1/48th McDonnell F3H-2 Demon - 13/5 update

[trickyrich]

It's just a place holder for the moment but I'm planning a second build....as if the first one isn't hard enough, mainly so I'll be able to take a break from the Vigilante. Or replace it if it gives me the 

 

It'll be a 1/48th resin model for sure as I need to start reducing the resin stash, it's near obscene levels at the moment.  So it would either be a Collect-Aire F3H-2 Demon which would be a fairly straight forward build (and no it isn't!!!), plus were lacking quite a few of the US Navy's early jets in this GB. Or a Sea Hornet NF.21, a long out of production and it's quite a rare model by Air Power Series. Both are nice simple models that don't require any AM stuff other than decals, actually the Sea Hornet doesn't come with any decals!

 

I know Trumpeter produces the Demon, but being Trumpeter there are issues. The NF.21 nobody makes, but the standard one again by Trumpeter (with lots of issues) and Classic Airframes.

 

I'll make a decision once the Sea Fury is done (getting very close) and I've made a proper start on the Vigilante (have started painting the cockpit and wheel wells).Either model well make a nice break from the beast!!         

 

There again I have a 1/48th Sea Mosquito conversion kit?

[Grey Beema]

So many builds I want to sit in on.  So little time....

[trickyrich]

tell me about it, I think i'm off all next week, but may even take the following week off yet, it depends on where I'm sent off to next!

[FIGHTS ON]

what - please don't tell me there are issues with the Trumpy Demon........it's in the queue here to be done, but I think I'll have to pretend I didn't read what you said 

 

Don't thonk yu see many Sea Hornets or Demons made come to think of it, so looking forward to following whatever you choose

[trickyrich]

Sorry for some reason I thought that Trumpeter released the demon, it's Hobby Boss!

 

It' isn't that bad, some have had some issues with the build and some haven't, sort of the usual. Just be very thankful it isn't a Grand Phoenix version!!!! The Sea Hornet had a VERY limited operational life before it was replaced by the Sea Fury.

[FIGHTS ON]

I was lucky enough to attend a talk by the late Eric Brown at Yeovilton some years ago, he was asked the inevitable "what was the best plane..." - best jet was the F-86 sabre , but for the prop he stated the Sea Hornet - he reckoned the power/weight for a prop driven aircraft, there was nothing better & a real joy to fly. Sadly entering service as jets were already the way ahead.

[trickyrich]

8 hours ago, FIGHTS ON said:

I was lucky enough to attend a talk by the late Eric Brown at Yeovilton some years ago, he was asked the inevitable "what was the best plane..." - best jet was the F-86 sabre , but for the prop he stated the Sea Hornet - he reckoned the power/weight for a prop driven aircraft, there was nothing better & a real joy to fly. Sadly entering service as jets were already the way ahead.

I've been reading up on the Sea Hornet as well, her performance was incredible even on one engine! It's just a shame was she another amazing aircraft that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Image her being operational in 43 or 44, either in Europe or the Pacific!

 

If I don't build her for this GB I may do a Whif with her and paint her up in FAA SEAC colours.

[trickyrich]

Ok after quite a bit of thought I will commit to a second build even though the main one is going to be a massive build!! The Sea Fury will be completed tomorrow which is a great relief. Plus I’ve decided to take holidays for the rest of the month. I’ve already got 2 weeks off for being overseas for 4 weeks but have decided to take the rest month off as well for a complete unwind.

 

I ended up going with the Demon as it will be a fairly straight forward build, plus I’ve decided the Sea Hornet will be a Whif build in FAA SEAC colours as mentioned….no start date on that yet. But it to is a really straightforward build so it may start a lot earlier than planned.

 

 

This is another resin and Collect-Aire build (am looking forward to a normal plastic build) and is actually the first Collect-Aire model I ever bought for $25 USD from memory, so super cheap.

 

As you can see she’s going to be a big model as well, a fraction over 12” long, I had earlier cleaned up the joining surfaces just to check the fit.

