Jonathan_Lotton Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Wow! Thats a colorful scheme! And one I havent seen done that many times. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PNW_Modeler Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Nice color scheme Adam! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TaiidanTomcat Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Really coming along, nice job on the Cockpit panels. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jimz66 Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 That's one of my favorite birds. I am waiting till I have some skills before I do that one. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 Not much progress, but enough that I wanted to share, especially in case anyone is doing the same kit as I am, like oortiz10 is. oortiz10 had a lot of issues getting the nose gear bay to line up correctly, causing a gap in the cockpit, so that had me really concerned about my build. I started tonight by assembling the pieces for the nose gear bay, and seeing how it all layed out. Thankfully I was able to get the cockpit and the nose gear bay to slide into the already partially assembled fuselage. That wasnt something I thought about when I put the 2 halves together, but thankfully it didnt end up being much of an issue. I noticed that when I got it all stuffed in, that it was very tight, and absolutely no room for adjustment. I ended up sanding the bottom of the nose gear bay, where it meets the bottom of the fuselage, to help gain some room inside the fuselage. I also sanded the inside of the fuselage, where the nose gear overlaps. Its kinda confusing, but the fuselage is 3 pieces. The upper that goes from where the nose cone attaches, all the way to the tail. The bottom is 2 pieces. One piece contains just the nose gear bay, and where the crew ladder would be, if it existed in this kit. The second piece starts at the back of the nose gear back, and contains the trough for the long strut(sorry, dont know the real term for it) that comes off the backside of the nose gear. I sanded down the 2nd piece of the bottom fuselage. I decreased the thickness of hte plastic above the trough for the nose gear, as well as the plastic to the left & right side of it, to help the nose gear bay slide in and be positioned easier. I know thats really confusing, but I hope it might help someone in the future that does this kit. I also thinned the covers over the pilot & RIO instrument panels, to help give some wiggle room on the top. Anyway, once I had all this done, I was able to get the nose gear bay & the cockpit positioned pretty much exactly where the should be. Here are the pic's I took after I was done. None of it is glued together in the pics, its all just dry fitted at the moment. Ive still got to paint hte nose gear bay before I can assemble any of it, hopefully I can get some paint down tomorrow night after class. oortiz10 mentioned that when he was done, the cockpit sat forward a little bit, in turn making the seats sit too far forward. It looks like I was able to get it all positioned so that the seats are about where they should be. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
oortiz10 Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Nice work there Adam. Looks like you didn't have the same problems I did. I'm guessing there are two reasons for my poor fitting kit. Either 1) my kit had some warpage and terrible fit issues, or 2) my "modeling" skills are more along the lines of "plastic mashing." I'm suspecting it may be a combo of the two. Just so you know, I found the gun panel and nose cone fit pretty well once the fuse halves are all buttoned up. Anyway, keep on truckin'! It's looking good! Cheers, -O(mar) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Skull Leader Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 I hate to be the bearer of some more bad news, but you're gonna have a small issue with those decals. The nose of the academy kit is larger in diameter than any other Tomcat kit (noticably so), the nose bands in those decals will not fit around the Academy kit. Talk to ARC member Jay Chladek about how he handled this if you're intent on going forth with those markings Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 Well dang, I didnt know that. I knew the decals were fitted to the Hasegawa kits, but I was hoping it would be close enough to as not be a huge deal. I guess I'll figure something out, since the decals are on order and should hopefully be here tomorrow, and at this point I cant afford to buy any other decals right now. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Skull Leader Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Well dang, I didnt know that. I knew the decals were fitted to the Hasegawa kits, but I was hoping it would be close enough to as not be a huge deal. I guess I'll figure something out, since the decals are on order and should hopefully be here tomorrow, and at this point I cant afford to buy any other decals right now. It can still be done, but some painting may be involved. Like I said, get ahold of Jay Chladek, he dealt with the issue for the VF-124 bird he took to the Tomcat Sunset symposium a few years back. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 Yea, I figured it was something that would have to be corrected using paint to cover the extra space. