Trumpeter EE Lightning F3, 1/32nd scale

[AAbshier]

Trumpeter 1/32nd Lightning F3: construction gets underway! Fuselage improvements, part I

I decided to do my Lightning as an F3 of 74 Squadron, 1964-65; here's one of the photos that inspired me:

The Trumpeter kit only provides the short cable conduits (the long bulge on the lower part of the fuselage) as used on the Lightning F1A and F2. It's kind of a silly ommission, since they molded the front of the cable conduit as a seperate part, and thus could have included the longer length!

I measured the diameter of the conduit by holding the radius of the conduit front inside a circle template; then I searched through my straight sprues to see if I had a sprue of that diameter. It turned out that the sprue used on the wing parts is the same diameter, so I cut off a section of it, then halved it. To smooth the joining surface I sanded the longer conduit section on some sandpaper held to a flat surface. To grip the conduit part, I put little pieces of double-stick tape on the ends of my fingers:

After repeated test fitting and sanding with the conduit parts, I got this:

I still need to fully fair in the longer conduits, but this was an easy (and no-cost) solution.

Trumpeter would have you cement the speed brakes into the open position. I have never seen a picture of an actual Lightning with the speedbrakes open on the ground, unless it was actually rolling out from a landing. To cement them shut, I thinned down the ribbing detail inside the speedbrake, then used AquaMend A+B pool repair putty (Poor man's Milliput) to hold the speedbrake in place, without having any glue smears.

How did it come out? Not too bad:

The Lightning F3s and F6s using the more powerful engines had additional scoops on the side of the right fuselage. Trumpeter missed these completely, so they should be added. I first carved out the scoops from sheet plastic just a little undersize. I then used 3 thousandths brass foil and a burnishing tool (a blunt dissection probe) to "buck" the foil over the scoops I had carved. I had to do some tweaking with pliers to get them close to the right shape. What you see here is NOT the finished product, but it gives you an idea of how it will look.

The nickel-finished metal parts forward and down from the brass scoops are from the Eduard exterior details set.

Now to our next thing: the APU exhaust on the left rear fuselage. This is the prominent opening seen on the left fuselage, above the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer:

Trumpeter gives you this for an APU opening:

WEAK. Fortunately, the fix is easy, and as close by as your neighborhood Arbys! You'll need a drinking straw from Arby's, which just happens to be the perfect diameter for this application, and the usual modeling tools used to open holes.

First, drill out the APU hole.

On the inside, "flute" the hole so that the straw will fit at an angle:

Scuff up the straw where it will be glued using 220 grit (or so) sandpaper, then epoxy the straw into place using 5- minute epoxy. It should look like this from the outside:

And from the inside:

Once the epoxy is dry, cut the straw flush with the fuselage:

(NOTE: the Trumpeter kit has a "flange" on the aft end of the APU opening. This is correct for the F6, but not the F3, so cut that flange off.) Sand the straw flush to the opening, finish with Metalizer Exhaust (which I haven't done yet), and cap off the inside with a fan disc or something resembling it. Easy peasy, and it improves the look of this area considerably.

Next: before and after photos using the Eduard exterior detail set.

Andy

Alton IL

Edited December 31, 2009 by AAbshier

[AnonymousAA72]

A great start!! Though your title's a bit mis-leading (it says F6!!) . Anyway, don't know if you've noticed my F6 build/fix, but I noted that the Trumpeter fuselage is some 5mm too short - as compared to the drawings and plastic on the vac-form Echelon kit (widely accepted as being accurate) . Any thoughts on this and how this would apply to the F3?

Also, I'm pretty certain the F3 had the flange on the APU duct ....take a look at the photo of XP705...it looks like its there...

Looking forward to this build BTW!!!!.

[sonofjim]

Hi Andy

if this kit is anything like the 32nd f6 i'm building like BC there

you'll enjoy it i'm uber correcting mine like BC is

its perhaps somneof the most invloved modelling i have cone on a non scratchbuild

but i'm enjoying it through and through

keep us informed mate

look forward to another big frightening

[Fmk.6john]

Excellent start!, like Bill says though, the flange on the ATGB exhaust was present fron the F.2A onwards.

Regards,

JB.

[AAbshier]

Excellent start!, like Bill says though, the flange on the ATGB exhaust was present fron the F.2A onwards.

Regards,

JB.

Hmmm. In one of my references there is a photo labeled as an F3 with the ATGB exhaust not having the flange. I went with no flange based on that one photo. That will teach me. Putting one back on looks like a lot of work to make it look convincing, so I'm going to go with what I have.

