1/32 scale T-38C Talon from scratch

[Guest Maxim]

Impressive really is an understatement. Exceptional work and I look forward to seeing more progress.

[alaninaustria]

This is one of the most amazing projects I've ever seen! Congrats to your son!!

Cheers

Alan

[checksix]

Wings, stabs, and tail

 

All of the flying surfaces on the T-38 are simple trapezoids with symmetrical airfoil profiles, tapered in thickness from root to tip. I cut these from basswood sheet, sanded them to shape using thickness measurements taken from my 1/48 plastic model (scaled by a factor of 48/32 = 1.5), and epoxied them into slots cut into the fuse.

 

Wings:

 

 

After sanding with 80 grit paper on a flat plate:

 

 

Tail fin:

 

 

After blending and smoothing:

 

 

The wings have zero degrees of dihedral and the stabs have 4 degrees of anhedral. I used a flat aluminum plate and gauge blocks to line everything up, squared to the tail fin:

 

 

The T-38 uses flying stabilators - the stabilizer and elevator surfaces are combined into a single tailplane that pivots on a shaft. However, as this was going to be a desktop display model, for durability reasons I mounted the stabilators in slots rather than using shafts that might get bend or damaged during handling:

 

 

 

More to come...

Edited May 17, 2018 by checksix

[Out2gtcha]

This really is coming together fast! 

[checksix]

This really is coming together fast! 

 

No, not really. Sorry if I mislead anybody. As I mentioned in my initial post, this "work in progress" thread is actually a recap of work I did last winter. I had a pile of pictures and decided it would be fun to do a writeup here.

Edited May 17, 2018 by checksix

[Out2gtcha]

No, not really. Sorry if I mislead anybody. As I mentioned in my initial post, this "work in progress" thread is actually a recap of work I did last winter. I had a pile of pictures and decided it would be fun to do a writeup here.

 

 

Ah must have missed that sorry. Still, some great work you are sharing here.......................please continue! 

[Jim Barry]

Whew! We will not have to wait 4 years to see the end! Show us the pain though, too. We like to share our misery here.

[checksix]

Pilots

 

This model will be posed in flight, so pilots are a must. I did a fair amount of searching for modern 1/32 USAF jet pilots and was surprised how few are available. There are all manner of WW-I, WW-II, and Korean war figures of all nationalities, but not many modern post-war US jet figures. I finally found one that was close to what I wanted, an F-15 "Desert War" pilot produced by Master Details, and ordered a pair.

 

I found them to be very nice resin figures with amazing detail, right down to the zippers and zipper clasps on the g-suits. They come with a variety of heads having different combinations of visor and mask, as well as different arms with sleeves down or rolled up. There's even an O2 hose that can be flexed into whatever shape is needed.

 

My only complaint would be that the heads are cast from some kind of pot metal (presumably to act as ballast to prevent plastic models from sitting on their tails). The resulting detail is not quite as crisp as that in the resin components and the helmet/mask areas had a slightly gritty texture that was hard to remove without further reducing the molded details.

 

The arms come posed for a "hands on lap" position rather than "hands on throttle and stick" so a fair amount of surgery at shoulders, elbows, and fingers was required to get the pose I wanted. Thick CA was used for initial assembly. Then I filled the joints with baking soda using a small brush, gently blew off residual soda dust, and applied a single drop of super thin CA using a micro pipet applicator. The joints were finished off with some Tamiya putty that was thinned with lacquer thinner and applied with a brush.

 

The figures were lightly sanded and primed, then colors were applied. To bring out some shadow detail, I followed up with a wash comprised of Future mixed with a few drops of flat black. Then a dusting of flat clear was sprayed on and a bit of Future was brushed on the visors to make them glossy:

 

 

Instructor pilot:

 

 

More to come...

[checksix]

Cockpit Interior

 

Now it was time to figure out how I was going to finish out the cockpit interior and attach the canopy. The first canopy came out great and fit perfectly. Then I managed to put a nasty scratch in it. So I got out the second (and last) canopy. This one I just couldn't get to fit as well as the first. The fit was good, but not perfect, and was going to require a bit of persuasion to make it conform to the fuse. My original idea was to CA the canopy in place, but given the less that perfect fit, I needed some way to attach it that provided some working time to align and finesse the placement. Epoxy seemed like the best alternative, but I was worried about a messy joint that would likely be visible behind the seam line. So I decided to create styrene "lips", carefully CA those to the bottom edges of the canopy, and then use epoxy to mount them to the edges of the fuselage..

