Fury Fracas

[Geoff M]

Next up will be the Grand Phoenix and Hobby Boss kits of the FJ-4B Fury.  More to come.

 

Geoff M

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Geoff M

[Kurt H.]

Another interesting showdown, looking forward to it.

[Geoff M]

Here is the basic necessities:

 

First up is the Grand Phoenix kit contents.  A mixed media limited run kit.  Plastic main parts, resin detail for the cockpit wheel wells, a metal nose gear leg, photoetch to add to  the seat and cockpit, vinyl masks for the canopy and wheels, and a instrument panel film with dials.  A nice selection on 3 aircraft represented on the decals by Eagle Strike.  The plastic has petite engraved panel lines.  Being limited run injection there is some clean up to do on the parts but overall it looks very nice.  The resin parts are very detailed and separate easily from the pouring lugs.  The photoetch is a flexible metal easy to work with.  We will see how this kit holds up once we start assembling.

 

Next is the Hobby Boss Kit.  This kit is all plastic.  Very similar break down of parts to the Grand Phoenix apart from the single piece bottom wing.   2 aircraft represented on the decals printed by Hobby Boss.

I chose to start on the Grand Phoenix kit.  I tend to deviate from the instructions so I started by checking the fit of the various resin pieces into the wings and fuselage.  A quick check of the main gear wells showed they were too thick to fit in the wings.  I sanded the edges of the wells to thin them but there Is not enough material here to remove to get them thin enough.  So I resorted to removing material from the wings.  I started by tracing around the wells to provide a guide to removing material.

Once I got an acceptable thinness I glued the wings together.  I also drilled out holes for the external stores and the refueling probe.

Being a limited run kit this has none of the usual means of fixing the fuselage together so I added strips of plastic to aid in aligning the pieces and this worked well. 

The fuselage main gear well was a drop fit into the fuselage.  The nose gear well also fits into the fuselage with no problems, but problems showed up later when the intake trunk was fitted. 

There is not enough room in the fuselage for it close up with the intake trunk, the cockpit and the wheel well installed.  So a lot of sanding on the trunk and nose gear well was needed.  I got the intake trunk and the wheel well paper thin and at that point had to stop sanding and hope that rubber bands would close up the nose.  In the end I had use super glue to close up some small gaps.  That's where I am at right now.  I am enoying this kit.  It pushes me beyond my limits in a good way. 

 

More to come.

 

Geoff M

[Geoff M]

Finished these up.  Sorry there are no more WIP pictures.  Both kits went together with minor difficulties.  Mostly it was the wings on both kits.  There was no secure attachment for the GP kit; the stub that inserted into the fuselage was only 1/8 of an inch or so and just didn't supply enough support.  But with a lot of super glue and sanding it came out ok.  The HB kit had a one piece lower wing that gave a lot of support but there were considerable gaps on each side of the fuselage.  It was over come by rubber bands and glue.  The kits are hard to distinguish from a distance.  I would guess that HB used the GP kit as a guide to making there kit.  Many of the parts are identical and the same omissions appear on both kits, for example no spoilers on the trailing edge flaps.  One minor difference is the nose gear door.  The GP kit has a step in it that is not present on the HB kit.  The GP kit depicts this correctly.  Paints are model master white and gull gray.  Natural metal areas are Bare Metal Foil.

 

This is the Grand Phoenix kit with the Eagle Strike decals.  The decals caused me some grief.  They cracked as the were put into water so it was like assembling a puzzle when putting them on the model.  I had planned to use another set of decals from the Eagle Strike set on the Hobby Boss but decided to use the kit decals after this experience.  In fairness the GP kit and the decals are pretty old and were in my garage and it gets hot in the summer.

 

Hobby Boss kit with kit decals.  These went on fine if a little stiff, but settled down with Mr Mark Softner.  Hobby Boss does provide a full load of Bullpup missiles  (6 missiles).  Research I found showed a capacity to carry 5 and a data link pod.  I scratched a data link pod from ext fuel tank and mounted it on the right inboard station.  No marking are provided for the missiles which also include 2 sidewinders.

Thanks for checking them out.

 

Geoff M

[Kurt H.]

Nice Finish. What is your final verdict?

[Geoff M]

The Grand Phoenix kit was just a little bit fiddlier to work on with the p/e, resin and the limited run aspect of the plastic.  The Hobby Boss presented  a problem with gaps at the wing/fuselage joint.  If I was doing this kit again I would know to fix this before I put the wings on.  I would say in ease of assembly the Hobby Boss nudges the Grand Phoenix kit by a nose but in the end I can barely tell them apart from a distance.

 

Geoff M