Andy

[TonyT]

Hmmm. In one of my references there is a photo labeled as an F3 with the ATGB exhaust not having the flange. I went with no flange based on that one photo. That will teach me. Putting one back on looks like a lot of work to make it look convincing, so I'm going to go with what I have.

Andy

Good scheme... I have this so following your progress

[lightning770]

Hi Andy .

I'm watchin ALL the trumpeter Lightning builds on here with much interest . The kit has been slated quite alot by many modellers on here but i must say i really enjoyed building mine. It has its problems and errors but it looks pretty dam good when its finished. I was at newark model show recently and there were three trumpeter F3's on display including mine and they looked stunning. I'm now onto the painting stage of my next F3 blue fin and spine so we all know which one that is. I have also got the F6 (sucker for punishment) not started it yet but i have the eduard cockpit set and ejector seat detail and i'm allso putting in a scratch built avpin starting system in the spine (pic below) to give it more detail. Keep up the good work andy I'm lookin forward to more photos and banter.

Dave

Edited October 17, 2009 by lightning770

[AnonymousAA72]

Hi Andy .

I'm watchin ALL the trumpeter Lightning builds on here with much interest . The kit has been slated quite alot by many modellers on here but i must say i really enjoyed building mine. It has its problems and errors but it looks pretty dam good when its finished. I was at newark model show recently and there were three trumpeter F3's on display including mine and they looked stunning. I'm now onto the painting stage of my next F3 blue fin and spine so we all know which one that is. I have also got the F6 (sucker for punishment) not started it yet but i have the eduard cockpit set and ejector seat detail and i'm allso putting in a scratch built avpin starting system in the spine (pic below) to give it more detail. Keep up the good work andy I'm lookin forward to more photos and banter.

Dave

I think we must all be gluttons for punishment - but (apart from Echelon) who else would touch a 1/32nd scale Lightning?

Each and every modeller will have his or her own "take" on the Lightning and building a model of it - be it OOB or Hyper detailled - or somewhere in between!

Its therefore great to enjoy the diversity of method's and skills deployed to build the beasty on here..

AND love that avpin starting system - I may "borrow" that in 1/48th scale soon............

AND a blue tailed F3???? Could it be.....

Hmmm. In one of my references there is a photo labeled as an F3 with the ATGB exhaust not having the flange. I went with no flange based on that one photo. That will teach me. Putting one back on looks like a lot of work to make it look convincing, so I'm going to go with what I have.

Andy

I'm sure it will turn out more than okay Andy. Really looking forward to your next installment!

[AAbshier]

As I was researching the Trumpeter kit, I read a review stating that the intake trunk, as installed, does not meet the intake ring. At first I thought the modeler had made a mistake, but it turns out, he was right on the money:

Hmmm. In the immortal words of Karl Malden selling American Express traveler's checks, "what will you do. What will you do?" That's a bad gap in one of the most impossible to reach places.

Simple, really: just advance the intake so that it does meet the intake ring. The question, though was would the cockpit still fit properly with the intake advanced forward?

Why, yes. No problem, in fact:

Thats the good news. Now the bad news:

(Did I mention that this kit retails for US$189.95? Oy.)

Cutting the nose gear bay opening further back on the intake trunk doesn't look too hard. Cutting down the upper splitter to fit inside the intake trunk looks more challenging, but the tricky part will be filling in the gap near the lower front of the splitter. I'm still thinking about this, and have some ideas, which I'll detail in my next installment.

In the meantime, I'm wrapping up work on the cockpit and ejection seat, and will have pictures later.

Andy

[Daniel]

All of these 1/32 builds are inspiring, good work, kepp posting the WIP please, we all enjoy seeing your hard work!

Dan

[AnonymousAA72]

I've managed to get my fuselage together on my F6, and the internal intake situation isn't a problem for me - I'll be cheating and adding an FOD blank, however what IS a problem is the intake ring itself and the positioning of the nose gear! The intake ring is far too deep - and the nose gear axis point is too far back. It needs moving forward by its own length - and you moving the unit forward seems to be one solution!

The undercarriage issue is a major problem - this was surely done to overcome the truly awful belly tank on the F6/F2a! The resultant sit is sooo wrong!!!

Good progress so far Andy, good to see how you're coping with the plethora of Trumpeter's errors, all of which seem to have a knock on effect elsewhere on the kit!!

Edited October 26, 2009 by Bill Clark

[AAbshier]

I've managed to get my fuselage together on my F6, and the internal intake situation isn't a problem for me - I'll be cheating and adding an FOD blank, however what IS a problem is the intake ring itself and the positioning of the nose gear! The intake ring is far too deep - and the nose gear axis point is too far back. It needs moving forward by its own length - and you moving the unit forward seems to be one solution!

