Big ol' Trumpy Tomcat

[TomcatFanatic123]

I REALLY didn't want to do this, because it seems like it's always bad juju for me...I start a WIP thread here, and never end up finishing the damn kit. Since I've been poking my head into the other couple of Trumpy Tomcat builds around here saying "I'm at this point on mine," "This is what I did here, blah, blah, blah", I figure I may as well bite the bullet and post pics. I've been working on this thing since 27 Dec. 2009.

So, here goes nothing, and IF I DON'T FINISH THIS KIT, IT'S ARC'S FAULT :P

Pilot's office. I scratchbuilt some crude rudder pedals, then found out about the Steel Beach correction set after it was too late. I still got one and will be putting a throttle in soon. I also have to add the canopy jettison handle later as well. I already broke it off once, and I don't want to do it again, so, like the Steel Beach throttle, it'll be added once I know I'm not going to be futzing around the cockpit:

RIO's office, pretty straightforward stuff:

The Legend Production seats. These things are awesome! I was going to use the kit seats (hell, this whole build was supposed to be OOB), but I found myself putting so much effort into things that I decided I may as well go for a nice set of seats:

More pics shortly, and THANKS FOR LOOKING !

EDIT: I forgot to add...as of now, the markings for this thing will be Fightertown Decals VF-31 sheet, the 10-month cruise bird. That may change though .

Edited May 10, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[PlasticWeapons]

Quit watching basketball and more building!!!!

Nice work by the way.

[NICHOLAS]

hmmm that white colored pencil looks familiar on those seats =]

[TomcatFanatic123]

Here's a few more. I'm using the Aires exhausts for the Tamiya kit after seeing how perfectly they fit on Terry's (ARC name: "loftycomfort") build here. In my opinon, it's a lot easier to use these than to screw with the kit nozzles and their individual petals that formed a lopsided circle (at least on my kit it did), and the engines with their impossible seams. Plus, they're a lot nicer looking, too :P. So far, I've got one of them completely done, and the other one I still have to paint the dark (what are those made of, anyway?) strips and slide it onto the tube:

BTW, I got these nozzles before I found out Aires was making a set for the Trumpeter kit. Two sets...one for this one, and one for my next one ...

Main gear bays painted, glossed, weathered, and glossed again to seal the weathering wash. The detail in there is actually pretty darn good, but I did add a little wiring to them (my handiwork is up in the section where the wheel/tire rest when the gear is retracted). I HATE PAINTING WHITE!

Thanks for looking !

[TomcatFanatic123]

Quit watching basketball and more building!!!!

Nice work by the way.

Thanks, PW! Lakers, then models...that's the pecking order in my house right now ...however, if I had a TV in the workshop, I could have both. Hmmmmmm....

hmmm that white colored pencil looks familiar on those seats =]

Yes, I have to give Nick credit for "pimping up" my seats a little bit. Took them over to his house to show them to him, and he helped me out with that. Nice work, dude, thanks !

[NICHOLAS]

Thanks, PW! Lakers, then models...that's the pecking order in my house right now ...however, if I had a TV in the workshop, I could have both. Hmmmmmm....

Yes, I have to give Nick credit for "pimping up" my seats a little bit. Took them over to his house to show them to him, and he helped me out with that. Nice work, dude, thanks !

Does this mean I can get Taco Bell tomorrow??? :P

[TomcatFanatic123]

One of the main gear struts. This turned out to be a tiny bit of a sticking point for me, because there's supposed to be a spring on the linkage running along the lower side of the strut, which Trumpeter did not provide. Scratchbuilding time! Well, after looking and looking for itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny springs and coming up empty, I had an "aha!" moment. I found some old metal tubing that was going to replace a broken canopy actuator on a Hasegawa Tomcat. It appeared to be the right diameter, so I started wrapping metal wire around it, and voila! a spring! I also did some other wiring on it (somewhat accurate, but not 100%. Used some pics from the DACO book and my imagination). Now I'm moving onto the second main gear strut, and I hope to have that finished here soon.

