Robin-42

More paint. The AK green looked way too brown when applied, so I sprayed over it with some very thin RAF green. The pattern varied slightly on every aircraft as far as I can tell, and so does the overspray between the colours. It varies from very tight to almost looking like a mask was used-sometimes on the same airframe! I have two photo’s of my subject, so I will just match what I see as best I can. The real aircraft does vary a little bit from the instructions on the parts I can see, so I wasn’t too pedantic about the pattern. My efforts to create variation in the paint just looks like a crappy paint job at this point.

I suspect the proprietor is of the Peter Jackson mould, in that he can do what he pleases and the economics don’t really enter into it. He really, really likes the engineering aspect of WWII aircraft. I have no proof of that, of course. Finally, aside from the engines, his F4 kits have no invisible internal detail!

Logic seems to have won out for procurement for once. They could throw Bombardier an order for someGlobal Expresses to replace the Challengers. Our Prime Ministers wandering the planet in big Airbuses that have better things to do is just silly. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/11/30/canada-to-buy-boeing-made-poseidons-in-59-billion-deal/

Corrected.

Is the distressed skin you or Trumpeter? It looks perfect.

I like physical books too, but I am in danger of being one of those library’s that enters other dimensions. I totally get the thrill of turning off a screen that you have been chained to.

Totally agree, in fact if you find PDF’s report them to Bert Kenzie. He has really good lawyers! It takes a lot of work to properly research and write these references that we are so fond of, the authors deserve our respect by paying for them.

All I get are the digital versions now. They usually have more photo’s, and you can zoom in on them. I keep my iPad at the desk on a holder. The price is cheap enough that I even buy the one about types I am not particularly interested in! https://www.detailandscale.com/detail-scale-publications

Never give up, I like your attitude. The Detail and Scale book has excellent info including what improvements can to be made to the Emhar Fury.

There are more, just google Lockheed F80 walk around with the usual caveats about museum aircraft. Suspect paint jobs, missing or wrong bits. Period photo’s are always best, if you can find them. Finally, larger scale kits can provide info, assuming they are accurate! http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/gustavo_necco/f-80c_fau/ http://aircraftwalkaround.hobbyvista.com/f-80c/f-80c.htm

My friend Hubert built it right out of the box. There are errors in the kit pretty much everywhere, but it does look like a Lightning and is impressive.

Just to be clear, I like the kit, the faults are minor. The Special Hobby kit appears to be far better assuming it has no dimensional faults, but Swords is not unbuildable. Swords Has very good surface detail, a nice resin early ejection seat The outline is good if a few mm short-I bet you could park it beside the SH effort and not notice! The canopy is very clear with a canopy mask included. The biggest issue is the wrong wheel hubs-but you won’t see them on the shelf. The nose ring should have been a separate moulding and the splitter is a bit fat due to moulding limitations-an intake cover will hide all that. The canopy doesn’t fit all that well. Finally the pylons have nothing to locate them-measure and mark the locations before attaching the wings unlike me! Not really a con, but as moulded it is an early F84F. There were three ejection seats, only the first one is provided. The intake splitter has the early pitot tube location, the wing one is included, so check your references. Finally, there were minor variations in the nose gear mud guard. In short, if you have one, build it! It will interesting to see if any of these turn up in the group build.

Basalt Grey sprayed on. I intentionally sprayed it thin and uneven, trying to get some variation. I used AK paint for the first time as they were the only ones I could find that claimed a match for the post war Luftwaffe colours. I think it should be a bit more blue as the colour photo’s in my book and most of the period online photo’s look more blue. It is a good match for the online colour chips, which don’t look blue. I will see how it looks when I spray the green. Anybody with better knowledge, feel free to chime in. Tanks are gloss black to be sprayed Alclad aluminum. i really like Swords panel lines, they make you look for them, just like the real aircraft.

Possibly some polishing with some 12000 grit will take the curl off the red markings. I am not familiar with this manufacturer. It might be one of those kits that needs aftermarket decals. I am looking forward to the final result.

