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Sword FJ-2 Fury


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Since I've been babbling on in other threads about the FJ Fury fighters and the odd bit about the new Sword kits, I thought I should put my money where my mouth is and post a WIP. So here it is - the FJ-2 kit for now. First off the box/marking options/sprues etc:

 

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There's been enough discussion about which wing it is, which F-86 aftermarket bits you can use (none) and so on, and a lot of it doesn't really matter: it looks like an FJ-2 and as I build it, I will be correcting and adding bits as I feel I want to. Yes there are a couple of clunky bits, but call me a masochist but I like doing a bit of fettling: it shouldn't be too easy after all!

 

So no aftermarket bits (so far) - but that's mainly because as I write there are none. Here are the fuselage halves, which as you can see exhibit some strange lumps which shouldn't be there:

 

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Nothing that a scalpel and/or some 800-grit won't get rid of. So with that done, I opened out the tail hook, speed brakes and LH step/ammo door. Also chopped the wings because I thought it might look different with wings folded. I dare say the aftermarket will render these items in resin but I shall me scratch-building these bits. I then tacked the major bits together:

 

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This is where a couple of 'fettling' areas showed up - notably the wing trailing edges and the join between the aft centre wing and fuselage:

 

 

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But again, nothing major and with a similar (but lesser) step at the front end of the wing centre section I filed/scraped until I got a nice join, which will probably need no filler:

 

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And then a bit of work on the speed brake wells:

 

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You'll note that I've narrowed-down the hinge slots (compare to above) after I got a bit carried away with the file! Haven't decided what colour scheme to go with yet - I do fancy a dark blue or gull gray scheme but who knows?

 

I've done a bit more than this but that's all the photos I have for now.

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I think the nose landing gear is a little too long. I put three of the pieces together (I drilled an .080 hole in the yoke and the cylinder in front of the strut and connected them with a short piece of wire since I think just gluing them together wouldn't be sturdy enough) to evaluate that. There's an illustration at the bottom of this blog post: http://tailhooktopics.blogspot.com/2017/10/fj-23-nose-landing-gear.html

 

The main landing gear looks about right. Note that the tab at the front of the strut near its top is beveled. If you install the struts on the correct sides (scissors facing forward and axle facing inboard, that tab sits against the edge of the wheel well, a clever touch providing some extra support. However, the hole in the wheel and the axle on the strut aren't a snug fit.

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TT - I'm a few weeks away from landing gear! For now I'm concentrating on jobs which I need to get done before closing the fuselage halves.

 

Here's a few more. Cannon ports look a bit too far aft and so I have filled the fwd ones and re-drilled. I expect I will do the aft ones too but will be doing other bits first:

 

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Then speed brake wells - final bits plus a guide coat: still needs a bit of tidying up but good enough to consider it OK for putting the two big bits together: cockpit and a few other bits next! Those ribs in each speed brake well are more flush with the lower edge of the door aperture on the real FJ-2, but they are a prominent feature in an otherwise pretty sparse area, so there they are B)

 

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Your speed brake well is very impressive.

 

Paul Boyer: "Other problems I’m having include a poor fit of the intake trunk to the intake lips. I suggest refining the fit of the front end and not worry about whether it meets the bulkhead under the cockpit; you’re not going to be able to see a gap back in there."

 

I'm inclined to assemble the intake together with the aft cockpit bulkhead first to provide good support for the intake trunk (duct) rather than having it just attached inside the inlet and the wheel well...

Edited by Tailspin Turtle
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Cockpit coming together: these are the main bits.

 

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The ejector seat is a 2-part resin item and a nice set of mouldings: I just added the prominent handle on the RH side of the headrest from copper wire.

 

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And seat belts from aluminium foil with buckles from an old reheat set:

 

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Instrument panel and seat finished:

 

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And then the whole lot slotted into place for a fit check: all good so far. I gave the whole lot a wash but maybe a bit too much in fact: photos do no favours for Braille scale!

 

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I also thought I'd see how much weight I could get into the nose - and I'm pretty sure it will easily keep the nose down. However I won't add the weight yet (see later pic).

 

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Final bit before joining the fuselage halves was to open out the off-centre vent on the aft fuselage and the similar oval one forward of it. I'll refine it a bit when everything is close up:

 

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And finally! Fuselage halves joined and let to set for a day. I will be inserting the weights through the gap in front of the instrument panel - my weights are large enough that they can't spill out into the cockpit and doing it this way will allow more weights to be gathered in the nose area. A coaming piece (top photo) will cover that gap before the windshield goes on.

