1/32 Crusader

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

After checking with the Powers That Be it looks like I can join in with a big Crusader.

This was a birthday present from my parents a year or two ago - I saw it discounted in the model shop and pointed it out to my dad who mumbled something. I looked a while later and it'd gone, so I asked if they could get another at that price. Mike said it was unlikely and so I gave up hope. Then it appeared wrapped in paper weeks later - result! They had both played it very cool and I was totally fooled.

Anyway, it looks like a good kit, not over-complex although there are a lot of panels that probably won't fit that well if I close them up. Apparently the raised cooling vents on the nose should be faired in or sanded down and re-cut, but I think that might be more trouble than I want in such a visible area.

Here are the bits, by the way:

I'll be leaving out the invisible engine and all those etched fans, and I probably need to find some bombs since the armament seems a bit sophisticated for Vietnam?

There are two schemes in the box - at the moment I'm leaning towards 400 NM

Although there are some cool Marines schemes with the colourful strakes which look good, I currently only have the kit decals.

Construction starts with the cockpit, which looks on the face of it quite good. I shall try and actually finish it - the generous deadline is great and I could do with actually building a model this year!

Cheers,

Will

[Madhatter]

way cool Will. I think this will be the first time I've seen you take on a 32nd plane. Will be watching with interest

I really need to get off my a and do something for this GB too. I'm being very slack

[snapper_city]

Great choice Will.

The weapons fit is all Vietnam era.

Top left is an AGM-45 Shrike.

Top right is a GBU-8/B HOBOS.

Bottom left is an AGM-12 Bullpup.

Bottom right is an AGM-62 Walleye.

I'm not sure how many of these the F-8 ever carried though.

[Breaker]

Love a F-8, awesome aircraft.

Having looked into loadouts for my pair of F-8s, I've only seen them with AIM-9s or Zuni rockets on the fuselage, and dumb bombs on the wing, either a single big bomb or a MER with 4 500Lbs on a slant 4 config. I've also only seen Marine aircraft with a full A-G loadout.

[Will Vale]

Thanks guys!

Si, this'll be my second 1/32 plane and first big jet, although I have made a start on the interior of a WnW Roland C.IIa over the winter. My previous effort in this scale, pre-airbrush, was a Hasegawa Stuka for the Big Scale group build a couple of years ago.

It was a good learning experience but I hope I can do a bit better now I'm painting with airbrush rather than rattle cans, and have slightly more idea how to go about scribing lost panel lines!

Mark and Breaker, thanks for the weapons tips, the kit also has Zunis (but I think only two pair) and Sidewinders for the cheek pylons which look OK. Most Vietnam pictures I've seen have dumb bombs under the wings but there aren't any in the kit, so I either need to find some or find a suitable alternative loadout. I also need to figure out which doors I can leave open - I'm thinking maybe have the probe and port gun bay open, and close up the starboard gun bay and whatever the other hatch is - APU?

There's also the question of the wing - if it's raised (which is a cool feature) then the flaps and slats need to droop, but apparently they only fit well in the up position despite being separate parts.

I'll cut out some of the big bits tonight and tape it up to see how it feels - it's absolutely massive despite not being a huge plane in real life.

And for once, not only do I have reference already, but it's reference I gathered in person! (OK, it's an F-8A, but still...)

(click for bigger)

USS Hornet's F-8A - not loads of shots but some useful details.

Cheers,

Will

[Breaker]

Ever watched Area 88 either Will? It's a Anime with the lead character flying a Crusader.

The refueling probe was pretty much never left open on the ground according to the various sources I've been looking at for my two builds. Is the wing 'floating' like the Hasewaga one or do you have to choose if you want it up or down?

[Will Vale]

No I'd never heard of that - will have to have a look for some clips.

The probe just looks cool though Although there are some pin marks to clean up on the door, so there's an incentive to close it. Actually I'm pretty impressed - I did a dry fit and a closer look over the parts and the fuselage and wing fit well with the wing down. If you have it up there's a fixed-length ram and a couple of different H-shaped braces for the rear so I think the idea is either full down or full up.

Some nice things to report about the kit: The open panels fit decently closed although tiny shims might be required. Most of the doors and bays have no ejector pin marks at all, being apparently ejected from the back. The two cooling vents on the jet pipe also have slide-moulded open ends.

Less nice: The smaller bays and doors (APU-esque thing's bay door, probe door, arrestor hook bay and half the main gear bays) have a reasonable number of pin marks to remove. As do the intakes but those shouldn't be any trouble.

Intake seams look tricky!

Will

[Alan P]

I built this as a C conversion, the open panels on mine fit almost perfectly.

The problems I found were putting the fuselage halves together, it left a big seam up the lower rear fuselage, and a mismatch in the shape of the tailpipe section. There was also a persistent seam at the top just forward of the wing box.

The wings and flap sections went together beautifully though.

[fids]

Great choice, another must watch thread :-)

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the advice about problem areas. Did you use the full engine in your build Brokenedge?

I ask because I built up the gear bays, airbrake bay etc. today and did a pretty thorough tape fit with all the bays included. I didn't have any major seam problems and even the belly panels that cover the main gear bay central spine fit pretty well. But I didn't fit the engine so that might make a big difference.

I also tested the canopy and that's good but needs about 0.5mm of shim at the front to be seamless.

I've been looking at A-vs-E pictures and I think while the Trumpeter radome is a bit too oval, it's nowhere near as pinched as the A version. So perhaps I can build really small fairings for the raised vent panels and avoid taking them up onto the clear parts or forward onto the radome? Still undecided about this - it doesn't look quite right as-is but if I have to rescribe and re-rivet across a curved fairing it'll probably end in tears...