 

 

The wings are quite large, plus those are the cheeks for the intakes.

 

 

The resin moulding for the small parts is typical Collect-Aire, all the actuators I’ll rebuild from scratch, the gear will probably be replaced bay a set from SAC as it’s pretty crap. The Sparrows will be replaced by new ones form Eduard and I’ll probably add a couple of early Sidewinders as well.

 

 

The rest of the resin bits look ok the cockpit interior is quite basic. There’s no room or easy way to replace the cockpit with an AM one from Aires, so I think I’ll just use the Eduard PE set for the cockpit.

 

 

The deacls are only for one aircraft, they look ok, but because of their age I’ll replace them.

 

 

I have a set from FurBall on the way, I plan to do air aircraft from VF-151, it has a wee red Kangaroo on the nose (that particular aircraft was ‘Zapped” during a Westpac Deployment.

 

And part of the infamous instructions, or as they like to call it a “Builders Guide”! You’re pretty much on your own with these builds.

 

 

It will be a nice straightforward build (ok it’s resin and never really that straight forward!), I may replace the ejection seat as well, the original is white metal and not well done. She’s actually a nice looking aircraft, not really successful at all, actually a bit of a failure, quite underpowered. But she was McDonnell’s last single engine jet and in parts of her you can see the genesis of the F-4 Phantom!

 

Once the cockpits together in the Vigilante I’ll make a proper start on her, she’ll be a nice break from the work required on the Vigilante. With luck I’ll have a fair bit done on her by the time my break is over.

[Thud4444]

Great choice! According to some local pilots she was a surprisingly maneuverable plane, if a bit underpowered. It won the fleet Top Gun trophy with VF-41 in 1959.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Woohoo a Demon 👍! Im in 

[Arniec]

Luckely I have got the Hobby Boss one. Good luck with your Build.

 

Cheers,

[trickyrich]

hmmm I wish I could say the same!!

 

I really screwed up the front fuselage section! Least it's un-warped now.......though now there's about 3-4mm of resin missing! Plus there is another issue around there as well which I can't quite figure out yet, but the cockpit tube won't fit at all, even with the fuselage set at the right distance.

 

Once I've finished up building the main section of the Vigilante I'll start doing some more on this, first up will be cutting of the radome.....what could go wrong! 

[trickyrich]

Righty O, time to look at this beastie….and I wish I hadn’t!

 

I really don’t know what I was thinking when I sanded this one back….actually I don’t even remember doing it! Anyway both sides of the fuselage were warped. And I must have just sanded away happily until they lined up, and they did! 

 

It’s just they weren’t squared and both side were warped, After a bath in hot water (boiling in this case) they straighten up (with a little help) and this is what I’m left with!!

 

 

Wow….how do I fix this!!!

 

Ok all I really know is that the radome should be perfectly round and the rear fuselage profile is correct (I checked), the rest………well…..

 

To fix this I cut out 2 disks the diameter of the radome, I then cut off the radome pieces and glued then to one of the disks. The other disk I cut in half and glued one piece to each fuselage. Now I had a guide to the correct width of the fuselage at the front and radome.

 

Doing the easy one first, I filled in the gap on the radome with plastic sheet and then shaped.

 

 

It’s still a wee bit rough but it’ll do until I can refit it. The plastic disk will be cut off then.

 

The same was sort of done with the fuselage. I carefully taped the radome back together and the rear fuselage, then started to add plastic strip to the gaps in the fuselage. I was careful not to widen the gap too much as I did this.

 

With these few strips in place I can now (well not quite) glue the fuselage together knowing within reason that it’s going to be the correct width and shape (lots of measuring has been done to confirm this).

 

 

But this is where I run into another issue, the cockpit tub won’t fit!! I cut out the conopy I won’t be using (this one is for the earlier model Demon which had the one piece front canopy) to help with aligning.

 

With the cockpit tube in place there’s a huge gap, the canopy will never fit, same goes for the radome. The cockpit tub is sitting perfectly within the cut out in the fuselage. Gosh I thought Aries cockpit tubs were hard to fit!