 

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Day off work today and after a bit of outdoors activity I managed to grab a few hours to get a bit more done. First off I have thinned the trailing edges of the wings and since the leading edges looked a bit blunt, I lay the wing halves flat on a sheet of wet'n'dry and sanded the mating surfaces just as you would with a vac form. Not perfect, so a bit of external fettling too:

 

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Plastic sticking out from the lower forward fuselage is a thin sheet of plastic card which forms the curved housing for the barrier guard. Trimmed off it looks like this:

 

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Back to the wing. I thinned it a lot and so the kit parts that box in the main gear bays wouldn't fit. That's no criticism of the kit - just the result of my desire to have the wing a bit thinner. Not sure if I'll leave them like this or not:

 

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Kit parts 16, 29, 55 and 56 are flat and featureless anyway, so no great loss.

 

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After a bit of sanding this is how the fuselage spine vent looks. I also added kit part 22 aft of the cockpit seat support (it's a great fit), but sanded off the raised detail so that I can add some detail when the time comes:

 

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Arrestor hook and tail bumper bays faired in:

 

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I've also left out kit part 14 (a fairing piece which fits in the recess below the aft pen-nib fairing) because it ends up protruding over the end of the jet pipe. I'll fill this area when I get to it.

 

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The kit jet pipe is a 2-piece item and good enough for most, but I prefer no internal seams so have replaced it with a piece of plastic tube (needs trimming for length a bit)

 

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Not a great photo, but hopefully showing that just a smidgeon of filler is required at the intake trunking-to-nose ring joint. The trunking was sanded internally before adding it to the cockpit section above.

 

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The horizontal tails (which have no dihedral on the FJ-2) has only a couple of pips to aid in their mounting and so I drilled them for brass tube hinges.

 

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And corresponding holes in the fuselage should help them to stay in place:

 

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I then glued the wing in place after a bit of fettling and the result is not a perfect mate, but won't need much filler:

 

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Finally I had another look at the cannon ports and realised that the forward one was too short when I repositioned it; and I wasn't happy with the aft one - so I filled it.

 

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One thing is for sure - I will need to go over the model with some fine wet and dry because those look like some serious gouges (above). I'll have to re-scribe a lot too. But the revised cannon ports look better to me. Note that FJ-2s had the oval ports which were also fitted to early FJ-3s (see FJ-3 thread), and some were also retrofitted with the 'straight-sided' ports which characterise later FJ-3/3M and retrofitted machines. Since I haven't decided if I'm doing an early or late FJ-2, I haven't decided which version to go for. Probably whichever one the cannon ports end up looking like!

 

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Bit more but excuse the poor photos - it's dark these days!

 

Anyhoo, first thing I forgot to mention is that I managed to get 15 grammes in the nose and it looks (by balancing on a finger) like it will not be a tail-sitter by any means. So I have now filled the gaps here and there, sanded back most of that 600-grit nastiness with 1200 (wet) and put on a guide coat to see how things look. For sure there will be a bit/lot of re-scribing but I'm pretty happy:

 

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And I also managed to fill in the underside of the exhaust pen-knib fairing and give it a first trim with the correct-length jet pipe.

 

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More soon - hopefully with daylight photos :)

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Excellent work sabre jet. I used to use the finger method until it failed me on a p-39 build. I now use two jars of paint equal size positioned under the main gear bays or as close to them as possible. I then add the unfinished parts equivalent weight to the tail. Then add the lead weight equivalent i will need to balance it until i get a balanced aircraft. 

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50 minutes ago, Christer A said:

Great work there!

Are the gun barrels visible in the throughs om the real thing?

You're almost convincing me go restart my FJ-4...

Chester,

 

No they sit back a bit and rest inside tubes which run aft of the blast panel openings. So I don't need to make those at least!

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8 hours ago, Robert said:

Looking very good. Have you decided on a squadron yet ?

 

Robert

Robert, 

 

No not really - still torn between three: development a/c in the navy blue, VMF-235 in gull gray/white or St Louis Reserves in gull gray/white.

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Not much to report - I've been refining the trailing edges and made a start on the wing folds:

 

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Rudder's on too. Think I'm settled on a scheme now - I wanted to do a late aircraft but also wanted to model 'early' features like the windshield wiper, barrier guard etc. So it's got to be a dark gloss blue pre-production aircraft. Til I change my mind again!

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On 30 October 2017 at 6:44 PM, Sabrejet said:

 

Back to the wing. I thinned it a lot and so the kit parts that box in the main gear bays wouldn't fit. That's no criticism of the kit - just the result of my desire to have the wing a bit thinner.

 

The wheelwell parts not fitting is probably not down to you, I've made several Sword Soitfire kits and the wheelwell parts never fit.

 

What you've done so far is most splendid, by the way.

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11 minutes ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

Looks great. Did you thin the trailing edges from the inside or the outside?

Both! Mainly inside in the same way as you'd do a vacform. Still need to do the outer wings and will do a 'before' and 'after'.

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