aires cockpit and wheel wells in 1/48th

[jenshb]

Was tempted to do some pre-emptive modelling for this group build by trying to see if the Aires resin would fit inside the Hasegawa 1:48 Tomcat - in itself a challenging kit. I won't enter this in the groupbuild as it has been started, but I have several other Tomcat kits to work with. Thought it might be of interest to others who plan to fit Aires cockpits and wheel wells to their kits.

From what has been said about the Hasegawa 1:48 F-14s and Aires in isolation, they are both challenges in their own right. Combine them, and it sounds like an impossible task... Maybe not. Here's how I've tweaked the Hasegawa kit and the Aires cockpit and wheelwells to fit.

First I decided to tackle the cockpit. To do this, I needed to see how the various cockpit parts go together. In any case, the resin tub must have the excess resin removed down to the level of the cast in edge. Dremel, saw or wet and dry - it's up to you. You may require more tweaking of this depending on how thin you dare make the nose wheel well, but the cockpit tub is thick.

Then I started looking at the instrument panels - first impressions was that there was fairly positive locations once the casting stubs were removed...

...and I was not disappointed. The instrument panels and their covers were a very positive fit that looked realistic.

The resin cockpit sidewalls fit OK in their recesses, but the right hand sidewall needed a little cut off it's length to fit the tub - half a mm or so.

The sill of the cockpit aligns to the top of the rear bulkhead, and this is by design recessed from the surface behind the seat. When the rear deck is aligned to the top of the fuselage, the sill and hooks will be slightly recessed - as per photos in the DACO book for example.

Now that I had the basic tub taped together and this all looked like it would fit, I had to make this fit the kit fuselage. To do this, I had to remove the moulded sills, a pair of tabs on the side and the rib running parallel to the sill on both sides. The raised backing for the boarding steps were also ground down. Compare the modified (upper) with the standard kit (below).

The with of the sill itself as well as the area either side of the pilot's IP must be slimmed a bit. Modified on top, standard kit below.

I also removed some resin from the hidden areas of the resin parts before I felt confident in being able to fit these parts to the kit. Also make sure you test fit the windshield to make sure you don't remove too much or even worse - too little so that the windshield is too narrow.

The cockpit was pretty much the correct length as the IP location looked sensible, and the "kink" in the rear decking lined up with the fuselage sides (red line). I will need to investigate further how to end the recessed sill for the hooks (yellow arrow). Note the step along the sides (red arrow)

The area either side of the rear decking was not modified, and only manageable gaps remained. For some reason, there is a 1 mm gap behind the rear decking. Also, I removed the support for the rear canopy thinking it would get in the way - probably shouldn't have done that, so lack of forethought on my part.

Overall, this wasn't too painful - it just required a slow, methodical approach and careful and repeated dryfitting.

The nose gear well affects the sit of the cockpit, and from what I can see (so far!), there's no need to remove material from the kit fuselage to ensure it's at the right location. It even matches perfectly in length!

To fit against the cockpit tub, I sanded the top thin, and I'm at the point of breaking through on the forward part. This can be avoided by sanding the cockpit tub more (there is still no sign of daylight through the floor of this tub), but it is easier sanding a small piece of resin than a large one.

And it fits...

For the main wheel wells, I first removed the roof of the gear leg from the kit part while leaving the raised strip against the wing glove.

Then I thinned the area shown in red. The surface for the wheel well walls were left as is. On the opposite side, I removed too much material - again a question of cutting first and measuring after... The curve between the resin gear leg roof and the kit left a gap, so to secure a good join later, I glued a strip of Evergreen plastic with the resin well in place.

The main wheelwells were not as good a fit in length as the nose gear well - they came up a little short. I decided to align the resin wells along the wall marked by a red line, and this produced a decent fit in front and a small gap to the rear. This would be hidden by the main gear legs and the doors, so it was easier to hide any mistakes here. Some shims of 0.25 mm plasticard and strip ensured a good fit here.

Also shown in the pic above is the potential clash between the air intake trunking and the wheel well. As kitted, the rear trunking is too tall up front, and it will foul even the standard kit parts if you're not careful. Due to the ramps, this part is taller than it needs to be, so I reduced the height at the rectangular crossection by 2-3 mms, and this produces a decent clearance between the resin and the intake, though some thinning of the resin is still necessary - it just means less thinning and grinding.

To improve the fit along the bottom, I added some thin plasticard towards the front, and sanded the lower edge to fit against the curve of the intake parts. Another heads up if you want the wings swept back: The resin gear well is rather deep, and will most likely fould the wings, so more grinding will be necessary here.

The roof of the wheel well will need to be thinned significantly, as does the inside surface of the top fuselage. I'm planning to fill this area with slow-setting epoxy (like blue Araldite) to give strength to this weak area. At current, there is actually a gap there, so I could probably have thinned these areas less.

As you can see, the top and bottom does go together rather painlessly. My experiencewith this Aires set is that you need to thin areas as much as you dare - and then some more. If you go through in localised areas, secure the area with 5 thou plasticard or Tamiya masking tape if you still have some thin material left. Strengthen with epoxy when assembling the parts together.

Jens

Edited January 6, 2012 by kev1n

[Kev1n]

these were the replies to Jens original post but they got a bit mixed up in moving the post to a thread of it's own.....

The last one is from me but otherwise if you want to own up to posting a reply, feel free.

The Captain

Mate,

Take a bow...

That is without a doubt the most complete 'How To' I've ever seen on the Aires/F-14 package. Outstanding, as I'm thinking of the full Aires package for a future Tomcat. Much appreciated, thanks for taking the time to post that up.

Parabat

Jens!

That was just perfect! Tusen Takk!!

Now I know what to do!!!

Glad you enjoyed it gents - hopefully it will make it a bit easier to fit the Aires bits, and perhaps encourage others to try.

Jens

Great post Jens, it will help a lot of people !

wow.......

...and I'm thinking - or was - of scratchbuilding most of that stuff in 1/72nd.....?

I must be insane....

Edited January 6, 2012 by kev1n