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

[scjh]

Thank you Derek and Rafael!  I am inching along, but hope to cross the finish line with your encouragements.

[scjh]

Spent some time working on a few of the many stencils.  Thank you to a professional decal maker who gave me some tips on fonts and sizes.  Perhaps this is already known by many, but the more I dive into references photos, the more variations I find.  Little things like left and right text justifications for the same caution or warning stencil can be found.  I don't know if I would be able to cover all of the stencils, perhaps I will concentrate on most importantly the areas around the photo nose.

 

 

 

[scjh]

Practice masking on a spare fuselage of the yellow bands on Sun Run #4.  I found that the walkways were important to establish with positioning of the stripes.  The leading edge of the walkways will be modified appropriately to be more perpendicular as these were just scaled up version of the Tiger Wings decals.  Most, if not all of the commerically available walkway decals I have found in 1/48 seem to be designed for the two-seater.  And like many things I've discovered about the Voodoos, there are multiple versions of the walkways, in addition to the RF-101A and RF-101C having different length intakes.   Even the red jet warning stripe towards the back of the fuselage had two possible positions.  If one looks closely at the decal mock up in my previous post, one might fnd the US National Insignia is positioned for the A version, which is not correct for the C.  In a way I am glad I'm building both at the same time, so I can possibly show off some of the variations.

 

Edited July 30, 2024 by scjh

[alaninaustria]

Man! She’s coming along nicely!!

Cheers

Alan

[John1]

What a monster.  She’s massive!   Nice work.  

[Serkan Sen]

Awesome! Very impressive work.

Serkan

 

[scjh]

Thank you Alan, John, and Serkan!  Your great builds have inspired me.

 

Making slow progress, but Sun Run #4 bands are painted on the fuselage, and decaling has begun.  The stencil placements will need some adjustments, and hopefully I can get rid of the slight white borders around the larger decals in the next iteration.

 

SC

 

 

[scvrobeson]

Very cool project.  The Voodoo is bigger than I expected seeing it laid out on your bench like that

 

 

 

Matt 

[Tony T]

My, how I admire these. The RF-101C is a top ten subject.

 

Tony

[scjh]

My apologies for the long absence.  I continued to apply stencil decals to the forward fuselage, but got bogged down with the rescue stencils, some of which needed white and other color shapes.  The ejection seat triangles were borrowed from a commercial set.   Times like this made me question the sanity of starting on a project that I couldn't easily buy off the shelf decals and parts.  I also ran into issues with my 3d printer's reliability as I added more details to the rear tail part.  Hopefully I can get back on track soon.

 

 

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[scjh]

Another challenge of this project was stencils in white for SEA schemes.  I learned to use a Silhouette to cut paint masks for large markings, and bought some specialty decal papers to be able to "print in white".  I made these for @Dandiego's "The Iron Eyeball".  

 

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Edited July 2, 2025 by scjh

[Jim Barry]

This is great. I’m dedicated to the 1/32 jets that are missing from the kit inventory so cheering you on! 

[scjh]

Thank you Jim.  I would like to add an RF-84F Thunderflash to my display cabinet one day.

 

While trying to regain momentum for the Voodoo, maybe I can start on another jet from the same era, with the same engine (or variant of), with unusual configurations (tail from a later model) that served with the ROCAF.  Hopefully it has a simpler shape, with available AM parts and decals.  Perhaps it has been somewhat kitted by a commercial company, but has shapes or panel lines that could use improvement.

 

 

 

That's crazy talk.....

 

 

 

 

 

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[Marcel111]

Looking excellent! Love the Vodoo.

 

Marcel

[scjh]

After some detour into other projects and getting additional references recently, I'm back on the Voodoo.  This is the improved cockpit with additional details and corrections.  The main and side console instrument panels will likely be simple decals or additional higher res 3D prints.  I've been trying to sort out the differences between the different blocks.

 

Office installed into the two prototypes.

 

Just a few of the trial prints and a progression of the cockpit model (left to right) and paint tests.  @Dandiego sent me a few of his resin prints to encourage me to finish my builds.  🙂

 

SC