Sword kindly provided some very good kabuki tape masks for the canopy. Too bad I forgot. You can see the thinned instrument panel and some of the extra bits I added. In any case my pitiful masking effort was replaced with Swords. I then sprayed some black primer. Looks mean doesn’t she! The canopy blending effort seems to have paid off. The centre section is just tacked in place with some UV glue for painting. Pylons look right, or wrong depending on how I view them.

I have a couple of Yefim Gordon’s books on Russian aircraft. The colours of details varies widely depending on wether the aircraft were new, from what factory, or where they were overhauled and when. The cockpit colour on Mig 23’s varied from deep green to light green to grey, sometimes in the same cockpit! Just to give one example. This is one of the stellar examples of what can be achieved in 1/72. Inspirational.

I really need to do something silly, like work on a kit that needs virtually nothing fettled, corrected or fabricated. Funny there isn’t more of these built.

To be fair, it is limited run. They do produce subjects that others don’t. Sawing the nose off and putting it back wasn’t that much of a chore. The Tamiya F84 I built had a one piece ring with ugly locating lugs. I put an intake plug on it. I am enjoying the build and all manufacturers have their quirks. An ideal design for nose intakes would be a one piece nose that went back as far as possible with the splitter sliding in from the back as I wound up doing, but that is an order of magnitude harder for manufacturing tolerances to get it to fit the rear fuselage. Then we would complain about the fit there! For me I will happily saw the nose off for nose intakes moving forward.

Sword cunningly gives you no guidance as to where the pylons go. Republic cunningly gives you no convenient panel lines either. All you know is the front has to clear the slats and the rear the flaps. Photo’s with the pylon removed do show the mounting lug locations, which are all under the pylon fairing and not represented on the kit….. I located one with the help of a photo I found on the net using the “that looks about right method”. Then measured the other side to match. This led to the next problem, the wing undersurface is curved, the top of the pylon is curved to match. But even a small change in location makes a big difference in the sit of the pylon. The fuel tanks are a simple butt fit to the pylon, so I drilled the tank and pylon for some brass rod to allow me to fit them now temporarily. As you can see the starboard tank angles down way too much. Using the famous “Eyeball Mk1” I determined the port one to be correct. Fettling to follow. I also spent a lot of time fairing in the canopies as the fit wasn’t all that great. Primer soon, I hope. Almost forgot, I thinned the instrument panel and added the detail that I could see in the reference photo’s I had in front of the panel. I forgot to take a photo.

And possible impairment due to hypoxia, depending on the nature of the pressurization problem. As usual, the final report will hopefully reveal all.

So far, I have seen in service photo’s with unpainted aluminium, yellow, white, and grey. A profile with baby blue and the model with orange. As external tanks would wander from aircraft to aircraft, and unit to unit, you can probably get away with painting them any way you want and defy anyone to prove you wrong!

Yes, it has pretty good photo’s of Luftwaffe operations and plenty of colour photo’s. This is the one. https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=airdoc+f84f&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_odkw=airdic+f84f&_osacat=0

Profile shows DD-301 of 3./JaboG 3, Memmingen 1965. Emblem on nose is the same as the photo. Photo also appears to show the early ejection seat for what it’s worth. Profile also has a Staffel fin flash in addition to the West German fin flash. Book has a black and white photo of DD-301.

I have the Airdoc book on the F84F in Luftwaffe service. No dayglo there, one profile has a yellow tank with no photo to back it up. Might find one on the net, or maybe someone has another reference.

I was watching a home renovation show and the host asked the plasterer how level he could get a ceiling. The response was “ Don’t talk to me, talk to your framer.” Truer words were never spoken. Hand painting frames can be less frustrating than masking. Mind you, I will mask and spray an Avenger every time! There are masking sets available for the Zero canopy. You can use 5min epoxy or even white glue to attach a canopy if you don’t have a purpose designed glue, neither will attack the plastic.