Felix 100: Last Combat Cruise

[PolymerAddict]

Okay, it's been a few weeks since I first announced I would join so I figured I'd better get the first post in. I don't have the best record for GB's (0-3), but at least this one runs until July

I plan to build the Revell F-14D as Felix 100 using the VF-Decals VF-31 Last Combat Cruise sheet. The picture below shows what we are dealing with here:

The build consists of:

* 1/48 Revell F-14D.

* VF-Decals VF-31 Last Combat Cruise.

* Steel Beach BOL Rails, Bomb Racks, Lantirn Pod + Pylon, Ventral Strakes, and Nose.

* Fuel Tanks from the Hasegawa kit.

* Exhaust Nozzles from either Shull24 (original version) or the Hasegawa kit (closed) TBD.

* A few scratch built items.

* The DACO book (of course) for reference.

The loadout will contain:

* 1xAIM-9: Kit supplied.

* 1xGBU-38: Shull24.

* 1xGBU-12: Hasegawa Weapons D.

I'd like to depict Felix 100 crouched down at some point during the launch sequence. I'm still not sure which stage of the launch I will be doing, which is why I listed both exhaust nozzles as I haven't decided if I'll use the open or closed ones.

Anyway, I really hope I can complete this one and get a Group Build under my belt. I've built the Revell F-14D before so I've got that going for me. Stay tuned!

--Will

[PolymerAddict]

I was able to make a little progress last week and finally had some time to post the pics. It basically consisted of my X-ACTO set and I "going to town". Based on past experience I'd call the Revell kit "low hanging fruit", but I am finding ways to make things hard on myself.

During the launch sequence flaps and slats are extended. The Revell kit has them all molded together, so I had to go Narita style on the wings [Look at Day 7]:

The kit also has the horizontal stabilizers molded as part of the upper fuselage. I needed to trim them off as they too are set during launch:

Finally, I trimmed off the Ventral Strakes. They stood out to me the last time I built this kit, and when Steel Beach came out with their set I told myself I'd give them a shot the next chance I had:

I was able to get a little more done this week as well, including some scratch building. I'll add another post over the weekend to give an update on my progress, if you can call it that .

--Will

[catfan]

i cant wait to see this. as i have a lot of them and if you need any pictures i have a lot from the cruse pictures of jet 100. so e mail me i want to help. and are you going to build a diorama like in the picture on your banner?

[John Krukowski]

Just a thought...since you're doing a "crouching" Felix 100 on his last cruise anyway, you might consider setting it up as "bowing for the crowd" at Oceana N.A.S., like "he" does in right about the middle of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl7s35hLiEA&feature=fvw

Here's a nice close-up of Felix 101 taking a bow, from Airliners.net:

Like I said, just thoughts. A model of exactly what's on your banner will do just fine too!

P.S. OK I see you've already got your flaps/slats cut and that you "need" the bombs under it in order to comply with the G/B rules...oh well, maybe someone else will like the idea.

Anyway, looking good so far!

John

Edited March 12, 2010 by John Krukowski

[PolymerAddict]

Thanks guys! John, it is funny you should mention the "bow" as I've seen that picture before and had thought of doing that at some point. I have the markings, and I think it would be cool to have the cockpit open and the flag waving in the air. Maybe some day.

Hey catfan, I need to change my signature! That's how bad I am with GB's....Awan had created that banner for me during the last Tomcat GB and I didn't even have time to enter. I had planned to do the 1/32 Revell F-14 and convert it to a -D with the Wolfpack Tamiya set. I even had Felix 100 decals made for that time period. But things got really busy at work and I had to shelve the idea.

Anyway, yes, I'd like to eventually build the carrier deck section with the JBD up and various crew doing their thing or standing at the foul lines, but that is out of scope for this GB. Until then I plan to just print out a deck section from the pinned thread in the Dioramas forum.

I do have a question for you however. Do you have any pictures of the cockpit? I don't have any and can't tell whether the instrument panels were all black or not. I know the DACO book shows the -D panels as all black, and I have seen a picture of the Black Lions 213 jet that was on that cruise, and it too had black instrument panels. But I'm not completely sure if Felix 100 was all black or a grey/black mixture.

I think for simplicity I will do all black. It is a closed cockpit build and the Revell -D cockpit is far from accurate anyway, but it'd still be nice to know if that was correct or not.

--Will

[catfan]

do you plan to build the jet with the canopy open or closed. and with the pilots or not and. you could try black i haven't seen any pictures of this but there are some people hear that might know.

