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'Afternoon all, Following my very poor coverage of Mr Toad - who is poised on the shelf awaiting a varnish coat and then RFI - I am going to attempt to keep up with posting on the next Kartveli machine. This time I am giving myself a little more construction work, given that I am attempting to marry a Hasegawa F-105B nose to a Trumper F-105D. I've already noticed that the Trumper is a little shallow in the nose area (only slightly) and so matching it to a slightly (very) overblown nose on the Hasegawa. Other than this the construction will be pretty much like my last two Thuds, with the removal of the strengthening plates, fin tip antennas, ventral fin, dorsal wiring duct, etc. The bit I am fearing the most is re-scribing her after the new nose is on..... assuming I get that far!! I wont be posting anything that repeats previous Thud builds as I think that is a bit tiresome. I will concentrate my postings on the nasal challenge. Right now I am getting the basics together, with the cockpit installed and a few of the simple add-ons. Helping me along will be some PE and resin. I'd appreciate your inputs as and when it seems appropriate to keep me on the straight and narrow The machine I intend to depict is 54-0107, an F-105B used by Republic as part of the "Phase 5" testing. She is illustrated here and there on the net. Hopefully I will get to this: Here she is during her career: Martin

Hi everyone! Finally I have got D-10 ready for RFI :). It has been a long slog, aggravated but various factors, including a lack of available modelling time across the past months. Overall it has been very enjoyable, but challenging. As many of you will now know from my WIP, she is F-105D-5-RE 58-1155 (c/n D-10) operated as a factory machine by Republic at Farmingdale between mid-1960 and mid-1961 for fatigue and structural integrity testing . Very few images of her exist, particularly in colour. I found two of the latter with the help of this forum and a couple of stateside contacts. B&W images are essentially all shown in Lou Drendel’s book “Thud”. I have therefore used a little “modeller’s licence” to create the build as almost all images show differences. I have combined these to produce the model. Here is an example of her in her testing days: Having then spent time at Eglin AFB on further evaluation programmes she still exists, following a service career with the District of Columbia Air National Guard at Andrews AFB until 1981, and is displayed fictitiously as “59-1771” in the USAF Armament Museum at Eglin AFB, Florida. She looks like this now: My WIP is here: I will take this moment to express thanks to, and heap praise on, Giorgio N on this forum for his help and skilled production of the vinyl masks with his cutter that enabled the painting of the fuselage flashes and the background NMF outlines of the lettering and numbers and the Star-and-bars. The images for these were then scanned and used to produce the black outline decals. She was NMF, rather than the later overall zinc finish, plus the painted flashes so I’ve opted for a light panel weathering with Flory and some Tamiya powders. This also fills and accentuates some of the deeper features, such as the NACA nose inlet. So what did I use? Trumpeter F-105D Thunderchief 1/72 Aires cockpit set Aires wheel set Decals were old Microscale Thud sets for stencilling, lifting points,warning marks, etc, Xtradecal black striping, Xtradecal Star-and-Bar and Ebay-purchased clear decal sheet (for numbering, lettering, outlining, etc) Paints were Humbrol 27002 Polished Aluminium metalcote, 27001 Flat Aluminium metalcote, 27003 Steel metalcote, 33 Matt Black, 99 Matt Lemon Yellow, 147 Matt Light Aircraft Grey, 34 Matt White, 226 Matt Interior Green, 66 Matt Olive Drab, XX Grey Wash, Glosscote, Satincote, Mattcote, Testors Model Master FS28915 Fluorescent Orange-Red, Hasegawa Weapons Set I for the LAU-3 pods Plastruct rod and a Master MIG-21UM for the pitot, plus some other plastic from a Trumpeter F-100 ladder. Flory Dirt and Tamiya Weathering Powders for weathering Tamiya thin cement, Squadron fillers and a lot of Tamiya tape! I hope you like her! Martin PS: in reality the Orange-Red is more orange and close to the coloured images of her. It just blew the sensor of my camera