JeffreyK

Bravo!! A great result of a super cool subject J

Great stuff, looking forward to seeing the progress! I fact, the AFFTC F-104D FG-315 was also what always made me want to do the early canopy two-seater. I bought an RVHP resin conversion set many moons ago, including an unusable vac-from canopy. So I was glad I could now design and produce a much better (hopefully?) set. I hope I'll be able to build this one myself some day... J

Watanabe-san to the rescue! http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/waA1.html http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/waA1E.html http://nabe3saviation.web.fc2.com/waEA1.html When modellers take pictures they do it properly Cheers, J

I bought yours I hope you've made your money with the project. Cheers, J

I have reptile heater mats stuck to the inside of my printer lids as well, but I find the heating power varies hugely between even the same model mat from the same manufacturer. Some get decently warm, others barely exceed room temperature. Also, the USB plugs on them start failing after a while. I've now had 5 or 6 failures already... VAT heat bands are I think the best solution for heat transfer and efficiency as they put the heat right where it's needed but they make handling of the VAT for resin changes or changing FEP difficult and the commercially available ones are not cheap. As my printers are all in an enclosure I may try mini space heaters next. J

Very nice build!! I tihnk the leading edge will need a little more thinning but the whole intake does look much better than the kit parts!! While I like that Kinetic have taken on the Harrier (I have he FRS.2 and GR.3 on the shelf ) they could have paid more attention to the shape... The whole fuselage is overly fat in the mid section... but still, on the whole, better than previous kits. Temma-san in Japan is really going to town with scratching up the "ultimate" correct Sea Harrier from all sorts of parts (Monogram, Tamiya...). His verdict of the Kinetic parts was kind of devestating LOL :))) https://soyuyo.main.jp/seaharrier/seaharrier-1.html J

Nice! It does your part correct the overly thick leading edge of the kit parts? Difficult to see without context. That was the main, and hard to correct flaw of them in my opinion. J

I think PayPal is contributing to this toxic atmosphere by keeping their fees in case of a refund. They used to completely reverse the transaction so both the seller’s takings and PP fees went back to the buyer thus reversing the total purchase price. Maybe since three years ago PP isn’t refunding their fees anymore but the customer still gets the full refund. Therefore the fee portion that was originally deducted from the price has to be forked out by the seller, i.e. the seller has less than before. It even considering the loss of the product/packing/postage. J

The issue is not you stating you don't want to pay this price for this kit. That's your decision and you're free to do so and say so. The issue is you telling it as if ClearProp were committing some kind of crime by deliberate price-gauging. Do you know exactly how much it has cost ClearProp to produce this kit? Do you know the production run numbers? I'm pretty sure they charge the price they need to in order to make this a viable commercial project. ClearProp aren't a charity. Jeffrey

Definitely not a corrected fuselage as that would mean completely re-tooling the existing mould set for the fuselage sprue. And the pics of the exhibited prototype show the original shape. Very interested to see in what medium the additional parts will be offered. ZM actually asked me some 4 years ago to develop an F-4C Wild Weasel conversion set in resin for them. The project stalled for unknown reasons in the early communication stage. Quite surprised to see it now as a full kit, perhaps they saw a larger market than for a resin set. J

While I have no immediate solution at hand I have a word of consolation that I too have trouble working with my new Mars 4 Ultra. It's proven to be much more finicky than any of my other printers (various Phrozen models and Mars 3). It's mainly to do with resintensile strength and seemingly the printer's ambition to tear things apart... I seem to be unable to dial in just the right settings where the exposure is just right and the prints are stable. It's either stable prints and overexposure or correct exposure but delaminations. I've had some success in taming this issue by reducing the light power to about 95% (currently: 94%). That seemed to get rid of the signs of overexposure while letting the resin cure more stably at the same time. I also inclreased the rest time AFTER exposure, i.e. BEFORE lift to further help with resin bonding before the lift process starts. I'd like to mention though that I changed the AFC for nFEP so this could be one of the issues as nFEP sticks a little more than ACF but is also more light permeable. I also currently use Siraya Fast Navy resin which is not the greatest for tensile strength to begin with. I guess the printer my fair better with other resins.... I updated the firmware to the latest issue and also reached out to Elegoo who sent me a bit of G-code which slows down the lifting speed. Without this extra G-code the printer won't lift any slower than 90mm/min, no matter what you dial in!!! (wtf???) And that's more than twice the speed I normally use for the initial phase (40mm/min). While the smoothness of some parts is amazing overall I'm not over the moon with this machine...it's taken up too much time. Jeffrey