[catfan]

i just looked at my tomcat pictures and felix 101 and 100 both have flat black dash panels and rio panels

[PolymerAddict]

Thanks for checking on that catfan. I had asked a few guys that would know and the responses I am getting back also confirm this. Now there are no more excuses for me to keep putting off the cockpit

--Will

[PolymerAddict]

I haven't had a chance to do much recently, but I did make a little progress last week. If anything, I just added a few more variables to the build. I wanted to vacuform a few parts:

1) After cutting off the slats you'll notice that the plastic is a little thick. Some of this will be viewable after the slat is installed, so you'll want to thin the plastic down a bit (from the inside of the slat). I really didn't feel like spending the time to do that and thought I would give vacuforming a shot. My strategy was to use .020 sheet plastic, and if the piece did not turn out properly I could still trim it to fit the section of the wing that is exposed once the slat is extended. That area is currently a gaping hole and needs to be filled with something.

I will show more detailed pics of this later (when I start assembling the wings) to help illustrate what I am talking about. Right now I am only forming the parts.

2) The Revell kit does not have much detail in the engine department. At the least I wanted to add the inner tube piece of the afterburner section. I created the master with a piece of wood dowel and made the rings out of some wire I had lying around. I used the Hasegawa kit piece as an example for the number of rings and total length of the section. I also used the kit piece to hold my master in place for vacuforming (as seen in the picture below). I really wanted to form or even possibly cast this as a one piece seemless tube. But I chickened out and went the two halves route.

--Will

[PolymerAddict]

Here are some pics of my time in the kitchen. It felt great to finally put my vacuform box to good use. Prior to this I had only used it once before, to form a new door on a 1/72 MH-47D I was modifying.

It is really quite simple. Warm up the plastic in the oven until you see it start to sag uniformly.

Turn the vacuum on and place the warm plastic sheet over the master.

Here is a family shot of the slats and inner tube halves. In this picture I hadn't trimmed off the excess plastic yet, and the slats look a bit odd. I think it is due to the angle of the photo.

--Will

[PolymerAddict]

Here is a shot showing initial test fitting. The vacuformed tube is on the left and the kit part is on the right. I think it looks great but I am not declaring victory yet by any means. I still need to paint and weather them, and there are the two seems I need to worry about.

--Will

[Sig Saur & Son]

SWEET!

[John Krukowski]

Neat ideas, hope you can work it all out...

Good luck!

John

[Azgaron]

Looking good Will! Nice work with the exhaust pipes!

Cheers,

HÃ¥kan

[catfan]

what happend with this cat????

[HOLMES]

Sweet looking ...look forward to more of the same... :wacko:

Edited April 17, 2010 by HOLMES

[PolymerAddict]

what happend with this cat????

I was wondering the same thing

It has been on the back burner for a little while now, but I wouldn't call it stalled just yet. I did hit a small snag with the slats (part of the kit slats actually get covered up with the wings fully extended), but I should be able to resolve that by this weekend. I'll post some updates soon.

--Will

[catfan]

im a fan what ever happend with this cat . any body know....

[PolymerAddict]

I just came in from the garage where I was painting the burner sections, and a few cockpit bits. I'll get some pics up tomorrow.....I mean it this time

--Will

[VFA-103guy]

Will-

Glad to see you're putting the VF sheet into action! I might suggest using some different CVW-8 badges, I always thought ours looked a little off.

By all means, when you get your model finished, would you mind emailing me some pics of it? I'd be glad to add them to our model gallery on the Vagabond website.

[catfan]

i cant wait to see the pictures. i need to get my but in gear and build a revell f-14. i was thinking of doing a what if paint job of the blue angels. but my own version but i don't know if i should base the paint job off the hornet or sky hawk or the phantom but it should look cool.

[PolymerAddict]

Finally an update! Time is scarce, and now that the weather is getting better my time is split with another build that was just green lighted

That's not the exact stone or granite that I intend to use but it was the best I could find in the Google SketchUp libraries. All I can say is I'm glad this GB runs until July!

Anyway, this weekend I had a little time to work on the exhaust pieces. The Revell version looks like this:

After some test fitting I decided they could still be used with the afterburner section I was making. The picture below shows my exhaust components. I trimmed the ring off of the flame holder and plan to use one piece on each end of the AB section (which can be seen in the next photo). I ended up painting the flame holder Tamiya Nato Black (XF-69) and misted on a little bit of Burnt Umber (Model Air) to give it a worn/used look. I plan to dry brush a few hints of blue to complete the look.

Here is an external view of everything assembled together through either friction fit or blu-tac. The sequence from left to right is flame holder, ab section, aluminum ring, and exhaust can.