Unfortunately moving the intake trunk doesn't change the position of the nose gear bay--moving that forward looks like a massive undertaking to say the least. I'm leaving mine alone. (EDIT: or not. See my post under Bill Clark's F6 thread.)

The undercarriage issue is a major problem - this was surely done to overcome the truly awful belly tank on the F6/F2a! The resultant sit is sooo wrong!!!

Any idea on where to make the cuts on the Trumpeter gear to get the sit right? I looked at that myself, couldn't find a good spot to take out, and have decided for now to leave them alone, bad sit be damned. Also, the plastic struts fit a lot more loosely into the mounting holes than the metal ones, and that plus the bendy nature of the plastic makes me leery of using the plastic struts, cut down or not. That said, if I can reinforce the struts with piano wire, I'm willing to try it.

Good progress so far Andy, good to see how you're coping with the plethora of Trumpeter's errors, all of which seem to have a knock on effect elsewhere on the kit!!

With a Trumpeter kit, it's always something.

Andy

Edited October 26, 2009 by AAbshier

[AnonymousAA72]

Any idea on where to make the cuts on the Trumpeter gear to get the sit right? I looked at that myself, couldn't find a good spot to take out, and have decided for now to leave them alone, bad sit be damned.

With a Trumpeter kit, it's always something.

Andy

Hiya Andy, fancy seeing you here....I'm seriously considering scratchbuilding undercarriage legs - maybe using the white metal lower parts and fitting them into tubing - somehow - still thinking that one through? Trumpeter's legs are pure fiction!!

Compare them to those on the Echelon kit.....

Edited October 26, 2009 by Bill Clark

[AAbshier]

Hiya Andy, fancy seeing you here....I'm seriously considering scratchbuilding undercarriage legs - maybe using the white metal lower parts and fitting them into tubing - somehow - still thinking that one through? Trumpeter's legs are pure fiction!!

Compare them to those on the Echelon kit.....

Hmmm. Sounds feasable, especially considering that Trumpy's metal legs look especially spindly! I might cut mine at one of the skinny parts and slide some tubing over it--I'm assuming Echelon got the appearance of the struts right, along with the height?

Maybe one of us should try it out with the plastic gear before committing to metal....

Andy

[AAbshier]

While I'm working on the fuselage, I've also been hard at work adding brass detail parts from Eduard's set 32227, covering external details. This set covers additional details for the wheel wells, wheels, struts, and the fuselage. I thought you would be interested in some before and after photos.

Main gear bay:

Nose gear bay:

Main wheels:

(NOTE: the holes on the outer hubs are not drilled out on the kit; I did that myself, and I'll be fitting a circle of plastic inside to represent the disc brake before I assemble the halves together.)

I haven't finished the main gear bays yet but you can see what an improvement the set makes. I've just started work on the nose gear strut; I'll be waiting on the mains until I sort out how and if I'm going to modify them to improve the sit of the model.

Andy

[AAbshier]

The saga continues.....

While I've primarily been working on detailing and on structures, I have found time to get the cockpit finished. It is basically stock, but I did use the large instruments from the Eduard color photo-etch set underneath Trumpy's clear glass panel:

(When I looked at this photo, I discovered that the unpainted edges of the instrument panel were visible--so I touched them up with RAF Ocean Gray, which is what I used as the base cockpit color.)

The stock ejection seat came out looking rather plain:

But the Eduard ejection seat details set soon put that right (sorry about the soft focus):

I'm pretty happy with the cockpit. The "bones" in the Trumpy kit are good--some modeling skill and either a new ejection seat or detailing Trumpy's works just fine.

Now back to structural matters. One of my concerns with the kit was the thin-walled plastic used on the fuselage. I thought it would be entirely too bendy to support the wings properly without extra support, so I made two bulkheads:

(Making them was quite a rigamarole, so once I had them finished, I painted them black and made a photocopy so that I could use the photocopies as templates should I be mad enough to attempt a second 1/32nd Lightning.)

Before installing the bulkheads, I cut vertical slots adjacent to where they would be located for wing spars. Once that was done, I epoxied the bulkheads in place.

Next: the intake trunk goes forward. Opening of the can of worms ensues.

Andy

[AAbshier]

I remembered that I had a partially built Airfix 1/48 scale Lightning in my half-built stash; it never got finished because somehow half of the remaining parts for it got lost in a move. But I recalled that the model was very good on outline accuracy, so with the aid of my Airfix model and a calculator, I checked into dimensions and placement on the Trumpeter 1/32nd scale kit.

