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Hi gents! While waiting for the primer to try on the endless sanding repetitions on my YF-105A Thunderchief conversion, I a going to do something I rarely do, start a second project at the same time. Well actually, I do it all the time, but I just never publish it at the same time! Nevertheless, I'll begin first with the backstory. Several years ago, I ran across an interesting conversion by a modeler named Bill Dye. I never met Bill, but I he apparently loved to kitbash and convert, like I do. What I first found was his YF-96A conversion YF-96A Build I decided I'd have to build one of those, one day, but as is my norm, other things intervened. Sometime later, I ran across this pic: : The bottom aircraft is actually the second YF-84F, modified with a solid nose and wing intakes. I decided I'd like to build on of those, because I had never even seen a picture of one before. While researching THIS aircraft, I ran across another build started by Bill Dye of the same aircraft. Sadly, he never posted finished photos of the build, and I do not know where he is, or how he is doing. In any event, he (unknowingly) encouraged me to do this project. Here is a link to his version: Bill Dye's YF-84F While my research pointed me in a slightly different manner of conversion than Bill's, I will still use his technique of chopping out the needed cockpit cutout as a whole panel, and transferring it from the Heller F-84G kit to the Testors/Italieri RF-84F kit. Which is exactly how I'll begin, sawing two cuts 58mm apart across the Heller fuselage, and then laying out tape the long way to mark those cuts. The front saw cuts were 12mm wide, centered on the fuse join line, and the rear saw cut was 14mm wide, also centered on the fuse join. Almost all my panel line cuts are made the same way. First a tape line is laid out if needed. Then, a sharp #11 X-Acto blade is run along the guide, followed by a couple of passes with my Trumpeter scriber, and then finally, the saw: This usually leaves me a nice, clean cut-out, reducing sanding later. Next, the same procedure is repeated on the T/I RF-84F fuse, using the same measurements: Of special satisfaction to me is the fact that this is the same RF-84F kit that I had previously swiped the turtledeck from to build the YF-105A, the other work still in progress, which is why the little triangle of plastic is missing from above. Saves a kit! There are a couple of reasons why I decided to modify the RF-84F vs the Heller kit as Bill did, and I'll explain these later. Also at this time, I glued all the camera windows in place of the RF-84F for added strength. (Turns out only the single window further back really mattered!). Then, I sawed off the camera nose, just a hair ahead of the nose gear well: Next all the protrusions on the RF-84F kit had to be removed from both fuselage halves, in the area between the lines marked. This included the front wing supports only: For the cockpit I'll use a resin copy of, IIRC the CMK Academy F-84G cockpit set. I made several resin copies of the tub years ago, against future need. They are not all exactly the same as the "G" model, but they provide a good jumping off point, faster than scratch-building a cockpit. I also used a cut down and modified version of the Monogram F-105D as the instrument panel, also as a starting point: When the bare cockpit tun and IP are painted, they are glued into the cutout cockpit section from the Heller F-84G kit, after a little knife work to fit the rear tray of the cockpit into the fuse section. The rear was reinforced underneath with a bit of scrap plastic card, and everything was glued together with clear Loctite Go2 glue, which is sort of a thick, flexible CA glue with no bad fumes. While no good for areas requiring sanding, it's the bee's knees for nose weights and stuff like this, as it sticks to most everything and is water resistant (future sanding). Well, that's it for this time. Hopefully, I'll be back soon with either this or the YF-105A or something... Ed