Grumman F11F-1 Tiger

[Ghostbase]

My next project, a 1/48th Lindberg F11F-1 'short nose' Tiger:

I don't know how old this kit is but suspect it goes back a long way to the mid to late 50's, was re-released in 2006 in two boxes; a Blue Angels Tiger and a VA-156 'Iron Tigers' Tiger, both depicting the very early short-nose versions. The Blue Angels definitely did operate the short-nose Tiger, not sure about VA-156 (which later became VF-111 'Sundowners').

I like these old kits, got it on eBay from the always excellent Plastic Past-Times for a total of £4.25 so I can afford to experiment a bit with it. So, what I want to do is this:

1) Sand off all the raised rivets and detail and replace these with engraved panel lines. I have been looking for an engraving tool for a while but they seem to be unobtainable, my request usually met with blank looks. Then Mrs B said she had an old dental care kit and if I wanted to use a tooth-scraper tool I was welcome. I have not tried to engrave panel lines up to now so this is a good opportunity to have a try.

2) To the best of my knowledge the Grumman F11F Tiger was never painted in the traditional US Navy Dark Sea Blue colour scheme, this could be an interesting 'What If?' project.

The kit itself is very simple, moulded in white plastic, the cockpit consists of six pieces while the majority of the detail is around the jet turbine of which very little can be seen once the model is constructed. The decals in the upper L/H were very kindly sent to me by our own Pigsty (Thank You!!), they are from an F9F-8 Cougar and will enable me to depict a 'What If' dark sea blue F9F-9 Tiger with VF-13 or VF-61.

The F11F Tiger colour diagrams to the left are printed off from the excellent Stahlhart Papercraft website here: Stahhart Website

These are really helpful as they will act as a template for rescribing the panel lines on the Tiger.

A final view of what I am working with:

So that is my project, going to learn a lot hopefully.

Have also started a HobbyBoss A-7A Corsair II perhaps I should do that in the traditional US Navy Dark Sea Blue colour scheme?

Michael

[F-32]

Very cool looking jet

[Work In Progress]

This looks a bit like my Beaufighter project, a way of extracting a wholly disproportionate amount of fun from a dirt-cheap kit. I shall watch with interest.

[Ghostbase]

Made a start this afternoon. As engraving or scribing panel lines is new to me I decided to start by sanding down the wings to get rid of all the rivets, also will fill in all those holes. The kit plastic is quite soft:

Then cement the wings together and give them a light spray with Halfords grey primer to see what further work is required:

This is one of the fuselage halves with the constructed jet turbine placed inside to check for fit and to see what kind of detail is there (A. not a lot!):

There is an access panel which can be opened to display the front part of the jet turbine however there is no detail at all inside the fuselage so it would probably look a bit naff. There is no detail inside the air intakes, perhaps a shaped piece of plastic card would help here? The cockpit consists of a large chunky seat in two pieces and a platform for it to sit on. Also think this is going to be a tail-sitter unless I add some weight to the front.

Now I need to find some more detailed plans which show the Tiger's panel lines. I also need to find out whether the early short-nosed Tigers had a splitter plate in front of the air intake, am sure I read somewhere that the prototype did not have them.

Michael

[Giorgio N]

I also need to find out whether the early short-nosed Tigers had a splitter plate in front of the air intake, am sure I read somewhere that the prototype did not have them.

Michael

Yes, the short-nose aircrafts used by the Blue Angels had the splitter plate.

Speaking of these aircrafts, the decals in the box represent one of the team's aircrafts in 1957, when the Tiger was used mainly to train the team for the following year. In 1958 the Tigers used a short lived scheme that was quite different from the usual scheme used before and after. The scheme can be seen in the last picture of this page:

http://www.blueangels-usn.org/blues_pilots1958.html

[Parabat]

Nice project, I never realised there even was a kit of the Tiger!

For rescribing I can recommend the Radu Brinzan scriber, works really well I've found with the rescribing I've done so far. RB has a spot in the manufacturer's area on BM. Might be worth getting?

Looking forward to this build as it evolves!

[MikeC]

I have vague memories of building this many many years ago, only it came in a Revell box iirc with no scale marked. It certainly had Blue Angels markings and the short nose.

Will watch with interest.

Edited March 27, 2012 by MikeC

[Tailspin Turtle]

Actually, this kit represents the prototype, the F9F-9, which had an even shorter nose than the first lot of production airplanes. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/11/f11f-tiger.html

[Ghostbase]

Actually, this kit represents the prototype, the F9F-9, which had an even shorter nose than the first lot of production airplanes. See http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2010/11/f11f-tiger.html

Thanks for the link, it leads to a very helpful photo of a prototype Tiger in what appears to be bare metal, the kit does look remarkably similar.

I don't have any specialist books about the Tiger but I did manage to find an old 'Royal Air Force Flying Review' August 1956 which has a short article on the type and it says there were six pre-production Tigers and that these had extensive modifications which completely changed the outward appearance of the fighter, these included a revised vertical tail surface and redesigned air intakes with boundary layer plates (which this kit has). The Tiger also flew with and without wing fences.

Michael

[Ghostbase]

A bit more work today, decided to start scribing the wings.

First step is to find an old copy of Aviation News dated 21st November 1980 which has a 'Warpaint' set of drawings of the F11F-1 by Chris Bowley. Using this as a reference I then used a Rotring Finograph 0.5 pen to draw panel lines on the primed wings. To my surprise the Lindberg kit is remarkably similar to these drawings, just a shame about the raised rivets:-

I still need to fill in those holes, they were for rocket rails which were never used on the Tiger. The makepiece scribing tool is an old Dentex tooth scraper donated by my wife. I have no idea if this is going to work!

