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1/48 F-104 best option and opinions sought


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On 7/7/2020 at 8:42 PM, Thomas said:

I am not the best red line handler, the intake duct "bulge" on the fuselage ends too early on the Kinetic kit.

 

Kinetic.jpg.0de7f370d94e373737e094fd5ca74ed9.jpgr...F-104.jpeg.568c6b0f751b74826e855273d083a2bd.jpeg.066e9a53fac8196ccbc2160a174cd7b7.jpeg


your comparing a highly reflective surface with very visible curves with one that's totally Matt and expect to draw conclusions based off that?

Mmmmm no... 

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The error is easily seen on finished builds  which have a Matt finish. Also if the problem wasn’t there,  then why would Raymond admit to correcting the error on the TF and A/C mouldings?

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42 minutes ago, dehowie said:


your comparing a highly reflective surface with very visible curves with one that's totally Matt and expect to draw conclusions based off that?

Mmmmm no... 

 

I can actually see it now that I know what to look for, but it still (at least to me) isn't that big of a deal. It's comparable to the AMK Tomcat rear end. Yeah, it's there, but whether it's a deal-breaker is completely up to each person.

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50 minutes ago, dehowie said:


your comparing a highly reflective surface with very visible curves with one that's totally Matt and expect to draw conclusions based off that?

Mmmmm no... 

On this picture posted on FB you see the issue very well IMO, when compared to the original.

 

101037583_3067644729959017_2532080968221041520_o.jpg.2d31921df8bb5d05f764b7fa5253d3cb.jpg800px-F-104G_MFG2_Ramstein_1984.jpg

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1 hour ago, Darren Roberts said:

 

I can actually see it now that I know what to look for, but it still (at least to me) isn't that big of a deal. It's comparable to the AMK Tomcat rear end. Yeah, it's there, but whether it's a deal-breaker is completely up to each person.

I would not even go that far. I'd say it's more like the fuselage issue with the ZM phantom. There is a flaw in the shape, but it's not obvious until you know to look for a flaw in that area. The AMK Tomcat looked obviously wrong from the first glance. 

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1 hour ago, Cool Hand said:

I would not even go that far. I'd say it's more like the fuselage issue with the ZM phantom. There is a flaw in the shape, but it's not obvious until you know to look for a flaw in that area. The AMK Tomcat looked obviously wrong from the first glance. 

You're right. That's probably a better example. 

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9 hours ago, B.Sin said:

Wow!   So, tell me, with an educated guess, what do you think the cost of tooling was for the F-104?

honestly, I have no serious idea. Yet I know that with the basic depth of the cut with a sinker you are thinking less that 1.5". That's critical. Then figure the rough cut at .005" a minute. Or about 2.5 hours including setup time. Programing will get you for something like two hours total if your good at your craft. After roughing it out, you go back into the metal with a semi finish cut at about .002" a minute. Your only taking about .005" all the way around unless it something super critical. Then you will go back in a third time and sorta fuzz off about a thousandth of an inch with the finished master. Pretty much an all day affair. That's for one spru set. The real issues you run into are with irregular cures. Running the EDM isn't all that bad, but making the master is a bear. Have no idea what Raymond pays for an hour of machine time on an EDM, but fifteen years ago I was spending well over five hundred an hour on a big ELOX and had it's own power transformer outside the building. It didn't matter what you did, the minute you turned that beast on it was five hundred bucks. Cutting with it would seriously increase the light bill to close to a grand an hour if you turned the power way up. I only used that beast when I just had to. Otherwise I used smaller machines, and even then it was usually a wire EDM. 

      I might toss in here that what I called programing was to run the machine, not design the part. I have no idea how many hours it took to do that part. Making the masters take a good bit of work. You chip the master, and you start all over. I've seen masters with almost a weeks labor in them.  Copper inert tungsten is so expensive the the government regulates the sales of it. I don't remember why we used it sometimes, but the raw stock was kept locked up. Never saw big pieces, and think we mostly used it for threads and internal splines in a blind hole. I might add here that if you get a power surge, or anykind of loss in power; you start all over! 

      Twenty years ago, each mold for the head light buckets on a car cost two to three million a piece. You had to have a minimum of three each, and in some cases six to eight of each. 

gary

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14 minutes ago, ChesshireCat said:

honestly, I have no serious idea. Yet I know that with the basic depth of the cut with a sinker you are thinking less that 1.5". That's critical. Then figure the rough cut at .005" a minute. Or about 2.5 hours including setup time. Programing will get you for something like two hours total if your good at your craft. After roughing it out, you go back into the metal with a semi finish cut at about .002" a minute. Your only taking about .005" all the way around unless it something super critical. Then you will go back in a third time and sorta fuzz off about a thousandth of an inch with the finished master. Pretty much an all day affair. That's for one spru set. The real issues you run into are with irregular cures. Running the EDM isn't all that bad, but making the master is a bear. Have no idea what Raymond pays for an hour of machine time on an EDM, but fifteen years ago I was spending well over five hundred an hour on a big ELOX and had it's own power transformer outside the building. It didn't matter what you did, the minute you turned that beast on it was five hundred bucks. Cutting with it would seriously increase the light bill to close to a grand an hour if you turned the power way up. I only used that beast when I just had to. Otherwise I used smaller machines, and even then it was usually a wire EDM. 