 

 

 

The ejection seat (its metal, must be for weight) looks to be sitting right. The cockpit in this aircraft was considered to be quite spacious.

 

 

Now with the tub removed the fuselage is the correct width again, the canopy sort of fits….well much better than it did.

 

 

 

 

I’m just not too sure what the issue is, other that the cockpit tub is too wide. I’ve got a Eduard Interior PE set on the way as well as a Quickboost Ejection Seat, this may help me figure out what’s going on here. I was even thinking of getting an Aries Cockpit to see how that fits, at least I know that “should” be the correct size.

 

I’m happy with everything but the cockpit, the rest in just filling and sanding, that stuff is simple. The cockpit……I may end up just building one from scratch that’ll (sort of) fit. The cockpit will be closed for this build but you’ll still be able to see quite a bit. It probably won’t be 100% correct (or even 70%), but it’ll at least look the part.

 

And I though this was going to be the simple build!

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Ouch ... but the fixes you have look good so far. 

[Thud4444]

Dude, remind me not complain about my Hobbyboss F-84 not lining up. Ouch.

[Basilisk]

18 hours ago, trickyrich said:

And I though this was going to be the simple build!

Nice start Rich. I haven't seen a Collect-Aire Model which is a simple build   But I am sure you will work it all out. Oh, and I haven't seen someone crazy enough to tackle two of them in a GB

 

Cheers, Peter

[trickyrich]

2 hours ago, Basilisk said:

Nice start Rich. I haven't seen a Collect-Aire Model which is a simple build   But I am sure you will work it all out. Oh, and I haven't seen someone crazy enough to tackle two of them in a GB

 

Cheers, Peter

 well you have now!! 

 

I'm going to hold off doing anything more untilI have the Eduard cockpit set. From there I'll plan out how I'm going to do the cockpit.....that plus lots a photos. It's very doable, just be really messy and scary to see what I'll be doing to virgin resin! 

[trickyrich]

Ok I made a further start on this today as the postman was very nice in bringing me these goodies!

 

The Firball decals are awesome and they have a tie in with Detail & Scale, which I found had a digital copy of their awesome book on the Demon, so that was another invaluable addition to the build/stash.

 

 

The scheme I'm doing is 3rd from the bottom, a VF-151 "Vigilantes" F-3B 

 

These were the other goodies to arrive;

 

 

The SAC undercarriage is soooooo much nicer that the models one, plus the nose gear isn’t missing the bottom part!!!

 

 

The Quickboost Ejection seat was so much nicer until I found out it’s the wrong type!!! The early Demon were fitted with a McDonnell Ejection seat which is represented here, my version had the later and much improved Martin Baker 5H type, the same as fitted o the early F-4 Phantoms. So I’m now going to have to replace this one….anyone want a McDonnell Ejection seat?

 

 

The model's one is the correct type...sort of but it's shape is wrong!

 

And finally the Eduard IP set proved what I was worried about, the IP is too small!

 

 

Like the rest of the cockpit I’m going to have to rebuild this as well!

 

Speaking of which, now I had the IP panel and the new book I could start rework the cockpit area. Because of fit issues nothing from the original could be used, I’ll be rebuilding everything….no problems!

 

First of I ground back the sides of the fuselage, I took heaps off before it started to get quite thin, over 3mm! 

 

 

 

Plus I thinned down the upper sidewalls as well, these upper sidewalls have the CCT breakers in them and are actually quite thin on the real aircraft.

 

The original cockpit tub is no good as it’s too narrow for a proper ejection seat to fit in, plus all the detail is going to be replaced….plus it doesn’t fit!

 

I’ve started making the new one for card, most of the detail will come form the Eduard set so it’s an easy task to make.

 

 

To fit the new cockpit tub I made a support base for it out of plastic. If I need to change the height at all it’s just a simple task of adding shims.

