell RF-101A/C Voodoo WIP

[Iain]

Wow - how did I miss this!!

 

I'll echo the use of HIPS for FDM prints...

 

Iain

[scjh]

New set of work in progress prints.  At the top of the screen further away from the camera is an older design printed in PLA, and the lower one is the latest print in HIPS after a few fixes and details/panel lines added.  There are a few extra engine vents on the engine nacelle that are only applicable to the F-101A/RF-101A in the PLA print.  An air inlet on the leading edge of the vertical tail fin is only applicable to the F-101C/RF-101C, and a few of the RF-101As that served in the ROCAF.  These are raw prints, and should look better with some primer and sanding (or printed in resin ultimately).  There is a set of piano hinges on the two sides of the center fuselage.

 

 

 

 

Some details on the lower forward fuselage.

 

 

[wunwinglow]

21 hours ago, scjh said:

Hi wunwinglow,

 

Definitely agree on HIPS!  I've been doing lots of print tests with HIPS for the large fuselage and wing parts!  Still trying to dial in my printer settings.  Also need to adjust the model to help with printing.  My control surface trailing edges are too thin now to print nicely.

 

SC

Good man! 

 

Ref the trailing edges, what I do is add a cylindrical rod along the trailing edge, just like adding foam insulation to a water pipe. It need to be a fraction larger in diameter than twice your nozzle size.  This will allow the nozzle to fully deposit enough material to include the actual trailing edge, and you simply sand off the surplus above and below the trailing edge. Easy Peasy.

 

Have fun!

 

T

 

[scjh]

Hi wunwinglow, thanks for the awesome tip!  Can't wait to try it.  These are my preivous attempts.

 

SC

 

 

[scjh]

A small update as I'm workingon adding surface details to the 3d model.  In the last few sets of HIPS prints, there were some indentations around the panel line details that were not in my earlier tests prints.  I think it may be related to new printer slicer configuration or printer firmware changes, as I had been using the same "0.2mm normal" setting.  Now using the "0.1mm quality" setting seems to elimnate the artifact.  This shouldn't be an issue for resin prints as all the details are done with optical images and not mechanical as with FDM where the print head has to do a quick direction change around the details.

 

In the photo below, the far one was printed in "0.2mm normal" with older model/software version and had no indentations (it has a coat of primer), the center one was printed in "0.2mm normal" that had the indentations, and the bottom one is a new print at "0.1mm quality" without indentations.

 

Old print at 0.2mm

 

indentations with "0.2mm normal" setting after software/firmware change

 

no large indentation at "0.1mm quality"

 

another view comparing the prints

 

Hopefully with a coat of primer and slight surface smoothing it would be good enough for further finishing.

 

SC

 

 

Edited January 21, 2024 by scjh

[Bruce]

your 3rd run with the refined panel lines is looking good.

[geedubelyer]

Good to see the revised version. 

The one with the large indentations looked weird and confusing. 

The finalised version looks great. 

[scjh]

Thanks Bruce and geedubelyer!

 

No new prints, just wanted to share the happy fun time I am having making panel lines in the rear fuselage.  Not only are the access doors different left and right, the heat shield areas are also slightly different left and right.  On top of that, the F/RF-101A heat shield upper boundary is also ever so slightly different than the F/RF-101C.  The one single slope upper boundary connecting the upper and lower regions of the heat shield areas on the C is broken up with a horizontal step on the A.  I have not seen this difference represented by any existing Voodoo kits or conversion sets.  (Please let me know otherwise.)  There are other small differences between C and A versions I will be documenting if there is enough interest.  I've mentioned before the small vertical tail LE inlet, the 4 engine vents on each side of the rear nacelles, and Type IIa vs Type IIb intakes.  (Although a few of the RF-101As in ROCAF service will break some of these rules.)

 

Work in progress panel lines, not completely correct yet.

 

Take a look at Akira Watanabe's Voodoo walk around photos here:

http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/waRF101.html

 

This one in particular

http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/images6/waF101-221.jpg

 

RF-101C panel lines over photogrammetry RF-101A.  Note the extra horizontal step.

 

RF-101C panel lines over photograph of RF-101A with rough camera placement.