And the LANTIRN pod. Don't even get me started on this one . I build the kit supplied one, and I actually got it looking really nice. I assemble the whole thing and dry-fit it onto it's pylon, and something doesn't look right. So, I grab the Tomcat "bible" (DACO book) and do a side-by-side comparison. Sure 'nuff, the damn thing is UPSIDE DOWN! Yeah, thank you Trumpeter :P . It would've been an easy fix had I not already CA'ed the pylon attachment to the top of the pod, but after I did that, it wasn't coming off. Well, I tracked down a Teknics resin pod and used it. Not 100% perfect, but it'll do :):

Thanks for looking !

Edited May 10, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[Skyraider Maniac]

Looking good! Can't wait to see more

[mareku]

With Skyraider Maniac here

[loftycomfort]

Good progress so far.

You haven't shown the fuselage yet, are you tackling the peripheral items first? The fuselage parts fit (mostly) pretty well. They're a very snug fit, but once you snap them in place, the amount of putty needed isn't that much. I'm particularly interested in seeing how you correct the intake ramps.

The wings can be troublesome, so take your time with them.

Cheers and have fun with your build.

Terry

[JMan]

Very very nice job so far on this big beast. Cant wait to see more!

[rom]

nicely done!!

have fun!

[TomcatFanatic123]

Looking good! Can't wait to see more

With Skyraider Maniac here

Very very nice job so far on this big beast. Cant wait to see more!

nicely done!!

have fun!

Thanks, guys! Glad you like it!

Good progress so far. ;)

You haven't shown the fuselage yet, are you tackling the peripheral items first? The fuselage parts fit (mostly) pretty well. They're a very snug fit, but once you snap them in place, the amount of putty needed isn't that much. I'm particularly interested in seeing how you correct the intake ramps.

The wings can be troublesome, so take your time with them.

Cheers and have fun with your build.

Terry

Terry,

Thanks! Glad you like the progress :). I'm pretty close to getting the fuselage assembled, probably within the next couple days. I tackled a lot of the peripheral items first, but the main reason that it's taken me so long to get the fuselage put together is that I needed the main gear bays close at hand because I found myself constantly dry-fitting the struts and I didn't want to have to grab the whole model whenever I was test-fitting.

I saw the issue you had with the wings and I'm really NOT looking forward to that. It's coming up pretty soon, though :unsure:.

[Dan 88]

Looking great so far!

Edited May 11, 2010 by Super Hornet 88

[richter111]

Liking the progress!

[Qian]

Very nice progress so far! This Tomcat is going to be a real beauty!

[THX1138]

I like the solution with the main gear. I still need to try and squeeze them in at the end. I did do the same with the front gear but somehow overlooked I could also do it with the main gear.

Nice progress.

[HOLMES]

Oh WOW ! really good work.... <_<

[TomcatFanatic123]

Thanks for all the comments, guys! I made some more progress over the last couple of days by getting decals on the drop tanks (still not completely done with that, yet), finishing up the scratchbuilding on the other main gear strut, and got the LANTIRN pod assembled. So, here we go.

"Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat!"

The other drop tank, I haven't got around to putting Felix on this one yet, and as you can see, I haven't got the little triangle decals on either tank.

The assembled LANTIRN pod:

The other main gear strut ready for primer and paint:

Thanks for looking !

Edited May 12, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[TomcatFanatic123]

Some pics I forgot to post the other day. The nose gear bay:

My sorry version of the LAU-93 Phoenix rack on the shoulder pylon. After mucho searching, I couldn't find any other pics of an empty rack other than the one that was in the DACO book, and that one was taken from the front. Since I'm building this thing with no weapons on the pylons, and without modifications the pylons have all sorts of locating pin lumps and bumps that don't look one bit authentic, I decided to go scratchbuilding. And working off of only one picture that showed only the front part of the rail made it REALLY hard:

Thanks for looking !