 

 

The new tub fits in nicely and I even think the new PE side panels will fit as well….if not I can carefully trim the edges to fit.

 

 

 

Because I need a new ejection seat I’m going to have o make the rails for it as the one for the Phantom is bound to be different so I may as well start on that too.

 

 

I’m going to spend the next couple of days working on the cockpit section, after todays work I think it should all work out. Once I can close up the fuselage I can then start working on building the new IP shroud. With the fuselage done it should then be a simple quick build.

[Basilisk]

Once again some tremendous modeling by correcting, adapting and scratch building the Demon pit, converting the basic kit offering to an exquisite cockpit.

 

Looking forward seeing more of your progress.

Cheers, Peter

[zebra]

You’ve got your work cut out there but you seem to be making a good job of it. This is going to be a fascinating build.

[trickyrich]

thanks, I've gotten quite a bit further, the cockpit has been painted and I've started added the Eduard PE bits only to find as usual the Eduard colours are different! The grey interior is actually quite a bit lighter than I had painted so I've had to try and colour match.

 

That aside even with the new side panels fitted it all now fit nicely in the cockpit opening, I've also started building the new IP cowling.

 

Plus I've come up with a clever solution for widen the VacForm canopy and also securely fit it to the model!!

 

I'll try and do a proper update tonight

[trickyrich]

I’ve made some good progress on her and have even managed to close her up!!

 

But first I need to complete the cockpit tub. I finished building the new tub and painted it, then added the new Eduard panels......and had to repaint the tub again!!!    As usual the colours used by Eduard were a bit different to the pale grey the cockpit should be and they had a blue tint to them. The new colour now sort of now looks like the old photos I’ve seen of the interior (not the museum aircraft in the reference book), it looks quite ok so I’ll leave it.

 

 

Compared to what I had to start with, it looks amazing. I tried zebra’s trick with the Formula 560 canopy glue by leaving some out to go tacky before I fitted all those small levers, and it worked a treat!!! 

 

 

Right I was pretty much ready to close up the fuselage, I glued the cockpit tube in place.

 

Bought some glue......I think I have enough!

 

 

.....and glued away! (I actually only used this stuff for filler, the glue used to close her up was Tamiya's Extra Strength CA Cement)

 

It needed some help in spots with a clamp before I glued it, but it pretty much went together without issue. The gaps that can be seen have been willed with CA cement, I’ve run beads of CA Cement down the joins on the inside as well. There’s no way she’s going to come apart now. There were still a couple of issues with the joins in a couple of spots due to earlier warping. The fuselage was wider on one side than the other, nothing some sanding and re-profiling won’t fix.

 

 

Before I get too carried away with sanding I did all the panel lines. This plus photos will help me recover lines lost due to sanding. If you look carefully at the LH wing you’ll see masses of small resin bubbles, that’s going to be a lot of work. I have the same issue on the underside of the other wing and on the fuselage in a couple of places.

 

 

While I was at it I also fitted the metal sleaves for the new wing pins, other than the front one being a wee bit skew, they were perfectly level with the fuselage axis...another big relief.

 

 

The IP cowling I have had to make from scratch with quite a bit of guess work!   I had some photos sort of showing the shape but they were not too clear and were from odd angle, so there’s a wee bit of guess work as well. It’s solid and made up of scrap bit of plastic sheet, shaped then cover with some really thin plastic sheet.

 

 

It does look how it should be and almost fits! I just need to do some final shaping and it should be done as well.

 

 

 

Finally I can start to see how the canopy fits, or doesn’t! The moving section is a nice curve at the front, but the fixed front section is meant to continue curving around to match the intake profile.......and the canopy sort of doesn’t. Actually I think this tuck under should be more sever, judging by some of the photos, but would require some major work. As it is you wouldn’t notice unless you had the picture beside you when you looked at it, so I’ll leave it be.

 

 

The canopy actually needs to be spread apart a bit for it to fit nicely and to try and do this while letting glue dry would be a right pain...if possible. So to get around this I’ll build a cockpit frame! As can just be seen in the photo below there are two small plastic tabs on the frame, these will be replaced by thinner/taller ones, plus I’ll make a “hoop” for the fixed canopy as well.

