Airfix F5A - Finished

[AdrianMF]

Hello All,

I saw this at the Cosford show for the princely sum of £3:

I remember building this as a kid and even then being dismayed at how badly moulded, strangely engineered and ill-fitting it was. So I bought it as a challenge in between my helicopter builds.

I had not mis-remembered!

The plastic hasn't flowed through the mould properly, so the thin edges are all curved where the plastic hasn't reached the edge and there are pinholes where the plastic has not joined up over features. The metallic finish plastic shows lots of swirls and join lines. The plastic hasn't filled parts of the undercarriage and pilot, resulting in paper-thin parts. And the fit of the fuselage parts is awful:

I made a rudimentary instrument panel and consoles:

Much filling and sanding and priming and sanding later, it's starting to look joined up:

And I have to say that, once the flash was cleaned up (how can you have short shots and flash at the same time????), the undercarriage doors and air brakes fitted much better than many other kits of that same period (I had to add the tiny white shim):

So I will do a bit more filling and sanding, then more primer and a light sanding before a natural metal finish.

Thanks for looking and I hope it wasn't too distressing!

Adrian

Edited June 26, 2016 by AdrianMF

[tempestfan]

And I have to say that, once the flash was cleaned up (how can you have short shots and flash at the same time????), the undercarriage doors and air brakes fitted much better than many other kits of that same period (I had to add the tiny white shim):

If the mould doesn't close properly, then there will be flash, and the excess plastic being lost on the flash may (I'm not an injection expert) lead to some slight loss of pressure preventing the plastic to reach in all corners.

Good luck with pressing on, the lower fuselage indeed didn't look promising. I always liked that kit because I thought it gave quite a lot of parts and detail (for a 1965ish kit), but never got around to building one yet (though I have some half-dozen flea market wrecks of it). Seeing your pics, I may change my mind if I actually start messing around with one...

That box looks in good nick, if It's a Palitoy issue (1982 or -3 ©), please don't throw it away...

[Booty003]

I bought this kit a few years ago without realising just how bad it was. As I struggle for spare time I decided that the kit wasn't worth my time and effort and binned the lot - not worth it in my opinion.

Good luck with it though!!!!! ;-)

[moaning dolphin]

I remember doing this kit in pre Top Gun days! I thought it was a dream but then again my memories are all nostalgic! But word of warning with those Airfix kits with a picture of the completed model on the front, There's a very good reason it is photographed with the Canopy open!

Bob

[John_W]

This one was a challenge back in the 70s/80s. Nice work so far.

[Beard]

I made one of these a year, or so, ago and I must have used half a tube of filler. In the end, I painted it silver and gave to a friend to use as a Christmas decoration.

[MikeyJ]

Made 2 of these as a kid, a Silver USAF one and the F5 Tiger II which wasnt too bad, or its my rose tinted memory...Built one a couple years back from the PM models kit of the Turkish Stars F5, obtained from a stall at Waddington airshow since it was cheap - now that was a really bad kit.

[Pete in Lincs]

You're a brave man.

I built one in the late sixties.

My standards weren't quite so high then.

Good luck to you.

[Martian]

I had one of these when it first came out and seem to remember it went together OK. It does seem though that the moulds have been either damaged or not operated properly.

Martin

[tempestfan]

Made 2 of these as a kid, a Silver USAF one and the F5 Tiger II which wasnt too bad, or its my rose tinted memory...

The Tiger II is an entirely new mould that came out around the time Adrian's kit was produced and should have fitted loads better then ;-)

One has to bear in mind that the F-5A was in almost continuous production (if catalogues are to be believed) for over 40 years, and at least it exists in all bag/box types issued between 1965 and ca. 2000.

[davecov]

Coming on nicely, Adrian.

I built the same F-5A boxing about three years ago. I was convinced that the huge amount of filler I used would lead me to getting shares in the filler company.

Dave

[AdrianMF]

Thanks chaps, I've just given it another primer coat (not worth a photo on its own) and it looks as smooth as it's going to get! I will give it a light final sand and a coat of silver tomorrow.

