A Bit Off The Beaten Path - Maintrack 1/72 XF-88B Voodoo

[Fastcat]

 

Hi Ed,

Quote

I remember those days very well!  My favorites were the large Revell F-102 that deployed or retracted the landing gear when you opened or closed the canopy -- and -- the old "Atomic Bomber" kit. If I could have back all the kits that I tossed out the window into the bushes to see how they flew, I'd be a lot wealthier than I am now.

  

Yes, the good old days when kits had lots of moving parts - and so did I!

Work on the kit's looking good.

Dave

[pipthepilot]

Always fascinated with vacforms and one day I will have a go at one, I have a Supermarine Swift in my stash, but they do look scary. Yours was looking particularly scary a little while ago but is starting to look like an aeroplane now. Great work, and thanks for sharing.

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all, back again with a small update.

 

First, a look at the kit's metal parts, not including the turboprop, which was shown earlier:

 

 

These parts were very cleanly molded, and required little clean-up. The only thing not-stock above is, I have added the torsion links to all the gear legs with CA.

 

 

ONE WORD OF WARNING! The nose gear struts are molded with only a hole on either side of the fork, to receive the nose wheel axle. Apparently, the intent was to have the modeler pry the fork legs apart, and insert the axles into the holes.

 

DON"T DO IT!!!  They are made of pot metal, and are very brittle. They will break in a heartbeat! That being said, mu solution was to saw, then file, a little slot into the bottom of each fork leg (like the slot on a bicylcle's rear fork), and then just slide and glue the wheel into position.  I'll show this later on.  Otherwise, a little primer and a little paint, and they're good to go.

 

Laying the metal parts aside for the moment, the next step is too install the wing fences, which are not included in the kit. Not shown here, I began by taking a razor saw and sawing a slot in the top half of each wing, from the front edge of the wing back to the aileron.  This position is clearly marked on the wing, so no problem there.

 

Next a strip of 5 or 10 thou card cut oversize is glued into the slot with liquid glue, and allowed to dry thoroughly:

 

 

Next, they are sanded to shape with a 180 grit sanding stick. Shown is the near one partially shaped, while the farthest one has not yet been worked on:

 

 

Embedding them into the wing, vs. just gluing them onto the wing, makes the wing fences much easier to sand and shape, and I highly recommend it.

 

Next up is fabricating a hood for the instrument panel. This is cut from the top of a family-sized store bought macaroni and cheese container. The bottom is too thick, but the top is just right, and soft enough to bend readily. After cutting it to rough shape, I formed it over a Popsicle stick that had the edges sanded to a rounded configuration -- after the stick was cut down to the correct width:

 

 

Next the hood is shown from the side, after it was glued into place with 560 canopy cement:

 

 

Also not that both wing fences have been sanded down closer to their final height, which is only 3 scale inches!

 

I forgot to take a picture of the next step, simply modding an old 25-lb practice bomb from the spares box, to represent the oxygen system on the rear upper "package tray" behind the seat. Everything above the cockpit coaming was then painted interior black from MM. (I had used up my one and only bottle of MM Interior Black enamel paint, which has been discontinued, but I tried their acrylic flavor of this color, and am please to report that it seems to perform better than the enamel did!)

 

I then glued the vac u formed canopy provided in the kit to the model with watch makers cement, smoothed with alcohol after it had dried. There was a funny bit at the front of the canopy, so I used some spot putty for that, and later a little Perfect Plastic Putty for a couple of final tiny spots that I didn't want t sand. The PPP was smoothed  with a finger dipped in water. Lastly, the canopy was masked with Parafilm "M", and everything was primed again:

 

 

The kit pitot has been added to the left wing by drilling a hole and filling with CA. The probe seems to be of a lead-like material, so is easy to bend into alignment if you get ham-handed and knock it out of whack as I did a couple of times...

 

One other mention: the provided canopy on this kit doesn't have a large amount of excess plastic around it, so it was necessary to very carefully scribe around it  with a needle several times, to separate the canopy from the rest of the sheet. This is a safer process than just cutting it out with a razor knife, in my opinion,.

 

Also, as you can see from the photos, every time I LOOK at the model, another bit needs sanding. This is NOT the fault of the kit, but rather, I'm certain, is an obscure Law Of Modeling that it be thus...

 

In any event, off to the paint booth. Later, friends!

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cookenbacher]

Just caught up with this one Ed, amazing project.

[Azgaron]

Nice work and nice looking metal parts!

 

Håkan

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

This is looking real good ... Its really starting to take shape. 

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks guys!

 

Just laid on the first coat of natural metal -- it's gonna be a while!

 

Ed

[Hamden]

 

Really looking the part now!

Can't wait to see it in top coat finish

 

   Roger

[RidgeRunner]

4 hours ago, Hamden said:

 

Really looking the part now!

Can't wait to see it in top coat finish

 

   Roger

 

Absolutely! Looking great, Ed!

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks  again, everyone.

 

But as I said, "It's gonna be a while...". And in accordance with the above mentioned "Law of Modeling", and in the interests of complete disclosure, here's what she looks like after a coat of black primer, a coat of Alclad olished Aluminum, and a careful inspection under the lights:

 

 

 

EVERYTHING (except the canopy) gets sanded down, AGAIN, with 2000 grit wet-or-dry, as a thousand tiny flaws suddenly appeared under the natural metal coating!  Here is where a normal, sane human would toss in the towel and paint it silver. Not I.

