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1/32 Revell F-4E - What could possibly go wrong!


RichieB

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Hi chaps,

 

Tony - Many thanks for the synopsis. Most of the jets I'm looking at going are pre FY 70 so looks like I may need to go for the belly strap, presumanly they were fitted at the same time as the LES?

 

I've been slicing and dicing the intakes to check fit. Top view its looking good:

 

20151101_8117_zpsfacaoie1.jpg

Bottom view, hmmmmmm, not sure if I've cut too much of the Revell intake area away as the Resin seems smaller than the remaining plastic area. This could be Potential error #2:

 

 

27691708509_0c01a75f9e_z.jpg

 

If I fit the resin intake to the wing edge it looks like it leaves a gap. I cut away the plastic so the intake would sit flush against the plate that holds the intake away from the fuselage, which it does but this seems to raise a wing root fit issue, Ir it might just be that I can't seem to accurately hold all the pieces together without gluing and It doesn't help in that there are 5 pieces that need to be held simultaneously! Might have to do some of that old fashioned plastic fettling (gonna need a bigger can of super glue). 

Edited by RichieB
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20151107_8128_zps3kl4mvwn.jpg

  The Master Details pilot is on the right. The detail is excellent and just check out the white metal heads (you get a choice of 4! - Tamiya pilot is at the bottom):

 

 

20151107_8129_zps7i6mijau.jpg

However, According to my very rough calculations the Tamiya pilot is about 1.66M tall, the Master Details pilot is about 1.9M. This could be distracting if one is head and shoulders (literally) above the other. Time for some serious modifications that would rival that of a photo-shopped celebrity!

 

Hi Ritchie,

 

If you want a couple extra Tamiya pilots, let me know. I have some in the stash.

 

Nice progress so far. I'm looking forward to more.

 

Carl

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Carl.

 

Many thanks for the offer, that's very kind of you. I'm going to stay with the figures I have at the moment as the quality is great. Hopefully I can massage them so the difference isn't that apparent. If that doesn't work standby for emergency Tamiya transplant!

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Smeds,

 

Regarding the fit of the intakes, you may well be right but until I can fix the exhausts into the rear fuselage and wrap up the front fuselage there is just to much flex to know for sure.

 

Right chaps onto the next installment - engine exhausts. You may have guessed that I jump around a lot - I drink too much tea.

 

I mentioned that this bird is going to fly (hopefully not into the bin) so we need a mode of display. My chosen method is to stick two acrylic rods up the exhausts. I like this method because it looks like it propelled itself there and sticking a metal rod in its belly just looks like the poor things been harpooned. I'm using 10mm clear acrylic rod because I'm hopefully going to put some light down the tube and make it look like the burners are lit. Whilst this method looks cool it is technically challenging to put all the electronics in an airborne kit and demanding from an engineering pov as the weight of the aircraft can cause quite a bending moment especially around the exhausts. Just super gluing then in would be insufficient, the stress would snap them off straight away. And so to work. Using the GT resin exhausts I cut a 13mm diameter hole in each of the flame holder areas before gluing them to the exhaust tunnel. As this is a weak joint I then sandwiched 2mm of plasticard behind it with miliput to hold it then reinforced the joint with superglued plasticard straps.The result is this:

 

24602404307_e564acde94_z.jpg

 

 

Although a strong bond, this is only sufficient to hold the tube the rods will go into in place with little movement. I will now have to securely fix the exhausts to the fuselage and provide at least 2 other attachment points in the fuselage for the rod/tube to try and spread the load as much as possible. Too much flex or stress in one point means critical failure as it will be hard to rectify when its all wrapped up. Anyway, so far so good!

 

In another line of activity, I've started removing as much weight as I can from the Resin cockpit as weight that far forward is not good and the Legend cockpit has loads of it. I think I must have removed over a third of the resin and its still in working order! You will also note from the piccie that I've started to fill in the gaps that my placing of the sidewalls seems to have generated and I've started drilling the holes for the cockpit lighting.

 

 

39469382541_fe61deeb7f_z.jpg

 

The sharp eyed amongst you will spot that I've added the Revell part to the WSO's radar display as I thought the Legend cockpit looked a bit off in this area compared to pictures of he real thing and even Tamiya's kit cockpit. Not shown is the pile of resin dust I also got from hollowing out SH's Resin nose which is an excellent replacement but again is solid and very heavy for my needs. And yes I did use a respirator - the only real drawback to Resin, that and the warping, and the brittleness ......

Edited by RichieB
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Maru - many thanks for the encouragement, and so onwards...

 

Ever since Bruce kindly provided some hints on how to resolve fitting the centre tank I've been trying to work out how to avoid causing too much extra work or damage. Rather than cut off the existing pylon I decided to build another one around the old and trim down the bits that were going to get in the way. Having started to add dividers and cut the middle pylon where the hump on the bottom of the fuselage is, I viewed some profiles on-line and it struck me that the profile of the pylon was not quite right. I dug out the same tank from a Tamiya kit and compared the two. 

 

24603199367_8e646a8f3d_z.jpg

 

 

The Tamiya pylon (and the ones on the real aircraft it seems) is longer and squatter and makes the nose of the tank point down more at the front than the Revell one does. Now I don't normally try to make work for myself (unless its through stupidity) but since I was creating sides for a new pylon I thought I might as well use the Tamiya profile. After much fettling, cups of tea and a bit of trial and error I got a profile I was happier with and put glue to plastic. I also added some metal rods to act as guides and support the tank and had a go at adding the sway braces at the end which more by luck than judgement appeared to end up in the right place.

 

 

27692732299_15473fe593_z.jpg

 

I've some tidying up to do and maybe a bit of adjusting on the nose angle but it looks more like the pictures I've seen than before.

 

 

24603202357_98de2184e6_z.jpg

 

Right back to the cockpit ....

Edited by RichieB
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Nice Rhino Barry! What scheme are you going to paint her in? 

 

Bruce - Yeah, this ones going to be in flight though final configuration is still tbd. Thanks for the info on the cl tank, I probably need to adjust the nose down angle but that's easy enough to do.

 

Right I know I said cockpit next but I thought I'd better point out two further errors that I have created and will require some correction whilst everything else is going on. 

 

Error #3 - Whilst filing down the Resin intakes to make them fit snuggly I may have filed a little too much away in 2 spots. I don't have holes but a slight crease exists on one intake. Now in all honesty the only person who will know is me as its so far down the intake you'd never know unless you were looking for it. However it is there and as such the AMS voice of nagging doubt will ensure that it remains a constant source of annoyance until I deal with it or Hell freezes over or both.

 

Error #4 - See if you can spot it in the next piccie:

 

20151101_8114_zps8vbvyt5p.jpg

 

I don't know when, or how or where it went but one half of the rear fuel vent is AWOL.Looks like I've just added another item to my task list.

Anyway, back to the cockpit.........

Edited by RichieB
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