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TheRealMrEd

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About TheRealMrEd

  • Birthday 06/04/1944

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    Male
  • Location
    Marietta, Georgia USA
  • Interests
    1/72 US military aircraft and small scale r/c aircraft.

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  1. And yet again... Some Bondo primer/filler has been added to the plastic strip, and has been sanded a bit. The arrow points to the Italaeri trim tab, which will have to be removed, eventually.: Above right, as the Cockpit was already installed, I had no other resort than to sand both the front cockpit coaming and the cockpit itself down to a more level position. Since I had used G-S watch cement for the initial assembly, all I had to do was apply some 91% alcohol to dissolve the glue joint. If I were to do it again, I would saw a small horizontal wedge out of the front cockpit coaming, instead, before assembling the coaming to the Heller fuselage.. Next, a bunch more filler and sanding. Arrows point to the Italaeri trim tabs that also will have to be removed, later on: Above right, the tail-feathers have been added, filled, and sanded to shape. At this stage, the small amount of re-scribing that I will do has been done. Next, after removing the tape from the cockpit (only done to protect the canopy from sanding scratches), I re-masked the canopy with Bare Metal foil, sprayed on a coat of grey primer, and sanded and filled some more: Starting to take shape now, a slender filly of an F-84F, in contrast to the later, final "Hog" shape... Well, back later, after several reps of fill, sand, paint, repeat, etc. ... Ed
  2. Hello again: This time, the fuse halves have been joined, and the wings added, filled and partially sanded. The cockpit has been painted and installed, but there's still lots or work to do on the Hawk to Heller fuselage cockpit area insert: After gluing on the Hawk canopy, and fairing it in a bit, I checked it against another picture of the YF-96A, and promptly found two issues: The first, labeled "B" on the actual aircraft photo, was that the actual moulding of the Hawk kit canopy front windscreen area was way to high, giving the canopy to high a "sit" in the front. Have to figure out what to do about that!. After comparing the Italaeri vertical stabilizer, by blowing up the photo to the needed size, I found that the Italaeri fin was the correct height, but shaped slightly different at the top, but more importantly, the vertical stab wasn't broad enough in chord at the lower front edge ("A" in the photo). To fix this, I added a bit of plastic card to the front edge, and laying it atop the re-sized photo, sanded it down to the needed profile: Some filler and sanding will be needed here as well...sigh. I got some "firgurating" to do... More later, Ed
  3. Hello again Next, the cockpit area is removed from the Hawk kit: Above right, the glued-together halves of the Hawk kit cockpit are test fit. There will be some sanding to do. Also, the mount hole for the wing tabs of the Heller kit have been enlarged, allowing for proper fit of the Italaeri wings later on. This will allow them to be fitted at the proper height on the fuselage and the proper fore-and-aft location. Next, the Italaeri wings have been glued to the Heller fuselage halves, first with Weld-On #3 liquid glue, and after that was thoroughly dry, backed up with some CA glue and then filled and sanded. Above, "A" points out the Heller intake divider which is installed at this point. Care must be taken to assure that it is dead centered on the fuselage center-line. The fit is not dead-on, and it took me a couple of tries. "B" shows where some lead weight was added, and it took a little carving and sanding here so that the resin cockpit would fit properly. And last, "C" indicates where thick CA was slathered on inside the fuselage halves to help hold the wings on better. The Italaeri wing had to have their mounting stubs shortened also, to clear the resin cockpit tub. And that's it for this round! BTW if any moderator, or someone with more knowledge than I could add the "9" to the thread title (as in YF-96A), I would be grateful... Ed
  4. Hello again. As this is one gaping hole in my collection, I thought I'd take my turn at this ground-breaker. The first of these I ever saw built, was by Bill Dye, over on Cybermodeler, years ago: Here. Also, our own JohnR did one here on Britmodeler in 2011: Here. I don't know that mine will turn out as nice as theirs, but here goes: I will start with the makin's as they say, the Hawk F-84F (which actually depicts the F-96A, more or less accurately), the ubiquitous Heller F-84 kit, which is my first choice for F-84 mods, and an old, previously started Italaeri F-84F kit, stared years ago, then binned when the PJ Productions second release came out: The real thing looked like so: I had an old resin F-84 cockpit in the spares box, so I decided to use that. Also, the afore-mentioned PJ Productions 2nd release F-84F kit mentioned above had the early style ejection seat, so I'll use that also. I began by first dry-fitting the Heller fuselage, and determining how much of the kits cockpit coaming, etc. had to be cut away for the resin cockpit to fit: Above right, after ungluing the old Italaeri wings, I moved them around on the Heller kit fuselage to determine their correct position, using various pics and drawings. They were NOT installed at this time, as a LOT of figuring out was needed to attach the wings, allow room for the resin cockpit, etc. Next the vertical stabilizer is removed from the Italaeri kit, using first a scriber, then a sharp #11 X-Acto blade: Above right, the Hawk kit is marked to show the section of the fuselage/canopy area that would need to be removed. Good old eyeball guessing was used here, as there are no convenient panel lines. Then, the Heller kit halves are sawn where needed to accommodate the Hawk parts: Above right, the vertical stab parts are removed from the Heller kit fuse halves. Well, that's a fair start. More next time. Ed
