zebra Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 I'm going to join in with the Kitty Hawk 1/48 Cougar. After the RF-84F I just finished, I seem to be on a 1950s jets thing at the moment! The kit includes options for a standard F9F or an F9F-8P. I'm going with the standard F9F, in the overall gloss sea blue scheme. Looking forward to getting stuck in. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Fox Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Brave choice, I haven't seen many of these finished so I'll be following this one avidly. I always liked the look of the Cougar. Given the great work on your Thunderflash this will be something special. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted October 19, 2018 Author Share Posted October 19, 2018 9 minutes ago, Silver Fox said: Brave choice Thanks! I've heard this could be a tricky kit. Will be taking it slowly and cautiously. Lots of dry fitting ahead. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Best of luck with this one Z. The Panther is an uncommon subject and will look great in the early gloss sea blue scheme. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TEMPESTMK5 Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Good afternoon zebra Welcome on this Gb I am looking forward to see the start of your build as I have the HB Panther in 1/72 and light be tempted to build it for this Gb ... Enjoy your build Cheers Patrice 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Superb choice Z,another one I'm really looking forward to seeing come together. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin W Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 Yes a good looking early jet if ever there was one. A good comparison to the Seahawk which might tempt me if yours comes out as well as your F84. Colin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted October 21, 2018 Author Share Posted October 21, 2018 As usual, construction starts with the cockpit. There's a choice of ejection seats - the Grumman seat or a later Martin Baker seat. Both are quite nice and there are PE seatbelts. Unfortunately the instructions don't tell you which seat to use. A little online research told me that the Martin Baker seat was introduced on the two-seaters and retrofitted to single-seaters used by training units, but the operational Cougars all would have had the Grumman seat. So I went with that one. The cockpit is a bit odd. On the one hand you get some quite nice moulded detail on the rear coaming, on the other the instrument panel and side consoles are PE and decals. Whilst the decals are quite nice, and I'd be happy with them in 1/72, in this scale I'd prefer either moulded detail or Eduard-style pre-painted PE, which would have looked a lot better. Also, whilst you get parts many others would omit (like the hose attached to the rear coaming next to the seat), there are a couple of glaring omissions - there's no throttle, and there's no clear part for the gunsight. But with the canopy closed it'll look good enough. Here's the cockpit: I've also started on the nose assembly. You get a nicely detailed gun bay - partly assembled in the photo below - which would look quite nice displayed with the nose cone removed. Since I don't want to display it like that I haven't assembled the whole thing, but did think it would be a good idea to assemble enough to support the guns, which have to be inserted into 4 openings in the nose. The problem with that plan is that getting all four guns to go through the four holes in the nose seems to be nigh on impossible! So I've clipped the front end off each barrel and will insert them into the nose from the outside later on. Meanwhile I've added a fair bit of liquid gravity to the nose (there's plenty of room in there if the ammo box omitted) and closed the nose up. There doesn't seem to be anything in the instructions indicating whether a nose weight is needed, but there's quite a lot of aeroplane behind the main wheels and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a tailsitter. Should have enough weight in the nose. Better safe than sorry. Back to work after a week off tomorrow, so my modelling will have to slow down again. More next weekend. Z 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted October 27, 2018 Author Share Posted October 27, 2018 Forward and centre sections of the fuselage are together. All went together easily enough, fit isn't completely perfect but far from the worst out there. One big omission from this kit - nothing in the intakes. I was a bit surprised by this - not seen it mentioned in any reviews - seems like a pretty big omission from a modern kit. I think I'll have to make some intake covers. Also going to need to decide soon whether the wings will be folded. I think probably not, but I'm bound to change my mind a couple of times. Here's where I'm up to: 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Fox Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Great work Zebra, I think your nose gun solution is sound and I am now seriously contemplating buying one at Telford. I thought I'd never say that after the F-101A. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnl42 Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Great start! I've got this and its sibling in the stash, so will be watching 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted October 28, 2018 Author Share Posted October 28, 2018 Fuselage assembly today. Test fitting showed it wasn't going to be Tamiya quality fit. There's a row of slots either side of the wing root, in theory tabs in the forward and aft fuselage parts slot into them and line everything up. In practice it's pretty hard to get the tabs in the slots and then what I got was this: Good thing I hadn't used any glue at this stage! Off came the tabs and instead I focused on getting a good join between the forward and aft sections, gluing them together and leaving that to set properly before gluing anything to the wing roots. Once I'd done that there were some pretty big gaps to fill - particularly between the aft section and the wing root - but nothing I can't deal with: Despite its flaws I'm starting to quite like this kit. It falls some way short of comparable modern kits from other manufacturers - with the less than perfect fit, decals plus PE for the cockpit, and the lack of any intake detail - but I'd quite like to add a TF-9J and an F9F-8P to the collection. thanks for looking Z 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkSH Posted October 28, 2018 Share Posted October 28, 