1/32 Trumpeter F-8C VF-84 - Finished

[Rick De Smet]

Hi guys!

Its the first time I'm entering in a group build.

Ever since I've seen pictures from the VF-84 Flaming intake Crusader I was totally sold to its looks. So you can imagine my joy when I saw that Zotz was going to make a 1/32nd decal sheet for this bird.

I've got myself the big Trumpeter F-8E kit and because its a 1/32nd kit you just have to pay attention to details so I've bought most of the available AM kits for it.

This includes :

• The Aires F-8E cockpit which I'll have to change a little to make it a F-8C pit
  
• The Aires F-8 exhaust, to kit exhaust is really crying for a replacement...
  
• The Aires Wheelbays, really well exposed with the F-8
  
• And last but not least, the Fisher F-8C conversion. Pritty obvious if you're doing an F-8C
  

For the moment I've only done some major cutting to the fuselage and began to work on the wheelbays.

First thing I've done was a quick fit of the new nose which really is a beautifull piece of craftmenship. I must say its the biggest piece of resin I've ever had my hands on. Surface detail is really nice, sharp and you get a really seamless intake all in one piece.

The difference

Away goes the old nose, the instructions from Fisher really give you good references of were to cut.

Sanding to make a nice fit

And voila. It won't fit like a Tamiya kit part but a little bit of putty and that will be ok ( note : just dry fitting in this stage )

The next big cut was the centerpart of the wing section. As the F-8C didn't had to extra bulge the later Crusaders had this has to be replaced. Again Fisher provides a perfectly molded resin part to solve this. Instruction are again really cleas and after some multiple cut with my hobby knive this job was done.

After multipe passes of the knive the wings came off pretty easy

If you done a clean cut fitting is just perfect

And both wings done

So that will be it for my first post.

Today I've finished my wheelbays but these will be for the next post.

Thanks for watching.

Greetz

Rick

Edited March 5, 2010 by Rick De Smet

[Dave Williams]

Looks like a good start :) I'm doing a big Trumpeter kit with the aftermarket also, and am interested in seeing how you deal with fitting the Aires wheel wells (especially the nosewheel well) and the exhaust. I'm using the BB pit instead of the Aires pit, though. I could use a seamless intake like you get with the Fisher conversion, but they don't seem to make one.

[JMan]

WOW, very clean cutting, cant wait to see more!

[kilroy]

Wow, big project. Nice surgery work so far.

[Julien (UK)]

Nice,

watching this one with interest.

So far Fisher is the only company to get the nose shape correct for the early F-8. No one else has managed ina ny scale.

Julien

[Rick De Smet]

Hi guys,

I'm back with a second part of my build.

First I had to finish up the adjustment of the wing area. This involved the removal of the front end of the aft wing bulge which is molded to the fuselage.

The blue tape is there just to protect the surface detail during the cutting.

This removal went fine but as you see it creates a small hole. Again no problem as Fisher provides you with a piece of resin that fits the hole perfectly making it a lot easier to work the hole away. For now it just stays this way untill the fuselage is joined. But I'm still far from that.

Next thing I've done was to dress up the area between the fuselage and wing as the kit part is just way to empty.

As I'm planning to finish my Crusader with the wings in the up position you'll be able to peek inside that area so I decided to add some extra detail & plumbing.

I must admit it's not 100% as on the real aircraft but it's way better than the kit part. And in the end it will be just visible through a 5mm gap.

Added some extra wiring, plumbing, rivets and the fuel filter.

Basic colors painted

And finished it up with a wash to give it that weathered look. Kitchen foil was used for the thermal protection.

Once that was done I could begin working on the wheelbay set from Aires. The biggest concern I had was that it wouldn't fit well with the Fisher nose section.

The aft wheel wells are no problem at all cause the nose doen't go back that far in the fuselage. The front well has some more issues. But luckely they are again solved pritty easely. On the underside of the resin nose Fisher has molded the inside of the front wheel well and its at the same position as of you were building the kit OOB. So you can just use the Aires instructions onto the Fisher part, which tell you to remove the molded detail on the intake.

Thats gone!

Once the details are remove the Aires well fits like a glove.

That was it for this weekend.

Greetz

Rick

[richter111]

Looking really good!

[JMan]

Very nice job so far. Cant wait to see more!

[Timvkampen]

there is a catch in this build and those are the main wheels. You will have to extensively modify those as the VF-84 Vagabonds had the frontnose spoke wheel (supplied by Fisher) and the ribbed main Wheels (not supplied by Fisher).

Nice build so far.