      I might toss in here that what I called programing was to run the machine, not design the part. I have no idea how many hours it took to do that part. Making the masters take a good bit of work. You chip the master, and you start all over. I've seen masters with almost a weeks labor in them.  Copper inert tungsten is so expensive the the government regulates the sales of it. I don't remember why we used it sometimes, but the raw stock was kept locked up. Never saw big pieces, and think we mostly used it for threads and internal splines in a blind hole. I might add here that if you get a power surge, or anykind of loss in power; you start all over! 

      Twenty years ago, each mold for the head light buckets on a car cost two to three million a piece. You had to have a minimum of three each, and in some cases six to eight of each. 

gary

Wow!  So, is it save to say it could cost two or three million dollars to produce a kit?

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5 hours ago, B.Sin said:

Wow!  So, is it save to say it could cost two or three million dollars to produce a kit?

I doubt it. Maybe in the $100K range on a good day. Head light buckets are held to less than an arc second all over to focus the light beam. A model kit could be off .008" and nobody's gonna know it. But when you run it across a CMM or Shadowgraph; that error looks as big as your thumb. I was in and out of that plant at least once a week, and often two and three days at a time. I was after the latest technology in powdered metal casting, and how to build a mold.

      Without getting too technical, and also thinking about the curves in an airframe. It takes two measuring devices to duplicate this. As the machine runs each device talks to the other thru the computer. This is done with a very special program in a "canned cycle". Each program like this is very closely guarded. It's written either by inside folks or the actual machine tool manufacturer with a letter of confidentuallity following it. I used several owned by different groups of people that had no sense of humor. You steal the software, and all they do is read it line by line, and the Feds come knocking on your door. I know of one bunch in Japan that got the greeting, and are still paying. To be exact, you can't even down load the programs to a disc. They won't load! They come off a main frame to the CNC control, and are locked. Takes an act of congress to make an edit in one. Very few machines have a dual read axis drives (I can only think of six or seven, and three are out of business). 

gary

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21 hours ago, ChesshireCat said:

I doubt it. Maybe in the $100K range on a good day. Head light buckets are held to less than an arc second all over to focus the light beam. A model kit could be off .008" and nobody's gonna know it. But when you run it across a CMM or Shadowgraph; that error looks as big as your thumb. I was in and out of that plant at least once a week, and often two and three days at a time. I was after the latest technology in powdered metal casting, and how to build a mold.

      Without getting too technical, and also thinking about the curves in an airframe. It takes two measuring devices to duplicate this. As the machine runs each device talks to the other thru the computer. This is done with a very special program in a "canned cycle". Each program like this is very closely guarded. It's written either by inside folks or the actual machine tool manufacturer with a letter of confidentuallity following it. I used several owned by different groups of people that had no sense of humor. You steal the software, and all they do is read it line by line, and the Feds come knocking on your door. I know of one bunch in Japan that got the greeting, and are still paying. To be exact, you can't even down load the programs to a disc. They won't load! They come off a main frame to the CNC control, and are locked. Takes an act of congress to make an edit in one. Very few machines have a dual read axis drives (I can only think of six or seven, and three are out of business). 

gary

Thank's!

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Well i would imagine that cutting the moulds in China would cut costs by a big margin, if you look at Trumpeters catalogue  the have over 1500 kits, granted there are a lot variants but still a massive list. Their costs have to be dirt cheap.

Ken  

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On 7/7/2020 at 1:52 PM, Raymond Chung said:

For you my advise to get the F-104A plus the G tail if this is a must for you. The G parts already have recess line at the back so you can cut it and mate with F-104C front. 

the cost for the new tooled one can let you buy a BMW series 3, so you understand what it is. 
 

 

F-5A/B no plan at the moment. 

 
How about the 1/32 Tutor? Rick would love it if you complete his dream.

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On 7/9/2020 at 6:12 PM, B.Sin said:

Wow!  So, is it save to say it could cost two or three million dollars to produce a kit?.

not in China. Be much cheaper , plus your not working in arc seconds. (an arc second is roughly .00048") My guess is $130K every time to cut a 1/48th scale mold. Could be closer to $100K, but can't see that when looking at the big picture. Another factor to think about is the mold (or injection die) itself. Some are water (or glycol) cooled and heated. This is expensive to do to the the raw block of steel. You can't do it in a gun drill, so it takes 5 times longer. After your done, you test it out in a mule to find out if you get to start all over. 

       I was up there learning the powdered metal molding process. I had to make two gear sets for the M1 tank, and we always had those gears made by Fairfield Gear. Their one machine they used to cut them died in a big way. I was paying about $120 a pair, and now had to cut them in the tool room at $400 an hour. The wait time on the machine rebuild was a year or more (Fairfield). Making the mold was easy, and was done in a week. The gear comes out, and you simply put it in an oven. Then you hone the the surfaces. Ended up building three molds as there's shrinkage to deal with. Finished gear ended up being in the seventy five dollar range, and we never bought pump gears from them gain. 

      The one form of molding I never go to see, but always wanted to see was the "lost wax process."  Used in jet engines and gas turbines. Very, very closely guarded process. Yet nothing like molding Hestalloy. We did afterburner cans, and nobody was allowed in the room when they poured liquid metal. Even machining processes for that stuff is guarded technology. I hated that metal!! But I loved my job!

gary

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