2018 Nice tidying up of that join Z, looks good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted October 30, 2018 Share Posted October 30, 2018 Yikes! The fit of those fuselage sections is a bit dodgy to say the least but looks as if you've sorted it out. Good work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted November 10, 2018 Author Share Posted November 10, 2018 Thanks Mark and Col. I've been neglecting this one a bit but made a bit of progress today. Wings are assembled and I've added the rudder and tailplanes. A bit of clean-up needed on the wings, but here it is with the wings dry-fitted in the folded position, which is how I've decided to finish it: Might even get as far as a coat of primer tomorrow. Really must get round to buying some sea blue paint for it! cheers Z 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 Great progress Z,you wouldn't expect fit issue's like this on a modern kit but they seem fixable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewy Posted November 10, 2018 Share Posted November 10, 2018 It does make you lose a bit of mojo when you have these fit problems, looks like like theres light at the end of the tunnel though z, looks good for it i must say 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted November 11, 2018 Author Share Posted November 11, 2018 23 hours ago, stevej60 said: Great progress Z,you wouldn't expect fit issue's like this on a modern kit but they seem fixable. 18 hours ago, Hewy said: It does make you lose a bit of mojo when you have these fit problems, looks like like theres light at the end of the tunnel though z, looks good for it i must say Thanks Steve and Glynn. The fit issues haven't quite killed the mojo, but they are a bit irritating. Definitely not what you expect from a modern kit, but then I did go into this knowing Kitty Hawk has a certain reputation! It wouldn't even put me off making another - I'd quite like to, but it probably won't happen as there are so many other models I want to build. The mojo was a bit flat today but nothing to do with the kit - was kind of tired today thanks to the inconsiderate people somewhere in the neighbourhood whose party went on until 2am! So didn't get a lot done today. But I have finished the wings - a bit more cleaning up done, plus the clear parts and PE parts added. The landing lights in the wing roots were a pretty poor fit. There should only be a landing light on the left, so I filled in the one on the right. Instead of the kit part on the left I cut a bit of clear sprue to size and filed it to the right shape. The PE parts for the panels on top of the wings fit perfectly - not sure why this bit needs to be PE, perhaps there's a different part on the TF-9J and this was the easiest way for KH to do it - no idea. A slight modification was needed to fit the wing fences - they sat too far forward - but that was easily fixed by cutting a slot with the razor saw. Here's how the wings look: thanks for looking Z 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted November 17, 2018 Author Share Posted November 17, 2018 Grrrrrrr,,, this kit is really starting to test my willpower! The plan for today was to get the canopy on, get it primed, and get a first coat of paint on. I was going for a closed canopy. No chance! There's no closing this canopy, the seat gets in the way. It must be sitting at least 2mm too high up. I can only assume I've not fitted the cockpit correctly, but that doesn't really make sense - the instrument panel looks like it's sitting in the right place, and everything inside butts up together very tightly - there definitely isn't 2mm to play with. So it's going to be an open canopy. And then the windscreen doesn't want to sit down properly either. Anyway, I've got it masked up and primed, hopefully I'll get some paint on it tomorrow. Remember when I said I'd like to make more 1/48 Cougars? Not any more. Might have to get a Monogram Panther to go with it though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewy Posted November 17, 2018 Share Posted November 17, 2018 Don't you just hate it when that happens, some kits shouldnt be molded, I'm sure you'll get the better of it z, make sure your next 2 kits are tamjya to take the stress off 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Fox Posted November 17, 2018 Share Posted November 17, 2018 Watching this with interest and feeling your pain, I foolishly weakened and bought one of these in the kit swap at Telford. So I've bookmarked this thread for when I am feeling brave. Good call on the Monogram Panther, it is still a great kit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted November 17, 2018 Author Share Posted November 17, 2018 4 hours ago, Hewy said: Don't you just hate it when that happens, some kits shouldnt be molded, I'm sure you'll get the better of it z, make sure your next 2 kits are tamjya to take the stress off Actually the next one might be the Modelsvit Tu-22. I reckon it’s going to require about as much modelling skill as this one but at least I know it from the start! This is the thing about the Cougar - I like a short run kit, built a few A Model kits now and enjoyed them, I loved the old Airfix kits I built recently (even the Belvedere), I’m really looking forward to a couple of upcoming conversions, so I’m always up for a bit of modelling work when that’s what I’m expecting. I also love a nice stress free build like a Tamiya or modern Airfix kit. But modern kits with these kind of issues just irritate me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted November 24, 2018 Author Share Posted November 24, 2018 It's blue! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zebra Posted November 25, 2018 Author Share Posted November 25, 2018 Gloss coat and a few decals today. The decals are nice and opaque but not very flexible, and slightly brittle. It took a bit of work to get the red decals to conform to the nose in particular - had to cut a few slits into the decal, and used loads of micro sol (but it responded fairly well to that), but there are a few breaks in the decal that I will need to patch up. Fortunately there are some red decals for one of the other marking options that I can use to patch it. I think it'll look ok under a gloss coat. thanks for looking Z 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkSH Posted November 25, 2018 Share Posted November 25, 2018 That's looking really nice and another great scheme on a USN jet, love the red. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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