F101A Voodoo to finish

[rob Lyttle]

 This is it, the big push!

I had to put this build on hold last spring, and got sidetracked by other builds, including another Voodoo in 1/72 , the revell kit - 1991it says on the instruction sheet.

So, got the little one finished finally and put up a RFI thread to celebrate, and now going to crack on with this labour of love, hell or high water, etc...

This is the state of play as I lift the lid 

A lot of the foil work has been done on the main airframe parts. A few areas need looking at again, and a couple of snags in assembly need sorting , but I'm not going to get bogged down in obsessive detail anxiety ( a recently discovered medical condition, call it ODA for short)! 😉

Some debate about metal finish v light grey paint finish, and how it applies with USAF and Canadian planes. I'm no expert, but it's clear that Kittyhawk are saying nmf for this USAF single seater ( and I would have done it anyway, cos I like the process and the look!)

[rob Lyttle]

So, I got the front and rear fuselage sections tidied up a bit and made the join, which doesn't look too bad.

But what a size!!

It's longer than the B57 Canberra; that's a lot of plane to carry one guy and four guns, isn't it?

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by rob Lyttle
photo

[rob Lyttle]

So, the wings are going on next. 

The intake" doors" have supports behind, represented by minute etched brass parts - 7 each side.

I didn't fancy my chances with this, to be honest. The frailty, number and tiny size of these bits pretty much guaranteed a failure in my hands.

So plan B turned out to be this;

Just 3 at the front. 1 mm holes, and stretched sprue. Snipped back bit at a time and trial fitting till it seemed right. But as you get close it's hard to tell if the pins are messing with the fit of the wing, until you snipped too much!😠

So, went with it for the starboard wing, then fancying Plan C for the next go.

The door needed redoing with foil anyway, so fit the wing, insert the 1mm sprue, trim the surface and foil again. What could possibly go wrong...? 

Edited March 18, 2017 by rob Lyttle

[rob Lyttle]

They're on. I quite like the fit of the wing to the fuselage, the whole thing feels positive and definite. In fact you could probably press on with the build without gluing the wing joints 

One good thing about metal foil is that it doesn't matter about excess glue squidging out of the join, the surfaces are completely immune to it under the foil. Bonus...!

[TheBaron]

Rob, that looks really handsome mate, but your photos are well out of focus!

[71chally]

Who can resist a foil finish Voodoo!  Looking very nice there.

Which foil do you use?

 

I was once told that the Voodoo was so named because of the sound it made, making a voooo, voooo sound on throttle changes, probably rubbish but I like it.

[rob Lyttle]

It's this stuff, for joining foil backed insulation sheets etc in building.

I've got some parts to do on this, so I'll try and show what my process is.

Try to improve my camera skills too, Baron!!

[rob Lyttle]

Anybody know what the situation is with these (or maybe just this) fuel tank? 

Is it paint? Weathering? A second hand replacement?

Is it a one - off, or more common than I thought?

Seen it before?

[rob Lyttle]

I'm going to do the flaps in foil.

Now there's an issue with the shape of the trailing edge, here,

If it was straight, the foil could be folded over to do the upper surface, but that little curve will throw it completely.

So I'll do the top separately 

 

Cut a piece of foil, and leave plenty of spare. This stuff is cheap as chips - I have to encourage myself sometimes.

For a handy size piece like this, peel the foil and turn it over, sticky side up. Check the flap for clean , and plant it on.

 

Turn over, and give it a rub, feel for any bumps of dirt specks, and find the edges.

Turn it back and trim using the piece itself as a template.

Then give it a good burnish with a totally clapped out manicure stick. This is when panel lines and rivets would show through again, but this flap is blank. Make sure you edges are well stuck.

I guess something like 1200 grit sandpaper stuck on a flexible stick would do the job.

Next....!

[rob Lyttle]

Oh yeah, the top bit!

I lined up the straight edge just in front of the top surface edge, so it can be stuck down over that edge. If it looks wrong a line of red paint can cover it again.

The trailing edge is thin, but it does have some dimension, so fold the foil over the edge to meet the lower surface foil, and use that surface as a blade guide to trim.

Give it a buff.

There's that extra bit over the front edge I was saying about. Looks OK for now...

If the flap was going in the closed position, that foil would probably be thick enough to spoil the fit, and would need to be removed. For open, I think it looks better, makes the flap look 3D, instead of flat.

I mean, who needs a flat flap, anyway? ! 

[rob Lyttle]

I found a few pictures of the airframe in the process of being foiled, when I first realised just how big the plane is, compared to say, a Chinese MIG 15! (J4 is it? Something like that)

 

[rob Lyttle]

Plan C port wing seems to be OK,

I drilled into the fuselage side through the holes in the door, not all the way through, to give aplastic to plastic join and a location, stretched sprue to 1mm,. and glued em in. They should trim up fine later.

