Decals came this morning. I got aftermarket as the kit only supplies one option for a camo machine and i wanted to do a nat metal one , plus the old monogram decals would probably have given me grief anyway ! The great thing about the a/m decals too is that the 3 options are all aircraft that served in Vietnam so i can also have it in typical ‘thud’ appearance -fully bombed up !
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Another great addition to your Century Series Tony, look forward to seeing the ThudComment
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Started yesterday on this , unsurprisingly with the cockpit ! This is my kind of cockpit - very nicely detailed but only four parts ! It should come up nicely with some careful painting and no doubt there will be a few little add ons ( perhaps some buckles on the seat and a couple of guitar string oxygen hoses ) After doing a bit of research , the early D model Im doing needs some parts of the kit correcting . The problems arise from the fact the kit , supposed to be a D , is a retool of the earlier released G model , but quite a few features of the G werent on the early Ds. It mainly means removing various antennae bumps and lumps . One other thing that needs addressing is the wing anhedral is too pronounced , but with a bit of minor surgery it should be easily corrected.Comment
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Nice start Tony, looking forward to the rest of your build :thumb2: StevenComment
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Looks like a nice cockpit Tony, look forward to seeing it painted.
PeteComment
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Thunder Chief - does what it says on the tin. An impressive looking aircraft, I'm sure the model will be as equally impressive.Comment
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Got cracking with the cockpit yesterday , the tub just had a paint job but the seat was jazzed up a bit with some PE buckles /straps from the spares box and some guitar string and wire for the oxygen pipe , g suit inflation pipe and radio lead ( plus another pipe that i dont know the purpose of !) The instrument panel just had a careful paint job too , studying photos of the real thing showed virtually every knob and dial was represented and in the right place , top work monogram!. The aforementioned alterations to the airframe have started too, the main one being removal of the lumps and bumps on the rear fuselage ,tail and wings. The bumps on the rear fuselage have been filled and sanded , luckily for me the loss of detail wont be noticed as this area is covered by the large stars and bars insignia . The cannon cooling louvres were also not present on early Ds so these have been filled also.Comment
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COR Tony that seat look fab an the pit also very well done on that looks real lets have more pics please as i was at RAF COLTISHALL in the 70's at a crashgate nr the runway an with a m8 we see 5 of these planes came down the runway at low level an they beat up the airfeild really brilliant an they was in camaflarge though an they dint just do it once was about three times if i remember rightly an made a fantastic show an severall people all just stopped their cars to watch what fanstatic days they were an we then dint realise how lucky we were to see this as the airfield is now closed down an is now a prison more to my diappointment
chrisComment
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Now the pit is done i can start with the corrections to the airframe . The wings were first to be addressed , shaving off the underside of the inner intake ducting and sanding about 1.5 mm off the top wing where it joins the fuselage . The kit supplied wing spar has also been cut in half and sanded . This has lifted the wing about 9 mm and it looks correct now ,( see photo, the port wing ( right hand as you look from in front) is yet to be altered , the starboard has the correct anhedral )
The strengthening plates on the fuselage sides , tail and wings are getting carefully sanded flush and the cooling slots for the cannon filled in . Another area that will need seeing to is the dorsal spine , the later D depicted in the kit had this running from the canopy to the tail ,but the early Ds didnt , the spine stopping just aft of the canopy .Comment
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All the strengthening plates / antennae lumps and bumps have now been sanded off and the panel lines re instated ( just marking with a sharp scalpel blade causes enough of a raised line to match the originals) . Ive filled a few areas too and sanded then polished the parts that have seen some attention as its going to get a NMF, so the base coat has to be smooth as possible .A couple of other parts that needed alteration were the nose cone and the fuselage spine. The kit nose cone has a straight line profile to the pitot whereas the real one has a curve ( ogival ?) so how to fix this ? Out with the power tools !! I superglued a cocktail stick into the nose cone and mounted this in the drill , then on slowish speed used a coarse sanding stick to reprofile the part , lathe style . The fuselage spine is representative of the later blocks of the D and wasnt full length on the early NMF 105Ds so I masked up either side and attacked this with the coarse sanding stick again . Next is getting the wings on , sorting the cockpit coaming and fixing the canopiesComment
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Good work going into this one Tony.Comment
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Nice progress Tony, sure is a big fighter plane. Love your lathe tool : DComment
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Been very slack recently and keep meaning to leave a post...
All great work going on Tony. Love the cockpit and the accuracy mods.
Also got to commend your bravery knowing this is going to be natural metal...I’d be a bag of nerves and would be massively overthinking the prep!
Keep up the ever inspiring work!Comment
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Great modelling Tony. But all that surgery followed by a nmf. You clearly have patience by the bucket load.Comment
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