Regarding the moulding, regardless of the original tooling, it feels like the plastic didn't flow in the mould (not enough pressure? Not hot enough??) and then some parts seem to have become thinner than they should be (cooling too fast/slow? removing too early??).

Regards,

Adrian

[Hook]

Built one a couple years back from the PM models kit of the Turkish Stars F5, obtained from a stall at Waddington airshow since it was cheap - now that was a really bad kit.

Ah yes - on that one the one piece wing looked like it came from a totally different kit when compared to the underfuselage recess it was supposed to be fitted to.

Cheers,

Andre

[AdrianMF]

What, you mean this isn't the worst F-5 kit ever??

[Hook]

What, you mean this isn't the worst F-5 kit ever??

The PM F-5A kit makes Starfix look good.

Cheers,

Andre

[AdrianMF]

Now I just want to build one...

[Hook]

Now I just want to build one...

Be careful what you wish for...

http://gregers.fr.yuku.com/topic/13481/PM-NORTHROP-F5A-quotFreedom-Fighterquot-172-PM203#.V2wfxPmLTcs

Cheers,

Andre

[AdrianMF]

Well, I mulled over how to do a metallic finish...

The ladies where my son works must think he's too thin (6 foot 7 and waaay lighter than me) because they keep buying him chocolates for fixing their PC problems. It turns out that Lindor chocolates have a cellophane wrapper bonded to silver foil. It occurred to me that I could peel off the silver foil and use the sticky side. Here is is on my Ju88 paint tester:



Interesting effect but not for this time, I think...

I decided to try for a better canopy. The one in the kit is woefully ill-fitting, slightly cracked and not particularly clear. So I stuffed the two parts with blu-tak, extended beyond the edge where the canopy was short, and just pulled some packing material over it after warming it over a gas stove held in two bulldog clips:



Maybe 20 minutes in all, four attempts, four results. My lucky day!

I primed the model using Halfords grey rattle can primer, sanded it down a bit and sprayed over the Airfix Metal Cote aluminium. This is meant to buff up to a shiny finish but it resolutely remained metallic grey. So I tried the AK "True Metal" aluminium. This comes in a tube, and is a brushable thick paint that mells like shoe polish. It brushes on surprisingly evenly and metallic. When it is dry, you can then buff it to an amazing finish! So that's what I used. I painted it over with Future to protect the surface during decalling and finishing, but my fingers became a bit silvery whenever I handled it for any length of time.

The decals were very yellowed. I had a look on the net for colour schemes and I found this. Note the metal portion at the back of the canopy. I made the marking from the kit decals for the kit roundels, IIAF lettering, fail flashes and warning signs, all cut back hard to remove the deep yellow varnish. The roundels have cream rings instead of white, but I can live with that. I used Letraset for the fin numbers and hand painted the crest on the fin and arabic numerals on the nose.

Attaching the vac canopy was a bit of a struggle and the photos reveal that it's worse than I thought, so I may have to tidy it up at some point (or not). I should have attached it before painting, but at the time I was planning to use the kit canopy.

Base is a balsa block with thin brass wire to fit below the burner cans. I didn't want to cut a hole in the underside after all the effort to clean it up! The wire is a bit too thin, so when I was taking photos outside today the whole thing was oscillating in the wind! I think I've got rid of all the blurred pictures.

So here we are:



It did scrub up better than the one I built around fifity years ago. Job done. Maybe I'll build one in another fitiy years if I'm still around, but not before then. More pics in RFI in a minute. Now back to a helicopter!

Thanks for looking,
Adrian

Edited June 26, 2016 by AdrianMF

[Pete in Lincs]

A lovely result. Well played, Sir!

[StephenCJ]

Very NICE Adrian

[tempestfan]

The PM F-5A kit makes Starfix look good.

Cheers,

Andre

What does everyone have against Starfix ??? At least they appear to have copied the Hase kit. Pioneer2/PM may have worked from scratch

Anyway, turned out nicely