I might try slipping an extra one in further back, just cut to size/ tight fit - has anyone tackled this with the p.e.parts successfully?? Take my hat off to them, for sure.

Edited March 19, 2017 by rob Lyttle

[rob Lyttle]

All -moving tailplanes for foil next. The rivets details are very light and it's going to be a challenge to find them again! As a general rule, with two opposing parts, and especially here, cover one and use the other as a reference to help find the detail patterns on the one that's covered. But I know from looking at the mouldings, this is a bit of a challenge.

I got 75mm wide foil and I can do the whole blade in one. I ve drawn a pencil line down the middle of the foil

 

thats for the leading edge.

Peel the backing past halfway to reveal that line, and plant the leading edge on it.

 

Now drop the piece down onto the foil. Leave the backing on the other half for protection, there's nothing more attractive to bits of rubbish than an exposed length of sticky foil!

Trim the surplus 

Now, with no dirt involved, peel the backing as the foil gets applied across the other side 

 

The odd little wriggle in the foil doesn't matter, they'll flatten out. But if you haven't trimmed the surplus tape from the first side you get in a right old tangle with two surfaces of surplus tape sticking together.

The bit on the end can cover the tip

Give it a good burnish to try to find the rivets. You've got the other blade uncovered to help.

A straight edge with a cocktail stick run along it is good at picking up the line of rivets. You can feel them bumping if you're on the right line. Wrong lines with no details will burnish flat again.

It's a tight fit in the fin, but that's a good thing, right?

 

[rob Lyttle]

Fuel tank is next on the list, and it needs doing in 4sections.

- the main body is a cylinder.

-the tail is a cone.

-front has a compound curve.

-the nose.

No.3 is the tricky part!

Start with the main cylinder 

The fixings along the top make a good place to start, because locating pins and aerial blades are a nuisance in the middle of a surface, and the foil join will be tucked away under the fuselage in the long run.

[snapper_city]

Very shiny. Looking forward to seeing how you do the fuel tank nose.

[rob Lyttle]

OK, but it is the tailpiece next, which is easier as it's a straight sided cone. Again, I'm making the join at the top - so I start underneath. The foil is going to skew up along the tank but that's OK. It's going to be trimmed back to the moulded line to meet the first piece of foil.

Trim back the surplus length beyond the tip and ease the foil up one side. Concentrate on getting the middle on smooth and flat, and work to the edges.

When it's up to the top centreline, make the cut.Try not to leave cuts on the first piece. In fact you could make the cut at the mould line first, and then down the centreline to the tip.

The cone shape does finish before the join line and become straight cylindrical for a few mm, but the foil can absorb the difference - just keep the "surplus" evenly distributed, don't herd it all into one big wrinkle!

Other side -

Sorry about the photos, my lil phone camera is well out of it's depth here!

You should be able to find the mould line and the centreline cut edge through the foil, so cut and remove the surplus and give it a buff. Check that last cut was OK. You don't want a gap, or a big overlap seam. A slightly less worn-out abrasive stick may help to blend joints together .

OK, phase 3 up next....

[rob Lyttle]

It's dawning on me gradually that it's not easy to describe ( or photograph) what's going on at my fingertips! One guiding principle is:- get it on nice and flat in the middle, and work to the edges.

So, for the front section with the compound curve, the middle of the foil is the underside of the front section, and I'll work my way up round the side and make a join at the top. If it all starts to look unworkable I can either make cuts halfway up and do a separate piece on the top, or peel the whole thing off and reconsider, with a cup of tea .

This is coming up one side to the top - I've found the line at the front tip and made a cut to relieve the foil of all the excess building up at the front, and about to cut along the centreline on top.

So far so good...

I'm using thumb and thumbnail to work out towards the edges

 

 surplus trimmed, and ready to come up the other side

 

It's all the excess at the front that needs control, keep cutting at the front join line to let the important piece settle round the curve. Focus on the panel - all the rest is junk.

[rob Lyttle]

Bit of a trim, and a good seeing to with the buffer stick, and a straight trim around the front join line, it's ready for the front tip-

Again it's starting in the middle, which is the very tip, with a piece big enough to make it to the join but small enough not to be a nuisance with surplus 

Now it's just easing and teasing the foil back gradually with thumbnail till the join line is reached. Work it evenly rather than make one side and then try another - there's spare foil to be lost to make that cup shape and you don't want it all in one big wrinkle at the end.

That's ready to trim around the join line.

Tank done.