 

In my dotage, I have found the 2nd IMMUTABLE LAW OF MODELING -- namely that it's not about skill at all -- it's about perseverance!

 

Once again, I shall endeavor...

 

Ed

[Azgaron]

Looks good! Nice way to check for flaws!

 

Håkan

 

[John R]

Only just found this thread - fascinating because I started one one these about twenty years ago, as the original pure jet version, and it came to a halt because I didn't think that I was up to getting the fuselage bits to fit together. All the time I kept looking at that propellor, mine was unbroken, and wondering about doing that version.

I am really interested to see how this turns out. It looks a great job so far.

Regarding the finish I use black gloss enamel as an undercoat for the Alclad. You do have to be careful to put it on lightly. At my urging a friend tried this method but thought that you had to flood the Alcad on...lacquer and enamel are not good friends.

John

[Terry1954]

On 5/15/2018 at 5:25 PM, TheRealMrEd said:

In my dotage, I have found the 2nd IMMUTABLE LAW OF MODELING -- namely that it's not about skill at all -- it's about perseverance!

I would agree with that one Ed! I have had similar experiences with Alclad exposing everything except the most perfect undercoating, but when you get it right, its REALLY good. I think your perseverance will pay off, so don't throw the towel in!

 

The model is looking very good so far.

 

Cheers

 

Terry

[pipthepilot]

Looking really good, but it does look like you need a micromesh set to polish the whole thing before the Alclad.

[SaminCam]

On 5/15/2018 at 5:25 PM, TheRealMrEd said:

Thanks  again, everyone.

 

But as I said, "It's gonna be a while...". And in accordance with the above mentioned "Law of Modeling", and in the interests of complete disclosure, here's what she looks like after a coat of black primer, a coat of Alclad olished Aluminum, and a careful inspection under the lights:

 

 

 

EVERYTHING (except the canopy) gets sanded down, AGAIN, with 2000 grit wet-or-dry, as a thousand tiny flaws suddenly appeared under the natural metal coating!  Here is where a normal, sane human would toss in the towel and paint it silver. Not I.

 

In my dotage, I have found the 2nd IMMUTABLE LAW OF MODELING -- namely that it's not about skill at all -- it's about perseverance!

 

Once again, I shall endeavor...

 

Ed

This looks A LOT like the b-29 I've been working on and I'm following the same trajectory of undercoat-spray polished Al- sand-try again...  my second attempt is on a wip and it feels like I'm getting there, hopefully third time will be a charm. Ive used micromesh up to 12000 and then a polishing compound, this gives a "glassy" black finish which the polished al looks great on, just got to persevere with the remaining blemishes. Good luck with the Voodoo, looks awesome!

[TheRealMrEd]

Hi all.

 

After a little screaming, yelling and paint fumes, I've got it going my way. After the paint and some decals, it only needs a few  added details:

 

 

Except for some detail painting, the landing gear and prop are good to go, but a little work needs to be done on the gear doors. The main gear door in the fuselage remains closed except during retraction. The smaller door in the fuse is open when the gear are deployed, but since I would have had to box in the whole gear well, etc., I decided to skip that step, and left the little door closed.

 

The nose gear door features part of the ductwork, so a false inside panel was cut from thin card, while the kit nose gear door was sanded and the front of the doors intake ducting was filed open:

 

 

Note the new inner door skin (above) has not yet been cut to length.

 

Next the nose door parts are glued together, plus new main gear leg doors are cut from thin card stock, as it's easier than sanding down the original vac u form parts that I had cut out of the lower wings earlier:

 

 

Finally all the little detail parts are added, to finish her up!

 

 

"A" is a little block, which seems to have a hole clear through it (will show up better in RFI pics). I don't know what this was, but unless it's a HUGE tie-down, I suspect it has to do with the fact that ballast was carried way back in the rear of the tail boom, and this may be something that allows adjustment to the ballast mass for adjusting the center of gravity of the aircraft. This is merely a S.W.A.G., and further enlightenment would be appreciated!

 

"B" represents small pieces of plastic straw painted and installed into the exhaust cut-outs, to prevent a sort of see-thru view.

 

"C" is a fuel dump.

 

"D" is a larger piece of plastic straw, masquerading as the turbo exhaust tube.

 

"E" barely seen here is a small strip of silver decal applied to the left side only of each propeller blade. This represents instrumentation mounted to the blades, probably to check vibration of the effect of the blade tips going supersonic. Not sure, but I added this as the cheapest way to show "something".

 

Lastly the inside of the gear doors were painted red. I didn't know they were doing this THAT early, but a you-tube video clip I found showed it, so here it is.

 

Well, she is done. While not perfect, she's a welcome collection to the "VooDoo" stable that I'm accumulating. It was easier than some vac u forms, but harder than others. It is this sort of kit that really taps into the "wisdom of the ages" bit, but you can acquire the wisdom today with a few clicks of the mouse. You just gotta take the plunge...

 

Ed

 

I'll have the RFI pics up shortly: RFI LINK

Edited May 24, 2018 by TheRealMrEd

[Hamden]

 

That is a fantastic result Ed 

An interesting variation of a well known type

 

  Roger

[Azgaron]

Very nice work! Looks great!

 

Håkan

 

[TheRealMrEd]

Thanks guys,

 

Both for the comments and for looking in.

 

Ed