 

SC

Edited January 22, 2024 by scjh

[scjh]

I ran into printing issues with the rear fuselage part as I was working on the panel lines, so I joined the Navy and sailed on the Nuclear Aircraft Carriers Nimitz and Ronald Reagan for a few months (not literally, of course).  :-)  Probably deserves its own thread if there's enough interest.

 

The Italeri 1/720 Reagan's island (on the left) has length and height issues.  The one on the right is what I came up with (FDM print, should look better in resin).

 

The kit bulbous bow also didn't look right, so I modeled and printed my own, installed on the Italeri kit.

 

Why stop at 1/720?  Here's a 1/350 set.

 

Momma island, followed by 1/700 and 1/720.

 

[scjh]

Ok, back to the Voodoo.  This is LSP after all.

 

Two new sets of prints, at 0.1mm (temp rear parts).  Some parts have a coat of primer.  I was finding the automatically generated supports get knocked off easily, taking the whole print with it.  In these cases I started to reduce/remove/customize supports to make the printing more reliable.

 

 

A few comparisons between the RF-101C and RF-101A.  The vertical panel lines below door 70 are slightly different.  Hard to see, but there are 3 circles where the inside of the intake is attached to the fuselage side.  If this tells you the intakes are different between RF-101C and RF-101A, you might be onto something.  This is from my own research based on photos/photogrammetry almost exactly five years ago, and confirmed by manuals and parts catalogs.  More to come later.

 

And the two NACA inlets underneath are different in size and shape as well.  There is one other major difference (ok only about 7 inches in real life) in the engine nacelle shround around the exhaust nozzles that is not reflected here.  Also more on this later.

 

The RF-101A (and F-101A) have 4 extra engine vents on each side near the back.  (This temp rear fuselage doesn't have it.)

 

There are probably other differences in panel lines, etc between the two.  Please chime in if I've missed them.  More to follow...

Edited July 1, 2024 by scjh

[scjh]

These are photos I've found online projected onto my rough 3d model using camera projection, to remove any perspective (but of course subject to any inaccuracies of the 3d model).  The superimposed drawings are the stations diagrams and drawings from Famous Airplanes of the World (1975).  There are very few drawings that I've come across that differentiated the F/RF-101A and F/RF-101C fuselages around the rear nacelle area.

 

The single seater Voodoos used the same exhaust nozzles (with the exception of a few research configurations and prototypes), but the F/RF-101A had a shorter shround that ends at FS650 (exposing more of the nozzles), while the F/RF-101C's shround extends another 7 inches to FS657.  The nozzles end at about FS700.  (I believe the length difference is close and I'm using the closest station.  Please chime in if you have a more exact figure.)  This gives the illusion that the F/RF-101A's nozzles were longer.  Not shown here, but the two seater engine shroud also ends at FS650, and is fatter/extends lower.  I hope to make this area more accurate in my model, eventually.

 

This F-101A also has an early Type II intake that's different from the Type IIa intake used by the production RF-101A, and the Type IIb intake used by the RF-101C.  There were two YRF-101A Block 20 prototypes that had the Type II intakes initially (one or both of them), that switched to Type IIa later.
  

 

Edited July 1, 2024 by scjh

[scjh]

These are progress photos from the last week or so.

 

After some sanding.

 

After another coat of primer and sanding, here are my attempts at a NMF for the RF-101C and and ADC gray for the RF-101A.  Down to my last can of Model Master Aluminum Plate Buffing Metalizer rattle can, which splattered badly.  Will try to salvage.  I read somewhere that Light Ghost Gray was close to ADC Gray, so I used Tamiya Light Ghost Gray (AS-26 can) that I had on hand, but it looks too blue/green.  I wanted to see if the panel line details can hold up.

 

The forward fuselage is 1/48 proof-of-concept test print with home made decals.

 

SC

 

[Serkan Sen]

Awesome work! They all look very eye catching.

Serkan

 

[scjh]

Thank you Serkan for the kind words.  Just doing my best to see what is possible without resin and CA glue.  :-)  This may get printed in resin eventually, in which case more surface details will be needed as I improve my CAD skills.  Still a ways to go.

 

SC

Edited July 3, 2024 by scjh

[Rob Colvin]

Fantastic!