 

 

If I’m really happy with how the cockpit comes out when finished I may even open up the canopy! Now that would fix a lot of the canopy shape issues!! Hmmm......

 

 

 

[exdraken]

Hi, no, of course I did not see that one either

I actually missed this GB and variety ...

mainly because I am already commited in 2 others....

 

 

great and very interesting work by the way!

[trickyrich]

Updates or more correctly work on this beastie won’t be so regular as after 4 weeks off I’m back at work! (only Mon to Fri at the moment)

 

Right, with the fuselage all closed up it’s time to start on all those joins. Firstly I took lots of photos of the areas around the joins so that I could re-scribe any detail that was lots.

 

 

 

They look pretty bad but they would clean up easily.

 

 

 

That nose wheel well area looks a mess but it cleaned up nicely, the wheel well was fitted and all the gaps were plugged with plastic and CA cement.

 

Actually the upper middle section on the fuselage was the worse, one side was a bit concave (the white stuff isn’t filler it CA that’s reacted to too much accelerator). To fix this I clued a thin strip of plastic to the lower side then carefully sanded it back, trying to keep the original profile. I did this multiple times till I was happy with the join.

 

 

The joins came out really well and I even re-did some of the panel lines, I only needed to use a very small amount of filler which was what I was aiming for.

 

 

While I was look up how the tail elevators fit ( and they are wrong too) I found a small error in the model. Where the lower intake chine meets the lower nose section, on the model it’s curved (which I thought it was too). In fact it’s completely straight, from the start in the nose to the intake lip the lower chine is almost perfectly straight. A relatively straight forward fix, I glued a small piece of strip to act as a guide then added some plastic filler, then spent the next ½ filing it to shape.......and repeat on the other side.

 

 

 It’s right now, a wee bit rough still, but that’ll all be sorted on the final cleaning up stage.

 

 

 

And the elevators...... For some reason they have you believe that the pivot point for them is almost at the rear of them (at the rear pin). It actually needs to be a tiny bit behind the front pin, so I’ll have to make a couple of those circley things and sand off the rear ones.

 

 

...and the short brown tan beaver tail has been fitted.....gosh look at all those bubbles!

 

 

Finally the wings, I fitted the pins into the wings and in doing so found these to be a bit warped themselves! A boiling hot bath sort of fixed them but I still needed to fit an extra pin to one of them.

 

 

.....and the fit.........gosh there be some filler required there!

 

 

 

Forgetting the filler for the moment..... she finally looks the part for the first time! 

 

 

 

I’ll do a wee bit more to her before I concentrate on the Vigilante, which actually is the easier of the builds. That said I still think I can finish her in time as all the hard work is done, it’s just the normal bits of a resin model to finish.

[trickyrich]

Just a quick update on this build. I’ll update further on the weekend. I’m currently back on Mon-Fri work pattern so progress has slowed right down.....work getting in the way of modelling! 

 

These lovely things arrived the other day, they are the correct versions for this aircraft, I now just have to make the correct rails for them!

 

 

I also received the correct ejection seat for her as well, the Martin Baker Mk.5H, as can be seen it’s a bit different to the McDonnell version. The MB seat were fitted to the later versions of the Demon, the F3H-2 (F-3B) and later retro-fitted to earlier versions.

 

 

The tail section...... Well there were quite a few errors with this, I ended up having to reshape quite a bit of it plus reposition the elevators as they were in the wrong place. All the surfaces have now been pinned.

 

 

I built one of the drop tanks, what a pain, no aligning pins and CA cement! I only made one as they only flew with one (more often than not without any), 

if they fitted 2 besides the loss of performance the range dropped to near that of an aircraft without drop tanks!

 

 

She’s getting there, my one big remaining issue is to get the wings and tail surfaces aligned, as besides being warped the fuselage is slightly twisted!