 

Here the lips have been attached to the canopy, the cockpit has been boxed in with styrene, a gIare shield has been fabricated from sheet aluminum / styrene laminate, and pins have been installed where the pilots will be attached to the floor:

 

 

At this point I was a little bummed, because the thickness of the cockpit walls and floor was way out of scale due to the thickness of the wood. I couldn't really thin out the wood any more without danger of piercing or warping it, so I was kind of stuck. This would definitely not be a scale cockpit . Nevertheless, I decided to proceed and see what could be done.

 

Some simple instrument panels were fabricated:

 

 

 

The cockpit was sprayed light gray. Pilots, joysticks, and (non-scale) seatbacks were installed, and the canopy was epoxied in place. A combination of tape and wood strips was used to coerce the canopy fitment. Slow cure epoxy allowed time to get everything aligned:

 

 

After an overnight cure, the canopy was masked off and blended in to the fuselage:

 

 

After more filling, sanding, and priming the airframe was finally complete:

 

 

 

More to come...

 

 

 

[checksix]

What next?

 

Well, that's my story so far. Hope you've all enjoyed it.

 

For most of you, this would be the starting point where you begin to apply your magic: a blank canvas ready for camo, panel lines, weathering, etc.. 

 

For me, this might be the stopping point. I can't decide whether /or/ how to proceed. I'm not really happy with the limitations imposed by a wood cockpit. The engine inlets don't look quite right. I should have vac formed a canopy frame rather than just painting it on. I'd really like to build a version with landing gear extended, canopies open, detailed cockpit, etc. etc.

 

I'm pretty sure I'd rather not invest any more work in this particular model, and, instead, start anew with the intent of a full vac formed version.

 

Of course, then I take look at Pete Fleichman's thread:

 

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=28715&page=1

 

and shake my head in disbelief.

 

For the moment then, the airframe sits in primer on my desk:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the nice comments.

 

--Derek

Edited May 18, 2018 by checksix

[Out2gtcha]

Looks grand.....as you said this would be where the enjoyable part of the build would begin for me. I can however see your point, as you now have confirmed that the hypothesis you had prior to this build (can I scratch build a T-38?) has now become a confirmed fact.

 

I'm sure if you have the files for the slabs you cut out and pasted on the wood, it could make a nice jumping off point to not only correct any errors from the wooden plug model, but will enable you to carry forth with a vac pull for open detailed version.

[Jim Barry]

All good! The end point/detail level  is always up to the builder. I think many of us have learned some things from this super high quality effort and appreciate the story. What next ?? 

[Cees Broere]

Wonderful! A pleasure to follow that thread.

[Kagemusha]

Very impressive work. Hope this might provide food for thought  https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=73145&hl=talon

 

There is also this kit available  https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=2083

 

Also for the canopy you could produce a slightly larger vacuform for the frame, as per the 1/32 Echelon Lightning  http://tedtaylor.hobbyvista.com/82-echelon-lightning/page-82.html

[checksix]

@Kagemusha: thanks for those links. Ted Taylor's article was very interesting reading.

 

At one point in my research/experimentation I did consider trying to convert an F-5 to a T-38 and bought an old Hasegawa F-5E kit off ebay for cheap. Unfortunately I found multiple problems with this approach. While the top rear sides of the F-5E fuselage match the "coke bottle" shape of T-38, the bottom sides do not. Belcher Bits makes an F-5 E to A conversion kit which addresses this, but a more serious shape issue involves the nose. The T-38 has that delicate upturned nose while the F-5 series has a straight conical nose. Also, the cross section of the F-5 nose is elliptical, while that of the T-38 is circular. I didn't really see a way to surmount these differences without remolding the whole front fuselage, so I finally gave up.

 

After seeing Kitty Hawk's recent F-5 release I've been so hoping for them to do a T-38. I'd buy one (or two, or ... ) in a heartbeat. But I suspect this will never happen. With few exceptions, it seems that if a jet plane doesn't shoot bullets or drop bombs or hasn't flown in a war, no major manufacturer seems interesting in kitting it. Sigh.

Edited May 18, 2018 by checksix