All of these dimensions assume a scale conversion of 1.5:1 between 1/32nd scale and 1/48 scale; I know there's some other significant digits, but I was using an elementary school-grade ruler to make these measurements, so I figured 1.5:1 was fine.

For the nose gear bay, I measured the distance between the front edge of the nose gear bay and the edge of the intake lip on the Airfix kit, and got 13mm. On the Trumpeter kit I got 23mm. Multiplying 13 x 1.5, I got 19.5mm as the actual distance the front of the nose gear bay should be from the edge of the intake lip, or a difference of 4.5mm.

It just so happens that Trumpeter, if you follow the instructions, has you install the intake trunk so that there is....wait for it....a 4.5mm gap between the intake trunk and the intake ring! This is obviously wrong, but somebody in Trumpeter-land thought it was right, because they set the nose gear bay opening too far back, to line up with the too-far-back intake trunk!

Fortunately the intake trunk can be slid forward so that it contacts the intake ring, as I showed in an earlier post. That's the easy part. For the rest, read on.

The nose gear bay needs to be moved forward, as mentioned, so I cut sections out of the front end of the nose gear bay opening on both fuselage halves. I also cut away the mounting flanges starting at the forwardmost nose gear door notches on both sides. The results look something like this:

Looking at it from the side, in what we anatomists call a saggital section, you can see how everything lines up. I didn't have to cut down the top edge of the radar tower to fit against the intake at all, but the tab on the top did need some trimming. I also had to revise the tower so that the intake ring would fit over it properly, by notching it at the top and reducing the airfoil section at the bottom so that it was even with the top of the nose gear bay:

The resultant fit wasn't too shabby:

Now for the crazy part, and this will explain why there is a cocktail skewer sticking out of the front of the radar tower. I set it up to fit in place AFTER the fuselage halves were cemented together. Yes, after. I wanted access to smooth out the intake trunks, and get the transition between the intake ring and intake trunk as smooth as possible.

So how does it work, you may ask? Well:

When I glued the fuselage halves together, I left the section of the upper fuselage forward of the cockpit unglued; this is very important, because you need a slot to get the top of the radar tower in:

From the side, it looks like this:

The skewer is used to help lever the radar tower into position. (Not shown is that, since I'm building a model of a British aircraft, I was levering it in with my pinky extended. )

How does it look from the front? Not too bad:

OK, the fit doesn't look good right now--but that's because it's still uncemented on the top fuselage; once that apposition is made, it looks much better. Once it's in place, all I have to do is cut off the cocktail skewer, glue on the radome, and I'm good to go!

The other advantage to moving everything forward is that I can at least paint the intake ring so that it looks like the right length; that will require some masking inside the ring, but that will be relatively easy with the ring off of the fuselage. Once it's installed, I can mask off the inside of the ring and go.

Andy

[avro683]

Andy, I hope this is not too late but the nose gearbay in the kit is too long. Have a look at Bill Clark's F6 build.

Tony

[AnonymousAA72]

Hi Andy, Interesting that the gap between the intake ring and the tower is 4.5mm, given that the fuselage (minus the intake ring) is, I estimated, 5mm!!

The whole kit seems to be out by roughly this amount. The wings are too far forward, by moving them back by this amount, witout adding the 5mm plug, solves the front end - but just puts the problem a bit further aft!! I know that you've ignored the additional 5mm in the fuselage, but you really should consider removing a couple of mm off of the intake ring - it will improve the look - I've added my radome cone and that looks okay with no alteration whatsoever - I therefore assume that without modifying t he intake ring the radome will be partially "lost"!

[AAbshier]

Hi Andy, Interesting that the gap between the intake ring and the tower is 4.5mm, given that the fuselage (minus the intake ring) is, I estimated, 5mm!!

The whole kit seems to be out by roughly this amount. The wings are too far forward, by moving them back by this amount, witout adding the 5mm plug, solves the front end - but just puts the problem a bit further aft!! I know that you've ignored the additional 5mm in the fuselage, but you really should consider removing a couple of mm off of the intake ring - it will improve the look - I've added my radome cone and that looks okay with no alteration whatsoever - I therefore assume that without modifying t he intake ring the radome will be partially "lost"!

I'll look at that more carefully later. With the radar tower moved forward, I think the radome positioning is going to be fine.

Ah, but I have a new conundrum: the length of the main landing gear struts.