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 (edited) PM sent. BTW, the nose band does fit the Academy nose reasonably well. It just took a small amount of shimming on the bottom to get things to look right and a little bit of shimming on the anti-glare panel decal topside to get it to work (no shims needed for the red stripe on the nose as I recall). Thankfully, you get plenty of additional blue decal film to use from the provided markings for the VF-2 jet on the sheet. Once done, it looked like it fit as though it were designed for this kit. Of course, if one were to back fill the nose with epoxy putty and flatten the bottom nose profile to improve it, one might not even need to do any shimming on the bottom, just topside on the anti-glare panel so the contours of the decal line up with the canopy rails. As for a weapons loadout, the only three pictures I've seen of this jet show no weapons loaded or even Phoenix pallets. It was an airshow display bird and they kept it clean. But it is your model, build it however you wish to. To me though, it looks pretty dang impressive all nice and clean with no weapons on it. Edited January 16, 2009 by Jay Chladek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 Well, your 2 pictures up on me then. Tonight I finally found the first picture Ive seen of this bird. I guess weapons arent a huge deal, and it just means a few less things I have to worry about putting on or screwing up, and more parts for the spare parts bin. Unfortunately b/c of class, and my wife not feeling good tonight, I get zero work done on my build. Hopefully tomorrow, and definitely this weekend, I might get some major progress made on this build. And then hopefully the decals will show up either tomorrow or Saturday. This is the one image Ive found so far, found here Quote Link to post Share on other sites
twhite80 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I think that you can pull it off by masking and painting. If they decals are not just right then use them as a guide for painting those markings on. The Academy kit is pretty good, but its shape is a little off. I think that it looks good when built up and I would do an Academy kit over a monogram (sorry darren) any day. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 (edited) I think that you can pull it off by masking and painting. If they decals are not just right then use them as a guide for painting those markings on. The Academy kit is pretty good, but its shape is a little off. I think that it looks good when built up and I would do an Academy kit over a monogram (sorry darren) any day. Darren has done Academy kits as well so he isn't just a Monogram kit builder. As for how well the Academy kit takes these markings: Edited January 16, 2009 by Jay Chladek Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 (edited) Well, my decals showed up today, and now I definitely cant wait to get this built. Ive thought about trying to just paint the blue, or possibly lay the decals down, and then mask around the decals and paint over the top of them, but I dont know yet. Another option would be to use some white decal sheet that Ive got, and paint that decal sheet the correct color, and then cut it out to match the decal sheet. Jay, do you remember right off hand what color you used for the nose cone? The decal sheet says to use natural fiberglass, but its a color I definitely dont have in my collection. I might end up running to my LHS tomorrow, and getting another bottle of Gloss Gull Grey, and a can of Tamiya Bright White spray paint, and I guess I could get the natural fiberglass color, if they have it there. Edited January 16, 2009 by Adam Baker Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Chladek Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 All I used was Testors Model Master Radome tan right from the bottle (airbrushed on in my case). It seems to match the coloring in the pictures exactly. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted January 19, 2009 Author Share Posted January 19, 2009 (edited) Well, I finally have a little bit of forward progress to show, after a few days of stumbling along w/ not getting a whole lot done. I spent my whole weekend sitting at my desk, watched all 10 episodes of Band of Brothers while building. Wish I had more progress to show, but I spent a lot of time working on just cleaning things up, filling punch marks, sanding seams & putty, and that sort of thing. Since Im doing a bird that apparently didnt have any weapons or fuel tanks on it, I decided to take the time to fill in all the mounting holes for the missile pylons and the racks for the Phoenix missiles. I measured the holes, and most of them measured out to about .040", except for the missile racks at the base of hte wings, those measured out closer to .055". Unfortunately I didnt have anything that was close enough to either of those sizes, so I put a piece of .080" styrene in my dremel stylus, and worked it over w/ sanding sticks till I got it down to the sizes I needed. I then cut small sections off the rod, about 1/8" long, and then glued them into the holes. Once dry, I just sanded them smooth, and voila, no more holes. I also spent quite a bit of time on the landing gear & the gear bay doors, trying to remove punch marks, some had to be filled, and others were raised marks that just needed to be sanded out. Also have one on the nose gear that I was able to take care of thankfully. Tonights work mainly focused on getting some painting done. I got the nose gear bay, most of the bay doors, and the landing gear all painted up. I dont have classes tomorrow night b/c of MLK day, so I should hopefully finally get the cockpit & nose gear bay installed, and get the fuselage buttoned up completely. Then begins the task of filling & sanding all the seams around the nose. Edited January 19, 2009 by Adam Baker Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted May 31, 2009 Author Share Posted May 31, 2009 Well, unfortunately this build wont be finished in time. I got extremely frustrated with the build, as the kit was just fighting me really bad. So it got put back in its box and I started working on other things. And then I moved about 8 weeks ago, and I wont be pulling out any of my modeling stuff for awhile, so it wont be done. Im also considering getting the Hasegawa kit for these decals since thats the kit the decals are designed for, and hopefully it'll be a nicer kit to build. This one will get done eventually, but not for awhile. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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