Edited May 12, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[TomcatFanatic123]

Just a couple of overview shots of the front fuselage. Please excuse the Tamiya tape around the IFR area...I'm in the process of prepping for paint. I'm going to try to figure out a way to display the combat configuration of the IFR probe stored with the door removed. If anybody has any suggestions, I'm listening :D:

Here's how I dealt with the awful fit of the gun-bay panels. Basically, I worked one panel at at time from back to front. I started with putty, then switched over to thin plasticard to seal the canyons...oops, I mean gaps. Ended up taking me almost a week to do. I think it turned out OK, but the proof will be when I hit it with primer. This is one of the reasons why I'm dirtying this thing up like crazy...to hide this part right here. Put me down as one of the ones who would be willing to pay a couple dollars extra if Trumpeter would include a single piece gun bay cover for those of us who don't want to open the gun bays:

And a gratuitous workbench shot. Go ahead, start b*tching about how clean my work area is....just kidding :D:

Thanks for looking !

Edited May 12, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[loftycomfort]

I meant to comment on the great details enhancements you added to the main gears. They really make the kit gears look a lot better. I should have done that to mine, but I was running out of steam at the end of my build and just left the main gears as is.

And those gun bay panels, yeah they're a b!tch, aren't they? You did a good job filling them, though.

Interesting approach on the Phoenix pylon, and nice work on the rivet details - so neat and aligned, they look like they were molded on. So is your Tomcat gonna be completely unarmed? ie no missiles, no bombs, and only a LANTIRN pod? Is it a diorama that you're working on?

Cheers,

Terry

PS: Yeah, your workbench does look VERY clean. It's so clean, I bet you can bake some little pink bunny-shaped cookies on it. haha j/k.

[TomcatFanatic123]

I meant to comment on the great details enhancements you added to the main gears. They really make the kit gears look a lot better. I should have done that to mine, but I was running out of steam at the end of my build and just left the main gears as is.

And those gun bay panels, yeah they're a b!tch, aren't they? You did a good job filling them, though.

Interesting approach on the Phoenix pylon, and nice work on the rivet details - so neat and aligned, they look like they were molded on. So is your Tomcat gonna be completely unarmed? ie no missiles, no bombs, and only a LANTIRN pod? Is it a diorama that you're working on?

Cheers,

Terry

PS: Yeah, your workbench does look VERY clean. It's so clean, I bet you can bake some little pink bunny-shaped cookies on it. haha j/k.

Thanks for the compliments Terry, I appreciate that. It means a lot to me coming from a person who cranked out a Trumpeter Tomcat the quality of yours. Like I said in my earlier post, this was supposed to be just a simple, OOB build that would take maybe three weeks to a month, at the most. But one thing lead to another, and now look where I'm at: an "accidental" attempt at a masterpiece (strong emphasis on the word "attempt", and I use the word "masterpiece" very loosely).

To answer your question about armament, yes, this bird will be totally unarmed. My original plan was to throw a couple of JDAMs in the tunnel, AIM-54 and 'Winder on one shoulder, and LANTRIN and 'Winder on the other, but two things turned me off of that. One, I'm doing a diorama and I didn't want to deal with the intakes. A bird with covered intakes wouldn't be on the flightdeck, meaning this thing would have to be on the hangar deck...and if it's down there, it wouldn't be armed. Two, looking at Trumpeter's weapon stencils, the misspelling of one of the (IMHO, rather visible and important) Phoenix stencils really torqued me off. The AIM-54 has a "SER NO" (serial number), not an "SEE NO". If it was 72nd scale, I maybe could've overlooked it, but in this large scale that was unacceptable to me and I couldn't find aftermarket for it.

Pink bunny shaped cookies, huh? I'll take that under consideration...after I finish this thing, instead of a "sanity build", I'll have a "sanity bake" :D!

Edited May 13, 2010 by TomcatFanatic123

[TomcatFanatic123]

A little more progress to share. Finally felt like getting back out to the bench today after spending the past couple days recovering from a reaction to an antibiotic the doc gave me for a sinus infection...which sucked, royally. Anyway, here goes.

First up, the drop tanks weathered and flatcoated:

And I finally started stinking around with the nose gear strut. This is going to be a job-and-a-half to detail this thing up, I can already tell, but formulating a plan of attack and actually getting started is half the battle. Here's what I did...