Before I start scribing I do notice that there is what appears to be a fairing of some sort where the wingtip fold would have been, I cannot find any photographic evidence of this having existed however I am going to leave it for now as this is going to be a 'what if?' assembly:-

The idea is that by using the tooth scraper I can scribe the panel lines and when complete the black ink will have been removed:-

And it seems to have worked! Not going to know for sure until I fill those holes and apply another dusting of grey primer however I am quite pleased with this for a first try. Definitely need to consider a purpose made tool such as the Radu Brinzan scriber (thanks Parabat!).

So one more view:-

A lot more to do yet but I have to admit this has caught my imagination. The next stage is the two fuselage halves and they are not going to be so easy as I have to work out how to scribe lines around the fuselage; my steel ruler is going to be no use for that!! Going to do a search of the 'Tools & Tips' section of this forum and see what I can find.

Michael

[Tailspin Turtle]

Thanks for the link, it leads to a very helpful photo of a prototype Tiger in what appears to be bare metal, the kit does look remarkably similar.

I don't have any specialist books about the Tiger but I did manage to find an old 'Royal Air Force Flying Review' August 1956 which has a short article on the type and it says there were six pre-production Tigers and that these had extensive modifications which completely changed the outward appearance of the fighter, these included a revised vertical tail surface and redesigned air intakes with boundary layer plates (which this kit has). The Tiger also flew with and without wing fences.

Michael

After first flight, the prototype was painted white:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:XF1...-9_NAN10-54.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:XF1...F-9_NAN1-55.jpg

[Ghostbase]

After first flight, the prototype was painted white:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:XF1...-9_NAN10-54.jpg

The Royal Air Force Flying Review has a full page photo of Bu.No 138606 in flight in the same white colour scheme and it does look rather smart, I am tempted

I could scan it and post here but not sure about copyright, even if it was 56 years ago!!

Thanks for the links.

Michael

[Ghostbase]

Still working on this old Lindberg Grumman F11F-1 Tiger:

* Have completed scribing the wings and tailplanes

* Painted front of jet engine silver and rear 'metallic' gunmetal

* Cut out and added plastic card divisions to inside of jet intakes

* Sanded all rivets from the fuselage halves.

Next stage is to join the fuselage halves prior to scribing then painting. Very little opportunity to 'enhance' the cockpit as the ejector seat seems to be way out of scale and takes up pretty well all the available cockpit space. Needs some filler as well.

Michael

[Parabat]

That is looking really good so far, well done! Interesting they provide a fairly detailed engine, but a Spartan cockpit! Good additions with the plasticard, will look great. For rescribing I find using Dymo tape really useful, especially on curved surfaces.

[Ghostbase]

Fourteen months later...

I lost interest, purchased a flexible ruler from a Michaels store in the USA but it was not really strong enough to use as a scribing template for the rounded fuselage. I sent my Missus out to find cheap Dymo tape however one reel cost more than the kit so that was a no go. So moved on to another project

Decided today that I needed to complete some of my stalled projects and so have restarted the Lindberg Grumman F11F-1 Tiger. Have attached the fuselage engine access panel, the wing flaps and the tail fin rudder, also used Squadron white putty to fill in the wing/fuselage gaps (aided by cotton buds soaked in nail varnish remover - nice!), then a quick sanding and a spray of Halfords grey primer:

The main decision I had to make was whether to try again to scribe the fuselage or not. I decided not, all the raised detail has been removed and the wings and tail planes have been scribed so the built kit should still look much better than the original version.

I have also decided to keep with my plan to paint the short-nose Tiger in the USN deep sea blue. I found an old tin of Humbrol 15 'gloss midnight blue' in the paint stash so thinned it down, fired up the airbrush and drenched everything in dark blue. And, just for once, it worked!

For some reason the digital camera has recorded the blue as much lighter than actually is. Whatever, I am really happy with the results. Next steps are to attach the undercarriage legs, mask these and the wheel wells white, spray the cockpit light grey, also the wing leading edges and tail planes and fin metallic edges silver, also the exhaust area burnt metal.

Think I just got my mojo back

Michael

[Val]

Forgot about this one! Looking great

[Navy Bird]

Building these old kits is such a blast! Great job so far, I can remember building this one, well let's just say a really long time ago. Since you're going for a "what if" do you know what markings you'll use on the Glossy Sea Blue? You're right about the colour appearing much lighter in your photo, at first I thought you were going for the Blue Angel scheme.

Cheers,

Bill

[grobo]

I once built the HASWEGAWA 1/72 version of this after a bet with my eldest brother, who could build the best version. We asked his eldest son to judge...he was probably 10 or 11 y/o...he picked mine....Chic (my brother) was devastated and got all stroppy. Given I thought he was a modelling genius and he introduced me to modelling i was so chuffed.

Its a great kit..good luck and post the finished pictures.

Graeme

[tempestfan]

And another 14 months later...what has happened to this project ? No undertones in this question, as I haven't finished anything in 17 years...

As for angraving fuselages, you may find the clear plastic strips used to stiffen shirt collars etc. useful.

That engine (and seat) gave me a sense of déjà vu - it must be the same as in the F8U-1 (not surprising, as both should be J57s I guess), but possibly also used in the Lindberg Hunter...?