Here are a couple of shots looking down the ab section. Painting consisted of shooting on Tamiya Primer (White), then brushing on some MM Radome Tan (Acryl). It came out a little darker than I thought, but it does give it a used look. I am still on the fence as to whether I should keep it like that or start over.

After masking off some rings inside the ab section, I sprayed Nato Black down the tube in the direction of exhaust flow. In my attempt to not over do it, I may have under done it I am willing to live with it this way as I didn't want the rings to dominate too much.

In this shot we can see the flame holder in place. I like how it came out, but as you can see in this picture the seam is still noticeable. It actually doesn't look this bad when it's installed, but you can still see it at certain angles. My current options are to: 1) Leave it alone as it won't be as noticeable once the exhaust can is attached or 2) If I decide to spray streaks inside the ab section (which can be seen in some photos), I can align the streaks so that they cover up the seams. I am leaning towards this option as I really do not want to get hung up on this detail.

This last picture shows the assembly installed (again w/blu-tac). I know it's dark, but for some reason this is the only picture that came out showing the afterburner detail.

Well, that is all I have for now. Once I get through with the burner and the wings, aside from a few small details it will be a typical Revell F-14 build from there on out. Hopefully I can get there soon!

--Will

[PolymerAddict]

Will-

Glad to see you're putting the VF sheet into action! I might suggest using some different CVW-8 badges, I always thought ours looked a little off.

By all means, when you get your model finished, would you mind emailing me some pics of it? I'd be glad to add them to our model gallery on the Vagabond website.

Sure thing Brian. Hopefully it turns out to be gallery worthy

Thanks for the heads up on the badges. I know I have the Hasegawa kit and decals in the stash, but I haven't dug it out yet to compare the two badges. Would they be worth considering?

--Will

[PolymerAddict]

Time at the bench has been very sporadic over the last few weeks, so I've been attacking some of the smaller items as time permits. One of the easier modifications is to update the weapons pallets with bomb racks. This loadout will require only the front two pylons, which look like this out of the box:

Using a hobby knife I cut out the area inside the recessed lines. Once that was done I outlined the inside of the pylon with strip styrene and covered it with a scrap piece of thin sheet styrene (left over from my vacuforming). I wanted to try and add a hint of depth when the bomb racks were installed. The Steel Beach racks can be installed either way (without modifying the pallet as I've done here). On my last Revell -D build I was in a hurry when I got to this step and I did just that. This time around I wanted to try a different approach:

After that it's just a matter of trimming the resin bomb rack and dropping it in place. I actually added a small piece of strip styrene underneath the bomb rack so that I could adjust its' install depth. I used some leftover wire to add some detail in the remaining space. Looking at pictures in the DACO book there is definitely some detail in there, but what I have done here is completely fictitious. Hopefully it will turn out somewhat decent once it is all painted up:

Now that the racks are done, it's time to prepare the bombs to hang off of them.

--Will

Edited June 8, 2010 by PolymerAddict

[PolymerAddict]

Well, this is the Dropping Iron GB, so I better get cracking on some iron. For my loadout I plan to use:

1xGBU-12: Hasegawa Weapons Set D

1xGBU-38: Shawn Hull

My ordnance stash was getting a little thin so I had to "borrow" the GBU's from another build that's been on the back burner for a while. I didn't want to...it kind of reminded me of that scene in Saving Private Ryan where they are trying to get off the beach and Tom Hanks calls for "weapons and ammo". Fear not -XL....I will replenish your weapons when it is time.

The idea for that build was to be a "modern" F-16XL flying in OEF. That was for the What-If GB......as you can see I didn't complete my entry

Anyway, when it comes to "navalized" bombs, my recipe consists of Mr. Surfacer 1200 and a disposable epoxy brush. Keep in mind there are many different ways to get this effect. This is just my current method of simulating the ablative coating.

I start by evenly brushing Mr. Surfacer over the areas that have ablative coating. After letting it sit for a few seconds (I basically want it tacky and not completely dry) I begin to poke at the coating with the brush. I will continue to do this while rotating the bomb with my fingers so that I can reach all of the Mr. Surfacer before it dries. If I do not like how any of the areas turned out, I will just brush the detail back down and start poking again. Here is what it looks like after it dries:

If any of the areas look over exaggerated you can sand them down to your liking. Or, if you really want to start over, you can sand off all of the Mr. Surfacer (or at least until it is smooth) and try again.

The remainder of the loadout will consist of:

1xAIM-9: Supplied with the kit - I've already assembled the fins and it just requires paint/decaling.

1xLANTIRN: Steel Beach - I still need to clean up the resin pod prior to painting/decaling.

--Will