1) Chop off the "whatever-the-hell-that-thing-was" that Trumpter put on top of the hydraulic canister and replace it with something that looks remotely realistic. It doesn't look anywhere near as good as Terry's (ARC name: loftycomfort) does, but it looks better than Trumpeter's rendition. The wires protruding from it are cut short purposely...I'm going to run some wires down from the gear bay and have them "meet" in an inconspicuous place to look like it's continuous wiring.

2) I was scanning through the DACO book and I noticed that the actuator that runs up into the rear section of the gear bay has tie-down hooks on both sides of it, right where it meets the main strut, just aft of the hydraulic canister. I added those.

3) Drilled out the sorry excuse for a landing light. I know it's still undersized, but I don't have a spare 1:32 landing light kicking around in the spares box (I thought I may have had one, but I was wrong ). I'm still trying to figure out what I could use as the "lens" for it. Any suggestions?

4) There's a little thing underneath the approach indexer that Trumpeter left out (not sure what it is, looks like some type of clamping or locking mechanism). I tried to scratchbuild that. Not the greatest, but it'll do.

5) On the right side of the approach indexer box, there's a spot where a cable plugs into. I added that thing. Still have to add the cables, though.

Anyway, here's pics:

Showing 1 and 2:

3 and 4:

5:

I'm pretty pleased with it, but I still got a ways to go, though...

Finally finished the second exhaust nozzle. It was a relief to get this thing done, because now I'm pretty much finished assembling everything that the Tomcat has two of, (i.e. exhaust nozzles/burner cans, main gear struts, wings, seats, vertical stabs). Here's the two nozzles side-by-side:

IFR bay painted:

And some minor sprucing up to the front Phoenix pallets/bomb racks. Still have to do the rear ones, though. Worked off a pic from the DACO book:

So, slowly (very sloooooooooooowly) this thing moves toward completion :wacko:...

Thanks for looking !

[geedubelyer]

3) Drilled out the sorry excuse for a landing light. I know it's still undersized, but I don't have a spare 1:32 landing light kicking around in the spares box (I thought I may have had one, but I was wrong ). I'm still trying to figure out what I could use as the "lens" for it. Any suggestions?

4) There's a little thing underneath the approach indexer that Trumpeter left out (not sure what it is, looks like some type of clamping or locking mechanism). I tried to scratchbuild that. Not the greatest, but it'll do.

Hi TomcatFanatic123,

Great update. You're making superb progress on your big Tomcat.

The gas bags and nozzles look splendid and neat work on the missile pallets too.

I admire what you're doing with the nose gear leg. I can appreciate all of the work that you've done so far.

For the light lens you might consider shiny metal foil. If anyone in your family drinks wine, you might be able to use some of the metal foil that seals the cork. There are many different sorts of foil but I've discovered that the foil sealing the bottles of cheap sparkling wine often have a very shiny, almost chrome effect to them on the inside. If you punch out a small disc of this shiny foil and place it in the palm of your hand, you can use a rounded tool (like the tip of a paintbrush handle) to create a disc by using a circular motion. Click here to see a quick guide to what I mean. ;)

That mechanism that you scratch built below the Indexer is the launch bar paddle. Gerry (Reddog) was kind enough to answer my query and explain to me what it is:

For an operational bird the "flap" will be in the position shown in the picture on the top right. That flap is called the launch bar paddle and is used to raise the launch bar up while the plane is in the kneel position. There is a switch in the cockpit that the pilot must hold in order for the launch bar to raise up about a foot, if he lets go of the switch the launch bar comes back down. You see the little hydraulic arm attached to is, it always has pressure on it on operational birds so it will always point forward, on non-operational birds the pressure bleeds off and allows the paddle to droop down.

HTH

The plumbing and wiring on your nose gear leg is a vast improvement and will look splendid under a coat of paint. Since the nose gear is such a complex and eye-catching component, your additions will look great. :wacko:

As an aside, looking at your photos convinces me that Trumpeter lifted their parts directly from the Tamiya kit.

If one was starting from scratch with a blank sheet, why would one make the parts exactly the same as Tamiya when references show them to be so far off the real deal? {~shakes head in bewilderent~}

Anyhoo, I digress....you're doing a stellar job, keep up the good work.