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1/32 HobbyBoss Republic F-84G Thunderjet


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The Republic F-84 Thunderjet was America's second operational jet and while it didn't quite make it as a pure fighter (in competition with the superb MiG-15 when they met over Korea, at least) it proved to be an extremely effective ground-attack aircraft - the USAF claimed that the F-84 was responsible for 60% of all ground targets destroyed in the Korean War - and once the usual initial teething problems were solved it was popular with pilots and groundcrew alike; it was tough, reliable and had excellent range (indeed, the F-84G was the first fighter capable of in-flight refuelling as standard and in 1953 seventeen of them flew non-stop from the United States to the United Kingdom). France operated 335 F-84Gs between 1952 and 1956, one of fourteen countries to use the Thunderjet; the kit provides markings for an Armee De L'Air Thunderjet from 1952 as shown on the rather evocative box-art, and it is this one I shall be building.

 

The lovely @Duncan B at BlackMike Models got hold of the 1/32 HobbyBoss F-84G kit for me in time for the Scottish Nationals show in Perth last month and was too polite to castigate or mock me for dabbling in such a perverted scale, but then as a procurer I suppose it is prudent for him to keep schtumm regarding the peccadilloes of others, and as a 1/48 scale modeller himself he probably shouldn't be throwing stones from inside his glass house anyway :lol: 

 

Here it is:

 

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The box is packed. Here's what you get:

 

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In a compartment at one end of the box there are vinyl tyres and metal landing-gear legs and nose-weights:

 

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... painting guide and instructions, of course:

 

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... and two sheets of transfers: 

 

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My Evil Overlord Jamie @Sovereign Hobbies was kind enough to give me a sample of the Tetra Works USAF seatbelt set which will be ideal for this kit - although the aircraft was fitted with an ejection seat the harness arrangement appears to have been the same as late-WW2 US aircraft. I also got the Eduard canopy mask set because while I am quite capable of masking a canopy myself with Tamiya tape it doesn't mean I actually want to when there is an easier option available:

 

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So there we are then. I'm cracking on now...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Roger Newsome said:

Proof it's good to have friends in high places.

 

... and low places, too, Roger :D 

 

2 minutes ago, Procopius said:

By god sir, this one doesn't even have a propeller.

 

It's true, the world is actually going to Hell in a handbasket! Nice to see you again mate :D 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Hi Stew, front row seat for me.

I have one of these with an Eduard etched cockpit set and a resin airbrake as the one in the kit is the wrong type for an F-84G, so I'm told. I do like early jets and Korean War types in particular so I'm looking forward to this

Bon courage ( pretentious, moi )

 

John

Edited by Biggles87
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9 hours ago, amblypygid said:

That's big, Stew! What drew you to this kit?

 

Um, because big? Not sure really, I have a certain occasional affection for both large models and early jets so it may be those likings happened to coincide here :) 

 

5 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I have one of these with an Eduard etched cockpit set and a resin airbrake as the one in the kit is the wrong type for an F-84G, so I'm told. I do like early jets and Korean War types...

 

John

 

Thanks John :) 

 

The Eduard etched set looks very nice; with regards to the airbrake I think I am okay - the kit provides the airbrake with four rectangular slots which is correct for the F-84 up to the F-84G-10-RE onwards*, the Armee De L'Air option is an F-84G-6RE so the kit part will be fine for this.

 

So I opened up the Tetra Works seatbelt set; it looks a little intimidating but if you have any experience of this sort of thing you should find it easy enough:

 

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It was the work of a half-hour or so to make a set up, but only because I was drinking quite a lot of coffee and watching YouTube videos while I was doing it. This is what I ended up with:

 

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I think they'll look okay draped over the seat :) 

 

Speaking of which, the kit provides two complete seats:

 

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I have to say I prefer the Steampunk Barber Chair look of the one on the left and fortunately, according to this restoration article, that is the correct one for me to use :D 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

* P.66, F-84 Thunderjet in Detail, Bert Kinzey, Squadron/Signal Pubs

 

 

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The seat belts look good, reminiscent of the RB sets, the last one I did took me half a day but it was a Spitfire Sutton harness.

Good news about the airbrake..

 

John

I was looking recently for the photo of Jack  lying on the bed to show SWMBO but couldn't find it, which thread was it on please?

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19 minutes ago, Biggles87 said:

I was looking recently for the photo of Jack  lying on the bed to show SWMBO but couldn't find it, which thread was it on please?