Another option would be to sand flat and cut new louvres, but that'll be tricky too.

Cheers,

Will

[Sgt.Squarehead]

For some reason I was expecting an old Airfix AFV kit!

Looking forward to seeing what you get up to.

[andym]

Some useful stuff here:

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=22179&page=1

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=45219&page=1

HTH
Andy

Edited September 14, 2015 by andym

[Iain Ogilvie]

Excellent project Will!

Iain

[Radleigh]

Great choice Will, big fan of your work too so I will enjoy this as it unfolds!

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the vote of confidence! It's been a bit of a slow year for models - I've mainly been painting figures and even that slowly - but I like to try and build at least one plane a year so I can keep my "proper modeller" credentials intact

Last night I made up the gear and airbrake bays so I could do a proper dry fit. All looks pretty good in terms of going in there and closing up, although the main gear bays will need some care to get placed properly with respect to the curve of the fuselage. The wing also fits well:

There are more parts to add to most of the bays, and I'll probably want to have some more 3D pipes/wires in there. The wing bay stops at the forward bulkhead and I suspect it'd be hollow below that really, but it's not going to be obvious when the wing is on. The rear end is a bit clunky too but that'll be entirely invisible.

I think those ribbed walls at the outer edges might be a hint at cable runs, I'm tempted to remove them and substitute with something better. The starboard side (I think?) should have a lagged pipe of some kind there instead.

I must attempt not to do too much in the wing bay because it really will end up very hard to see...

I may also need to get a bigger piece of Pro-Effect Blue Paper since I'm running into the corners of this one trying to photograph this beast of a plane.

Cheers,

Will

[Breaker]

I've got an excellent picture of the bay underneath the wings on my home PC, I'll try to dig it out later for you.

[Will Vale]

That would be great, thanks! I found a couple in a walkaround but they were a bit hard to follow.

W

[Breaker]

This should make it a bit clearer then?

[Will Vale]

That's great, thanks! I think the Trumpeter bones are fine, I'll need to cut off the outer sides and add all the pipes and things, plus extend the cross braces.

And maybe remove that big flat thing? Do you know what model your picture is from?

Will

[Breaker]

No idea i'm afraid, found it whilst I was 'researching' my F-8 build. Best one I found though.

[Will Vale]

So last night I removed (almost!) some ejector pin marks from the arrestor hook and probe bays, and cut down the moulded cables with no undercut in the wing bay.

The plastic was quite thick but I was able to get it out by cutting through at each bulkhead with an etched saw, then scribing through it with an Olfa cutter from the outside. I cleaned up and removed the inner pipe on the starboard side with a micro chisel. I haven't been super-tidy but I know that the area with the damaged ribs is going to be covered with cable runs so I think all the visible bits are tidy.

I didn't attempt anything with the pipes near the back since they'll be invisible. Actually most of this will be, especially with the droops in place.

Will

[stevej60]

Looking forward to this Will,what a beast it will be awesome completed!

[Will Vale]

Cheers Steve, it's definitely a big plane

Sorry for lack of updates, I've spent a few nights cleaning up parts and I'm almost at the point that I can stick some together. The main gear legs were a pain because there was some longitudinal mould slip, which meant every cylindrical step needed filing and fiddling.

I've cleaned them a bit but they're probably going to need more work after primer.

Most of the bits look good apart from that. The two halves of the ejector seat fit a bit wide and I think they need sanding down on a board. The edges that should fit together have weird alternating raised and recessed sections - some of the other parts show this as well. It looks like if I sand it all down to the recessed level it should fit right.

Hopefully more to report tomorrow.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

I cleaned up more parts, sorted out the fit of the seat a bit and also tried to close up the seams in the corrugated section of the jet pipe by flattening the edges carefully. None of that is together yet because it needs some ejector pin marks filling first.

What is together are all the wing parts, which have made a big dent in the sprue pile:

Not much to report here - good fit but I found on several I wanted to remove the locating pins so I could sand the mating faces on a board to get a closer fit. IIRC sprue D was fine, one of the other wing sprues was less good and merited some cleaning up. I used tape to hinge the trailing edges together so I didn't have to align the halves after gluing.

They need all the seams cleaning up tomorrow, and the trailing edges all have small gaps which will need filling and then the whole thing can be thinned down a bit more.

I'm not sure quite how to pose the wing yet, I know about the (mechanical?) link between the droops and the wing angle but I need to check some pictures to pick a legal (ish) configuration since I want to have the wing raised and folded, if possible. (Sounds unlikely, but you never know...)

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

I did some filling and sanding today, starting with the ejector pin marks on the fuselage halves (one in each intake, and two in the tail). They're all pretty shallow but needed filling and sanding. More interestingly, I've cleaned up the intake parts:

I cut out the (blank) rear wall so that I can get to sand and paint them from both ends, filled and sanded a dozen ejector pin marks, a couple of sink marks, and also removed the internal locating pins towards the back. I need to see if I can find something to stand in for the turbine face when I've got them together. I think they need more fine smoothing but are otherwise about ready for primer.

I also worked on the wing, installing the little plate into the leading edge and filling all around that (and other seams)

as well as closing seams and cleaning up around the folds. I opted to fill one of the holes which was a bit untidy and will drill it out again later.

Lastly I'd already assembled the basic cockpit tub so I could check some alignments, and so I filled the seams under the side consoles and where the forward panels join the main tub. Bit fiddly filing and sanding in there but I think it's OK.

Note that there's a fair bit of sanding dust which I didn't manage to rinse off, and that the filler (CA+talc) isn't very opaque so some of the things which look like seams are actually flat now. At least I think they are!

Cheers,

Will