I was going to ask about it in the RFI thread, I forgot about it. Great they included the part! J

Nice one Duncan! A good advert for this kit. How easy (or difficult) is it to mount the speed brakes in the correct, downwards position? Was yours an easy out of the box installation? Or did it need fettling? Just asking as I hope with this kit we’ll see more Sabre models with correct speed brakes, as opposed to all the other kits where the modeller “needs to know”, or they will end up incorrect… J

Without taking engineers's tools to the parts and checking for draft angles, I don't really see anytihng that couldn't be injection moulded. Don't forget, this is Minibase, famous for lots of small, separate parts. J

Yes, but what you can inject you certainly can print and that is the purpose of the tests. It would make absolutely no sense to design all the parts twice, first for 3D printing and then redesign everything with draft angles, webbing etc… J

Reviving this old thread: To those using the Mars 4 Ultra in agner for a while now, how are things going? I'm considering getting one of those for my production line. I use mainly Phrozen printers (Mini and Mighty) but also have a couple of Mars 3 in my arsenal. I would get another Phrozen Mini 8KS but given the huge price difference (at least for me here in Japan) the Mars 4 Ultra is a tempting alternative. I have read of at least one case where a (very experienced) user ended up sending both of his Mars 4 U back, the print quality was just abysmal, no comparison to his other printers, no matter what he tried. Cheers, J

Only if they're imported. The Japanese ones in the next crate will be 50 Yen. 😆

Hmmm, what to do… being in Japan imports have become nearly unaffordable, 30 Euros must be just about 73Trillion Yen now (maybe 10 Trillion more by the time I finished writing this)…plus shipping. I already have a CAT4 resin B nose but was eying up the Wellesprop item too. The good thing about the Hobby2000 release are the decals though… J

The fuselage sides meet the wing vertically, slab-sided. The Hasegawa and Academy kits have "blown" sides, i.e. they bow out laterally and meet the wing kind of tucked in. I'm sure the Clear Prop F-86A will be correct on this if it's been designed from the ground up from quality reference material. J

If it did then that would be bad news for Clear Prop as the Hasegawa cross section is wrong... J

Air brakes are always open on the ground and as Duncan said, at the front those aren't gun bays but the blast panels, there were a few different setups over time. I was sure we'd see an A kit before long, but I would have thought it would be a high pressure moulded kit by one of the mainstream mfs, . Looking forward to it. J

No, none of the existing moulds/tool were altered. The shape was changed in CAD before the steel for the long nose Phantoms (E, G) was cut but the existing short nose kits all remain as they are/were. J

Available from me right now: https://www.hypersonicmodels.com/product/kinetic-f-16a-bundle Cheers, J

Excellent photos! I've been to Komatsu, sadly, the aggressors were not there at the time. Iwakuni is on my to-do list, I just never get round to going... Jeffrey

Friends at BM, I just realised I dod not communicate this on here... I currently have two bundle deals available on my website, consiting of full Kinetic plastic kits (without decals, but with their respective original PE fret) plus Hypersonic Models resin/ 3D print sets. 1: Kinetic (new tool) F-16A (MLU) + HMR 48055 F-16A Block 1, 5, 10 backdate set 2: Kinetic F-104A/C + HMR 48057 F-104A (Late) update set. Even with shipping factored in, the prices are very competetive There is only a small quantity available. Many thanks for your attention!! J