 

That was here mate, incidentally the post noting that I had bought this kit :)

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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I want to get as many of the sub-assemblies as possible - particularly the internal ones - put together before priming and painting. In some cases I have simply clicked the parts together, others have been glued if necessary or if doing so won't hamper painting later on. Here's the cockpit tub:

 

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... and the nose-gun bay, which is surprisingly nicely detailed given that it will be shut away and never seen again:

 

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I had to partially disassemble it to add the metal nose weights:

 

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... but they fitted very well:

 

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Next will be the landing gear bays and the jet-pipe... :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

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On 5/11/2019 at 5:20 PM, Procopius said:

By god sir, this one doesn't even have a propeller.

They're not compulsory old chap though the better types do sport them. :)Nice to get a squeak out of thee, new job taking up precious modelling time is it?  :unsure:

Steve.

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I got most of the sub-assemblies primed, I used Tyre Black. The cockpit parts:

 

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The gun- and undercarriage-bays:

 

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... and the jet-pipe:

 

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I sorted out my paints for the interior parts:

 

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ACUS09 Interior Green for most of the cockpit, but with ACUS22 Zinc Chromate Green to give a little variation in the cockpit colours, it is very similar to Interior Green (they are both made by adding black pigment to Zinc Chromate Primer)... and ACUS23 Zinc Chromate Yellow for the wheelbays and airbrake interior. These were then sprayed in their base colours; Interior Green for the cockpit, Zinc Chromate Green for the Seat, stick and rudder pedal unit:

 

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And although the kit supplies metal nose-weights I added a little more using some wheel balancing weights that Jamie gave me:

 

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That oughta do it :D 

 

Finally, I sprayed the wheelbays:

 

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They'll be getting a brown wash later and then the detail painting can begin... :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi Greg,

 

I'm going with the Armee De L'Air option provided in the kit (and shown on the box-art); the reviews say the transfers are very good, so I'll give it a go...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Once the paint had cured I applied a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade to the wheelbays:

 

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... and I stated assembling the various sub-assemblies before giving a splash of Nuln Oil (Citadel's basic black wash) to the gun-bay:

 

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Not really sure why I bothered with that as there doesn't seem to be a way of displaying it open, and if there was I wouldn't anyway, but I do get a certain perverse pleasure out of "knowing it's there". I gave the cockpit and seat a wash of Agrax Earthshade and did the detail painting:

 

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... did the detail painting in the wheelbays and airbrake bay:

 

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Painted the back shelf and applied the transfer to the instrument panel (and as usual got that slightly skew-whiff - if I did this again I would cut off the side parts of the IP transfer and apply these separately):

 

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It should look okay once it is buttoned up anyway *fingers crossed* :D 

 

I assembled the jet pipe:

 

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...and painted the interior parts:

 

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So now all I need to do is to fit all those parts inside the fuselage... :unsure:

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Keep in mind that canopy on real aircraft had strips taped on for reinforcement and since this was a tape, there were no rivets.  The canopy in this kit is full of rivets. Also the tires look weird. 

 

Josip

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I really like the F-84- it has a certain style, rather like flare-leg jeans or something like that.  And I've seen this kit built up, and liked it enough I got "one of each" (the early and late boxings).  My justification was that I could swap the drag brakes between kits, which I understood to be (generally?) necessary.  I'm officially a 48ther too, but sometimes you've just got to go large...

 

When I saw the topic and when it started I thought, "Oh, there won't be much to see yet."  But my, you seem to be rolling right along!

 

bob

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On 5/15/2019 at 12:34 PM, Biggles87 said:

Coming on a treat Stew, you'll be finished in no time at this rate.

 

John

 

Thank you very much John, it's surprising how quickly even a big kit can go together when the parts all fit like Lego :) 

 

On 5/15/2019 at 12:57 PM, Josip said:

Keep in mind that canopy on real aircraft had strips taped on for reinforcement and since this was a tape, there were no rivets.  The canopy in this kit is full of rivets. Also the tires look weird. 

 

Josip

 

Thank you, you are correct Josip, and indeed it is worse than this as the reinforcement tapes were on the inside, so there should be no external framing other than the outer edges of the hood. The wheels do look strangely agricultural in nature, with the sort of tyres you might fit to your jet if you were going to drive it off-road,,, the Fisher Model and Pattern Company did make a set of replacement resin wheels but as they lost their home and business in the Californian wildfires last year I can't imagine they will be available in numbers any time soon. 