Except the fixture pins that locate into the fuselage are downright inadequate. I drilled them out and fitted stretched sprue ( one at 2 mm and two at 1mm). Perhaps if it was a bare plastic to plastic join prior to a paint job, those locating pins would be OK ( but I doubt it) but with a foil job those pins need to do the work unless you're going to be faffing about with superglue. 

 

By the way, here are those vanishingly small PE parts for the intake doors that I put to one side 

Sorry about the picture but my camera doesn't have a microscope function!

Really? Life's too short.....

Edited March 24, 2017 by rob Lyttle
extra photo

[rob Lyttle]

On 22/03/2017 at 10:59, snapper_city said:

Very shiny. Looking forward to seeing how you do the fuel tank nose.

Snapper, is this conveying the gist of it, or just creating a mysterious fog?!

Pleased to get the tanks on straight and level,

 

 

Also thinking seriously about having the airbrakes closed, to show the styling of the airframe.

 

I like the look of it...

[71chally]

You get excellent results with that foil tape, difficult enough with sheet foil.

[rob Lyttle]

Couple of structures done.

First a pair of trousers for the legs. The main legs went in OK, and the wheels after a sanding round the brake drums. So I'm tackling these. One was a breeze, but the other one kicked off. You can never see the pins and holes anyway, but this just wouldn't line up. I thought I'd got the leg on wrong at one point. I took the little top piece off in the end, fitted the door to the leg letting it make an angle with the wing surface, then cut the little flap bit back and butted it up against, covering that wierd angled gap. The legs are right, who knows what's going on with that.

Got the front leg assembly together too. Phew..! That's a festival of tiny pieces with very vague instructions on assembly and no good illustration of what you should end up with!

This should all have been done as the u/c well was being assembled on page one. The prospect of building, and more importantly foiling , the airframe with a fragile front wheel sticking out - that was a nonstarter. The well went in.

So now the front leg had to be manhandled into the well, along with the little actuator arm thingy.

A wheel came off and the landing lights are askew for a minute, but it's IN! 😂

Cuppa tea I reckon....!

[rob Lyttle]

The gun barrel housings need a bit of explanation;  re the foil application.

My method was to cover each blister first, and then do the panel around them so they are treated as islands. The irregularities and different surface areas mean one piece of foil has no chance of conforming to the shape. The muzzle pieces were put on after the foil - they were a paint job. I figured they were beyond the scope of both the foil AND me. Looking at the finished assembly, it might have been feasible..... next time....?

Edited March 27, 2017 by rob Lyttle
addition

[rob Lyttle]

Quick Demo:-

 

Here's a piece left over from the 1/72 revell F101B. It's the weapons tray panel for the big missiles - "Air2" ? I left it off as I didn't want a rotating missile pallet.

There's a few features on it, but I reckon it will go in one....

I'm going to get it on the middle and work outward.

It's gonna be OK. Watch....

Little bit of rubbing to pick up some details, and gently with the cocktail stick, don't start poking holes in the foil. Use the lengthways dimension of the stick to ease the foil in around the long forms.

Get to the edges and trim surplus. Go over it as can be done with fingers and your worn-out rubbing stick trying to find the panel lines 

Here they come...

Now pick them up with the fresh cocktail stick, nice and sharp tip, and run over the lines of rivets too. Let the stick follow the panel lines, and little details you'd forgotten will reappear and remind you.

There are a couple of little antenna type pieces to be added - do these after, they'd really get in the way of the foil process.

The ordnance covers a lot of the piece in the end, so it's a walk in the park really...!

Later....

[rob Lyttle]

A couple more structures have been worked on bit by bit.

I had already foiled an aileron but it didn't look too good. The trailing edge was way too thick and blunt. It's made of two pieces, top and bottom, with a riveted panel line Span- wise. On inspection I discovered both faces were dished and a decent emery board could get to work on the trailing edge and front edge while bridging the rivets and line. So I cut down the edges and flattened the faces until the abrasive action was almost reaching the details, leaving me with a better looking control surface and a much thinner trailing edge. Smart looking re- foil and we're back in business. 

Difficulty fitting to the wings was greatly reduced by removing the idiot lugs that should insert into holes in the edge of the wing. With those gone the whole fit was a doddle.

Its just sitting in position here, not the final glue job.

The other one awaits my attention. 

 

Also discovered I'd lost a front u/c door. I had the other side, and used it as a pattern to scratch one from sheet poly. The inside has quite a pronounced shape that I built up with a fillet of milliput. Red inside, foil outside, and onto the plane. 

I even got success in fitting the rear view mirrors up in the canopy (little p.e. parts). Woohoo...

[71chally]

Coming on nicely there Rob, great finish that you are achieving there.

Do you get different shades by turning the foil at all?