  5. Sorry I'm a bit late to the party! A few of the old builds from the past... All these have build threads/rfi here on Britmodeller, so I won't bore you with any details here... Ed
  6. Been busy lately, with real life once again interrupting my fantasy modeling world... but, I'll try to cobble something up for this build, to go along with my other F-84 family efforts... Ed
  7. Gotta love a masochist! Always glad to see more slightly demented modelers around... Good job so far! Ed
  8. Here now -- better late than never, I suppose. Always good to see some resin kit-munching! Ed
  9. I don't know whether they got it wrong, or whether I got it wrong because of lack of positive location pins/holes/slots, etc.on the model itself. I was just glad to get something done. The perfect 1/72 XB-51 model has yet to be built. I look forward to the next modeler up! Ed
  10. Yeah, David, I figured that since I was only gonna ever build one of these, I might as well go all out! Ed
  11. Yep, John, I feel your pain! Have to rest uo bwfore tackling another from MM... Ed
  12. Finally completed this brand new kit. While not without a myriad of challenges, it is hands-down the best 1/72 kit of this aircraft I've seen, to date. For those interested in the details, the build thread is HERE. The pics: Thanks for looking! Ed
  13. Well, back again after many travails, travel, and other sundry obstacles! I have been plugging away on this beast, and running into all kinds of problems -- the wings fell off twice, the front engines twice, landing gear went on crooked and had to be re-installed a few times, etc. At this point, let me state that almost every problem with this kit is due to lack of locating pins and/or insufficient material with which to glue one thing. to another. Mostly the wings, engine pods and the landing gear. To anyone building this kit, I would recommend dry fitting EVERYTHING and thinking ahead as to where to add re-enforced attachment point. For the wings, I would simply tape the fuselage halves together, as well as the wings, and then first focus on how to re-enforce this joint with some sort of internal structure, before moving forward (do NOT attach the wing flap hinges until painting time!) with the build. Then assemble the main landing gear and figure out from the directions and whatever help my photos may bring, to drill little holes and add wire inserts that can be used during final assembly, to keep things lined up. The engine nacelle mounting "pylons" might be better glued to the fuselage, and the have the engines attached later also. Of course, gluing the wings on (with 5 degrees anhedral) to the fuselage before painting would help immensely, but would then make the painting job much harder. Dealer's choice... Anyway, I worked through it all, a little at a time, but due to frustration, a lot of photos did not get taken. Sorry about that. I decided to paint and decal the parts before assembly. The plane I was modeling is this one, later in it's career at Edwards AFB: The kit decals did not have all that I needed, and they also present some problems for the builder, particularly in the area of the wing/tail walk outlines. If you look at the decal sheet shown below, you will note that the wing/tail walk decals have other tiny decals situated within their boundaries. Since all the decals are very thin and have only a small margin of clear film surrounding them, everything must be cut out. In effect, this leaves you with four very deep, more-or-less "U" shaped decals, with no carrier film in between the arms. I will guarantee you will not install these as is without destroying some. I STRONGLY recommend cutting each walkway decal into three pieces, and install each straight piece at a time. If you can slide these straight stripes off the backing and onto the model carefully, you will be a much happier camper. This whole aggravation could have been avoided, had each walkway decal been printed onto the sheet with carrier film holding all the arms together as one piece, and the smaller decals placed elsewhere on a larger sheet. The decal film is thin enough that it wouldn't show, and I suppose that's why others do it that way. Also, I needed some period appropriate Flight Test Center decals: Feel free to use these images as you need. I think these will print at 1/72 scale, as IIRC, they are 320 dpi. I had to massage these in Photoshop, as I couldn't find the correct one on-line. The other needed decals were found in the spares box, the buzz numbers "XB-685", and the "U.S. AIR FORCE": Painting done, decals in place and wings/engines attached (which time, I don't remember): Above right, the main landing gear going on (the first time). Next the main gear doors and wing tip landing gear go on: Above right, two 2000 lb bombs go on the bomb bay, shown rotated open, along with some JATO units from the spares box. And finally, all the masking removed and standing on her legs, she's finally done: A labor of love and hate, joy and despair. I'll add a few pics soon, over on RFI. Thanks for looking, Ed
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