The Airfix 1/48 scale Lightning struts, from the bottom to the top (but NOT including the mounting stub) measure 38mm. Trumpeter's main gear struts measure 62mm. Multiplying 38 x 1.5, we get 57mm, so it appears the Trumpy struts are 5mm too tall. So I took one of the plastic struts from the kit, cut out 5mm from it, drilled holes for reinforcement pins, put the strut back together, and checked the "sit" of the model. On my model the ventral fin practically drags the ground! After some experimenting I found that a reasonable "sit" can be achieved by cutting down the struts by 2.5mm. The strut is still too tall, but at least the sit is better.

Andy

[AnonymousAA72]

I'll look at that more carefully later. With the radar tower moved forward, I think the radome positioning is going to be fine.

Ah, but I have a new conundrum: the length of the main landing gear struts.

The Airfix 1/48 scale Lightning struts, from the bottom to the top (but NOT including the mounting stub) measure 38mm. Trumpeter's main gear struts measure 62mm. Multiplying 38 x 1.5, we get 57mm, so it appears the Trumpy struts are 5mm too tall. So I took one of the plastic struts from the kit, cut out 5mm from it, drilled holes for reinforcement pins, put the strut back together, and checked the "sit" of the model. On my model the ventral fin practically drags the ground! After some experimenting I found that a reasonable "sit" can be achieved by cutting down the struts by 2.5mm. The strut is still too tall, but at least the sit is better.

Andy

Interesting.... 5mm again! Do you have the wings on then? If the ventral fin is dragging the ground then there are two possible explanations (1) The belly tank and strake is too big OR (2) The wings are mounted too high up on the fuselage!! I suspected this may be the case on the 1/72nd scale kit - those I've seen built look wrong, but I haven't' got that far on my F6 yet!

[AAbshier]

Interesting.... 5mm again! Do you have the wings on then? If the ventral fin is dragging the ground then there are two possible explanations (1) The belly tank and strake is too big OR (2) The wings are mounted too high up on the fuselage!! I suspected this may be the case on the 1/72nd scale kit - those I've seen built look wrong, but I haven't' got that far on my F6 yet!

You have the Echelon plans, which you said were accurate--maybe you can check for me? I really don't want to move the wings on mine, but I'm curious.

Andy

[AnonymousAA72]

You have the Echelon plans, which you said were accurate--maybe you can check for me? I really don't want to move the wings on mine, but I'm curious.

Andy

The wings ARE 5mm too far forward - at the front but they are okay at the back. If you move them back by 5mm they will then be too far back at the rear but okay at the front this may be preferable - I dunno - It just throws everything else out one way or the other - thats why I added the 5mm plug.

As for the height - I'll check against my built Echelon kit as the plans don't cover the wings... That said the problem with the F6/F2a was as much to do with the bulbous bellytank - maybe they screwed up their F1a/F3 kit as well?

Edited November 2, 2009 by Bill Clark

[avro683]

The wings ARE 5mm too far forward - at the front but they are okay at the back. If you move them back by 5mm they will then be too far back at the rear but okay at the front this may be preferable - I dunno - It just throws everything else out one way or the other - thats why I added the 5mm plug.

As for the height - I'll check against my built Echelon kit as the plans don't cover the wings... That said the problem with the F6/F2a was as much to do with the bulbous bellytank - maybe they screwed up their F1a/F3 kit as well?

That's the "compromise" I have opted for, being too nervous to cut up a £100 kit! Altering the height of the main gear does scare me, I wonder if ther is any chance of anyone producing a correction set?

Tony

[AAbshier]

The wings ARE 5mm too far forward - at the front but they are okay at the back. If you move them back by 5mm they will then be too far back at the rear but okay at the front this may be preferable - I dunno - It just throws everything else out one way or the other - thats why I added the 5mm plug.

As for the height - I'll check against my built Echelon kit as the plans don't cover the wings... That said the problem with the F6/F2a was as much to do with the bulbous bellytank - maybe they screwed up their F1a/F3 kit as well?

Oh yes, they did.

I measured (again), using my trusty Airfix 1/48 F2 as a reference, and the Trumpeter F1A/F3 tank is too short, too bulbous, and too deep! So now I'm debating adding a plug and totally rebuilding the ventral tank. While I have assembled the fuselage halves, I could add a plug in one of the constant-section areas fairly easily--I've done it many times on airliner builds. Or I may say the hell with it and finish the damn thing. I want it off the bench by the time the Tamiya Spitfire arrives!

By the time I finish my build review of this kit, Stevens Int'l is never again going to send a Trumpeter kit for me to review. What I'll be writing will be pretty scathing.

Andy