Tim

[David Hingtgen]

Just a quick note:

It seems that about 99% of VF-84 F-8C decals omit the tailplane stripes. May wish to try to acquire/make some now, before you get to the decaling stage. (unless there were 2 variations and I'm just unaware of stripeless tailplanes on their jets--but AFAIK every pic which does show the tailplanes from above, shows stripes)

(and reading this thread REALLY makes me want a 1/32 F-8C---Sundowners of course) :lol:

Edited December 10, 2009 by David Hingtgen

[Julien (UK)]

David,

do you have any pics showing the tail stripes?

Julien

[Marcel111]

Rick, that looks like great work on the Crusader!

Cheers,

Marcel

[Rick De Smet]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the nice comments :)

It's been I while since I found some time to post something new as the last days were quite busy.

So what have I been doing since last time.

First up are the wheel bay, provided and magnificently casted by Aires. And although I'm sure Aires doesn't know they've done a big favor to everyone who's building an early Crusader. After I've bought the wheelbays and I started the project I began my research toward the F-8. The walkaround by Squadron is a really big help I must say cause the web doen't provide much intel about the early F-8's like the F-8C.

I must say I was suprized to see that the Aires wheelbays are in fact based on these early Crusaders (F-8A till F-8C). The difference is really obvious, the early F-8's had their Power Control system accumulators positioned in the aft wheelbays. From the F-8D on these were repositioned from the wheel bays to the speedbrake bay cause the deletion of the rocket pack resulted in way more space in there. So as Aires has molded them into the wheelbays they can be used OOB for the F-8C

This is what I made from the Aires set.

Basic colours applied :

And the wash makes them look way more realistic :

And the front wheelbay :

In the meanwhile I also finished the bang seat. Altough the F-8C was originally equipped with the Vought ejection seat, they retrofitted all F-8C's with the Martin-Baker F5 seat during service. So I'll put the Martin-Baker F5 seat in.

To come back on the stripes and the tires on the F-8C's from VF-84.

For the black stripes on the elevators, on all of the few pictures I've found from the VF-84 jets in service it looks like the stripes weren't applied.

Big thanks to Julien(UK) who provided me the pictures some time ago, as It looks like VF-84 pics are hard to find on the net...

As for the aft wheels. Following the Squadron walkaround the solid magnesium wheels with the corrugation ribs were only used on the F-8A & F-8B. On the F-8C they were replaced with the stonger late style wheels. On the only high resolution pic from the F-8C I found it also looks like the new wheels are installed.

I'm currently busy with the landing gear itself so that will be next :)

Greetings

Rick

[GEH737]

On the Fisher resin top wing part - are those "straps" supposed to be there? They look pretty heavy in the resin parts.

I'm taking notes for my conversion :)

Hitch

[ALF18]

Totally awesome work! Really enjoying this one.

ALF

[Rick De Smet]

Hi guys,

This week has been a nice week of holiday for me as I had a day or 2 that I could fully spend on my Crusader.

So what did I do this week. First I began working on the main landing gear & the tires.

In the Fisher conversion you'll find a full white metal landing gear. I must say its nice to give the model some stronger feet by it ain't such a great addition to the detail.

Apparently Fisher used the kit parts as a mold for his metal legs resulting in quite sober parts with really soft edges. There are also big seams on them which can't always be removed easily. As a result I remain to have a casting seam in the front gear fork...

The construction of the main legs is pretty straight forward, I just added some brake & hydraulic lines to give it some more detail. To bad Trumpeter or Zotz doesn't provide the data placards for the main wheel struts and gear doors. I found some data decals on an old Tornado decals sheet I had lying around.

So here are the main legs.

To give a comparisation of the Fisher parts and the kit parts. The upper part is from Fisher, the lower from the kit. It's really obvious that the kit part has much sharper detail and edges over the metal part. For me it was a dilemma which ones to use for the nose gear. The kit part are sharper in detail but they have these very nasty imprints from the mold on them that won't be removed easily. I'll normally go for the metal parts together with the removal of the cable deflectors as these weren't there on the VF-84 F-8C's

The nose gear isn't completed yet so that will be for the next update.

I also started to work on the cockpit, starting with the front panel/glare shield. This involved something new for me as I had to rework the F-8E panel from the Aires kit to an F-8C pit. I'm not somebody who look at the position of switches etc but the major look has to be that of an F-8C and for me the biggest difference, also the most noticable and visible one, is the radar scope. On the F-8E this scope is rectangular but on the F-8C its a round scope and its also not angled like the one of the F-8E. So for me this was a big first to build something from scratch, I've added tubes and cables in the past but I've never build something from scratch.

