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The first new build finished in three years, I started this model around the first of the year, after my Meteor build stalled due to decal issues. I bought the kit from a consignment table at Kings Hobby in Austin, Texas a couple years ago. When I began work on the cockpit, the starboard side console top was missing and that required a scratch-built replacement. That was a harbinger of many snafus and problems to come. ;) In assembling the driver’s seat, I managed to break one side of the headrest attachment. Much gnashing of teeth and a fog of expletives resulted from the effort to reattach that fiddly part. 😉 A couple odd engineering choices soon became apparent as well. The nose gear doors were attached to the intake splitter/landing gear well piece and due to the builder’s clumsiness, the port side door broke off. I reattached it and soon mishandled it enough to break it free again. I then drilled holes and insert tiny pieces of copper wire to serve as attachment points with corresponding holes in the gear bay sides. Spent bullets were epoxied in the recess above the gear bay for the necessary ballast. Because I knew this was going to be a NMF bird, I began assembly of the fuselage halves with some trepidation. And sure enough, continuing with a problem I’ve had with my last several builds, I had trouble getting a smooth seam. Mr. Surfacer and body shop filler were then employed in numerous attempts to get it passable. But not perfect. Oh well, says I, as the wings took their position with no drama at all. But yes, Murphy was still to have his say…🙂 I had an unopened bottle of SnJ aluminum paint, my favorite “go to” choice for NMF builds. It’s very tough, allowing masking with almost any tape and can be polished with a cloth as well as the SnJ aluminum polishing powder for a nice variety of sheens. Well, the bottle was bought probably at least ten years ago and sure enough, when opened, was found to be unusable. 😪 Arrrgh… Fruitless searches for more ensued and another choice had to be made. My second choice was Floquil Bright Silver. Guess what? My remaining stash of that had dried up. I then experimented with painting white plastic spoons and found that Humbrol Metal Cote Polished aluminum would stand up to asking when needed and also allowed for some polishing variety. And therefore, “onward through the fog!” I went. Curiously, the inner main gear doors were attached to the inside wall of the gear bay assembly, and in handling the model, the clumsy builder broke the port door off ricky-tick. Why they were designed like that is known only to the kit’s engineers I guess. The painting process went fairly well. I had fun experimenting with combinations of colors for different areas on the plane. Color photos from the Korean War showed a distinctively different sheen beneath the cockpit area as well as on the lower nose. I had a small can of red paint that must be close to 50 years old that I had used once before, many years ago on my Me-262 and I found that that “Mohawk Red” was a perfect match to the red on the extensive decals and would be used for the nose ring. But first, the green anti-glare panel on the fuselage top had to be masked and painted, as I didn’t trust the 2002-dated decal provided for that. Oh yes, the canopy. The distinctive white “glazing” seen on later model F-84s does not represent different panels. It was actually reinforcing strips of fiberglass that were glued to the Plexiglas blown canopy, inside and out. I had a set of EZ Masks for the canopy and all went well until I unmasked it. Paint pulled up from almost every frame. Eventually, it came to me that it should be done similarly to the real thing. I painted clear decal film with camo gray and then cut that into small strips of two different sizes and applied those over the polished canopy. It was an incredibly fiddly and nerve-wracking process for me that stretched over several days. Unlike the actual canopy, my pieces were only applied on the outside (hey, I’m only human folks…). I think the end result looks okay. Sure enough, the old decals were a headache to deal with. First, I coated the sheet with Microscale decal Film. In order to use them, I had to dip them in very hot water (just below a simmer) kept in a pan on an electric hot-plate on the work table. Each one of the many dozens of decals required a lengthy soak in the pan and then a long wait until they would dislodge from the paper. Another several days process; remarkably, only a couple of them broke part and even they could be carefully used. But even so, I found that they didn’t adhere well to the aluminum paint and several needed reattaching more than once. They were quite thick and required Solvaset to soften. Each main landing gear was composed of myriad parts and I compounded the issue by adding more scratch-built pieces. Completed, they were hard to handle. Between dropping so many tiny pieces of wire and tubing, breaking the HUD and making another, building up the bombs and pylon sets and yes, breaking off both of the inner main gear doors, loosing and then finding both of the very small clear lens for the wing lights (just inboard of the tip tanks), I came to hate this build! Even with all my efforts to insure the flats of the tires were actually flat on the ground and true and plumb, that too fell short of perfect. I finished it on June 5 and please believe me that I was so damned relieved to set her on her tires and step away. And though this description has gone on to ridiculous lengths, I could’ve added even more details to this never-ending tale of woe of the Thunderjet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_F-84_Thunderjet “Little Butch” Republic -84-E-25-RE, 51-0478 9th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 49th Bomber Wing Korea, 1952 Thanks for bearing with me thus far. And thanks for stopping by to have a look! Comments welcomed. More images of the F-84E if interested: https://imgur.com/a/igdPpxf