 

How big an issue these points are is up to the conscience of the modeller; for me they are not deal-breakers but your mileage, as they say, may vary :) 

 

On 5/15/2019 at 8:19 PM, gingerbob said:

I really like the F-84- it has a certain style, rather like flare-leg jeans or something like that.  And I've seen this kit built up, and liked it enough I got "one of each" (the early and late boxings).  My justification was that I could swap the drag brakes between kits, which I understood to be (generally?) necessary.  I'm officially a 48ther too, but sometimes you've just got to go large...

 

When I saw the topic and when it started I thought, "Oh, there won't be much to see yet."  But my, you seem to be rolling right along!

 

bob

 

Thanks Bob, I'm not sure what airbrake is included in the F-84E kit, but as I understand it it should be the one with four rectangular slots for most F-84s and the one with multiple circular perforations only being fitted from the F-84G 10-RE (S/N 51-1079) onwards. My principal reference is a fairly old Squadron Detail and Scale book but it looks a well-researched publication and I'd be inclined to trust it in the absence of any more recent contradictory evidence :) 

 

On 5/15/2019 at 8:27 PM, GREG DESTEC said:

Hi Stew,

 

The interior detail with the washes and detail painting look really good. Great progress so far.

 

Cheers Greg 👍

 

Why thank you mate :D 

 

So here is the main bulk of the innards, with the strangely Heath-Robinson-type gunsight apparatus fitted, and the rear decking:

 

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... and it does actually fit into the fuselage half pretty smoothly:

 

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... as does the jet-pipe and airbrake bay fitted above. I started work on the tailplanes and wings:

 

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No drama to speak of there, the flaps as supplied are in the dropped position, it wouldn't be much work to fit them raised though, just a matter of trimming off a couple of pegs. 

 

Joining the fuselage halves wasn't quite as simple as I had hoped, something was preventing the halves just clicking together (as they had in the dry run, so it is certainly my fault rather than a failing of the kit) and after adding the nose-gun cover and intake front I needed to add a little filler to cover my sins:

 

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Still I'm hopeful that won't be too visible once it is painted up...

 

Finally I added the extended tailpiece and the rudder:

 

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... which is where I am now. Hopefully I'll make some more progress today as I don't have anything else planned :D 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

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As I hoped I did get some more done yesterday. First I fitted the tailfins; I can't remember where but I read a review where the builder had found that they suffer from excessive dihedral and he had to go to some lengths to correct this, which rather spoiled his appreciation of the kit. I experienced something similar at one point and found that I was trying to attach the tailplanes the wrong way up - in fairness they are pretty much identical on either side apart from a small square inspection panel which the instructions indicate should be on the topside, I think this might be the source of the problem.

 

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I attached the flaps, ailerons and wingtip tanks to the wings:

 

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... and addded the inboard stores pylons which seem to have been a fixture. I did not make the holes for the two outer pylons as all the pictures of the French F-84s I could find showed a clean configuration apart from the wingtip tanks which were fitted in most cases:

 

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I masked the canopy hood using the Eduard mask set:

 

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... and the same for the windscreen:

 

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I then painted the white tape framing on the hood in Vallejo Off-White, and built and painted the internal gubbins:

 

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I then masked that framing so hopefully I won't need to repaint it at the end, but knowing the legendary adhesive powers of Vallejo paint I expect about half of it to peel off with the masking...

 

Finally I fitted the wings and tacked on the canopy ready for priming once the undercarriage is made up:

 

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It's qute big.

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

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As I was born in the former Yugoslavia I know something about F-84. In fact I just saw two of our former G models two weeks ago. 

The framing was fitted to the outside of the canopy. Do yourself a favour and fill those pin holes on the canopy with Vallejo putty and paint them over. I have seen this kit built up and it really spoils it a bit. The tyres however Will need to be replaced. 

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58 minutes ago, Josip said:

As I was born in the former Yugoslavia I know something about F-84. In fact I just saw two of our former G models two weeks ago. 

The framing was fitted to the outside of the canopy. Do yourself a favour and fill those pin holes on the canopy with Vallejo putty and paint them over.

 

I'll take your word for that, but I refer you to this review which states that the reinforcement framing was internal. My framing has remained on the outside anyway, since that is where they are moulded.

 

58 minutes ago, Josip said:

The tyres however Will need to be replaced. 

 

I am prepared to make allowances for English not being your first language, but in the absence of anything to replace them with, please do not presume to tell me what I must do with my model unless you are able to offer a constructive alternative :) 

 

Kind regards,

 

Stew

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