In fact it wasn't that difficult at all. I found myself a resin castin block from the Aires kit and started to shape it into something that somehow looked as the radar scope from the F-8C.

The F-8E panel with the rectangular scope.

I shaped some leftover resin into the housing of the new scope

Added the scope & buttons which I made from an old swab.

And after painting. The Aires PE panel is nice but could use some more raised parts for the buttons etc. I must say the instrument panel looks way to bright due to the camera flash.

The rest of the cockpit is nearing completion to but will be for the next update.

Thanks for watching

Greetings

Rick

[Timvkampen]

Rick,

Some serious nice progress there! As for my Main Wheels-comment. The F-8C (or F8U-2 at the time of VF-84 (Vagabonds)) did have the ribbed wheels. In the book "Naval Air Weapons Meet 1956-1959" by Model Publishing (NAVA 1) on p.47 and 86 those wheels are clearly visible on the VF-84 jets. However, it is not of much concern as the scheme of this plane is the real important element! Excellent choice.

Best Tim

[GreyGhost]

Wow, most excellent work, Rick ! :D

Gregg

[Hoops]

That looks really great! I'm looking forward to the next update.

-Hoops

[Rick De Smet]

Rick,

Some serious nice progress there! As for my Main Wheels-comment. The F-8C (or F8U-2 at the time of VF-84 (Vagabonds)) did have the ribbed wheels. In the book "Naval Air Weapons Meet 1956-1959" by Model Publishing (NAVA 1) on p.47 and 86 those wheels are clearly visible on the VF-84 jets. However, it is not of much concern as the scheme of this plane is the real important element! Excellent choice.

Best Tim

Okay thanks for the info Tim, thats a book I didn't know of. Does it show some good VF-84 photo's? Finding them on the net seems to be very difficult.

Maybe I should find myself a copy of that book. For the wheels itself, I'll think I'll let them as they are now. I'm such a good rescriber and it won't affect the final impression of the bird that much.

Thanks for the info, tips like these are always welcome

Greetings

Rick

[Dave Williams]

Looks great so far. As a note, I don't think the metal gear in the conversion is made by Fisher. I believe it's actually the SAC gear, which is also available separately.

[JMan]

Very sharp job so far. Cant wait to see all the cockpit together!

[Rick De Smet]

Hi guys,

I'm back with the cockpit for my F-8C. Last time I've already shown you the modifications I've done to the instrument panel but now the rest of the cockpit.

I was very happy that I had the Aires pit at my disposal for this one. It really adds that extra detail thats is easily seen on 1/32nd builds. The Aires pit has some very nice sharp details and is beautifully casted without any bubbles. Various lever like the one for the gear and wing lock are provided ar PE part.

The person from who I bought the kit had already started on the cockpit from the kit so first a comparison of the 2 pits. Needless to say which one is the Aires cockpit :lol:

First thing I did were the side panels, which I painted flat black.

Then I masked them with Maskol to protect the black during the painting of the gray. Altough Maskol isn't my favorite masking media its really usefull for things like panels etc with lots of uneven areas.

Then I applied Dark Hull Gray (FS36231) to the rest of the pit. Be carefull when working with Maskol, remove the Maskol as soon as possible after painting. Try to do it when the paint is still wet. If you let the paint dry you risk to have flaking on the edges when removing the flexible Maskol. Had this on my previous build

Painting up the tub with some color details. The Crusader pit is pretty black so there isn't that much variation in it.

And the final result after a small wash on the gray areas :

And finally some with the seat installed :

Next will be the nose gear and the exhaust but it may take a while now cause I've dropped my bottle of AlcladII Jet exhaust and the store doen't have new ones in stock...

Thanks for watching :)

Greetings

Rick

[Timvkampen]

Okay thanks for the info Tim, thats a book I didn't know of. Does it show some good VF-84 photo's? Finding them on the net seems to be very difficult.

Maybe I should find myself a copy of that book. For the wheels itself, I'll think I'll let them as they are now. I'm such a good rescriber and it won't affect the final impression of the bird that much.

Thanks for the info, tips like these are always welcome

Greetings

Rick

Hi Rick,

An excellent picture can be seen on the site of Model Publishing (scroll 2/3 on the page and you see a vf-84 bird in the NAVA 1 book). The quality of the pictures is amazing!

http://www.aeroslides.com/modelpublishing/book-store.html

I really like this build. Can't wait to start with my VF-111 f-8

Tim

[Julien (UK)]

I have the Navair books and they are great, well worth the money.

Julien