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1949 - Hasegawa 1/72 Grumman F9F Panther ****FINISHED****


PeterB

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Getting there.

 

DSC02059-crop

 

I now need to mask and paint the leading edges in dural. However on the Banshee the Tamiya tape peeled off some of the paint, so I will leave it to harden for a couple of days before starting. I think the resin replacement nose is very slightly shorter and thinner than the kit one and slopes down a little more on the top, but other than the shorter cannon muzzles I really can't see enough difference to justify buying it. I know D&S say it was wrong and it did not cost very much, but if you are building this kit I would not bother - up to you of course!. I hope it will not cause problems with the red decal on the nose, but we will see.

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On 11/4/2019 at 11:15 AM, PeterB said:

Hi TT,

 

Can I pick your brains? I notice that in the film version of "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" the Panthers have the inner wing over the intakes painted silver/dural from front to back - I have seen the same scheme on a few of the early blue Cougars as well. Do you happen to know when this scheme variation was introduced and if there was a particular reason for it as it does rather compromise the camo scheme? I assume it was due to paint wear as with the leading edges?

 

Incidentally that is a very useful website.

 

Pete

I regret that I don’t know why. It might have been an initial baby-step evaluation of the “unpainted exterior” that was implemented on a trial basis or one done in conjunction with it (direct comparison, i.e. same aircraft and operational use, of a painted and unpainted exterior).

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Hi Dave,

 

Apparently Grumman were fortunate in that engine manufacturers in the states had managed to aquire or build more powerful engines by the time they started work on the Panther - McDonnell did not have much choice when they started on the FH-1 Phantom and at one stage it looked like they might have to use 6 small engines. However they managed with 2 in the end, and when they scaled it up for the Banshee they stuck with 2, in this case 3250 lb thrust Westinghouse J34's. Grumman had a choice - the home grown 4600 lb thrust Allison J33 or the 5000 lb thrust P&W J42 which was a licence built version of the RR Nene. (as used in the Mig 15). The F9F-2 used the J42 whilst the F9F-3 used the J33, but it was not entirely successful so the J42 was retrofitted to convert them back to F9F-2's. The later versions used the somewhat more powerful 6250 lb J48 which again was a RR engine built under license, in this case the Tay. The Cougar was in effect a slightly modified Panther fuselage with an improved version of the J48 and swept wings, and was around 100mph faster!

 

Being able to use one engine made the Panther smaller and presumably a bit handier, so the Banshees were mostly relegated to recce and ground attack in Korea I gather. I think it is rather a good looking plane, though the Banshee is not bad either.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Thanks Pete. I didn't know that so many US engines (and Russian ones!) were based on RR engines. Though of course the Russian ones weren't built under license. A barmy decision by the British Government in 1949 (date from memory and may be wrong, don't quote me!) to honour pledges made to the Russians during WW2 I believe.

 

On 11/14/2019 at 12:56 PM, PeterB said:

The Cougar was in effect a slightly modified Panther fuselage with an improved version of the J48 and swept wings, and was around 100mph faster!

 

I prefer the straight wings of the Panther, aesthetically they look better - purely a personal taste of course! The Panther and your Banshee will make a great pair on your shelf!

 

Cheers,

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Hi Charlie,

 

That assumes the Panther gets finished as I am having problems with the decals! When I built a couple of elderly Hasegawa kits last year I noticed that the decs took a long time to soak off the backing paper but after that they were ok. These are taking twice as long and a couple of them have cracked! I am not looking forward to the red nose decals as the replacement nose probably means I will have to do a lot of adjusting, so I have given them a coat of varnish and will cut them in two before application. That should allow me to get the actual tip of the nose done before I apply the long thin "lightning flashes"and I may apply them over wet thinned varnish as suggested on one of the Frog threads. Mind you, I am unclear if they kept the bright markings when they went into combat in Korea - given the risk of interception by Mig 15's perhaps they overpainted them? Not that Sea Blue was exactly appropriate camo over land anyway!

 

I have about a dozen Hasegawa kits in my stash, all quite old and expensive to replace. I think I better start building them sooner rather than later as I don't want to have to replace the decs!

 

Incidentally, with regards to engines the J33 can apparently trace its roots back to the Power Jets/Whittle engine that was supplied to the US for development by GE and then passed to Allison, whilst in the UK it evolved into the RR Derwent. As you say we were generous with our technology in those days.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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1 hour ago, PeterB said:

I am not looking forward to the red nose decals

When I saw the box artwork in post #4 I cringed at the prospect of putting the nose decal on. Flat decal... curved surface? I think you may need too assist it with some suitably matched paint? Best of luck!

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14 hours ago, PeterB said:

 

That assumes the Panther gets finished as I am having problems with the decals! When I built a couple of elderly Hasegawa kits last year I noticed that the decs took a long time to soak off the backing paper but after that they were ok. These are taking twice as long and a couple of them have cracked!

Hi Pete.  I've been having similar problems with old Japanese decals. 

Luckily, I've hit on a very easy method of getting the decals off their backing paper, without stressing them:

  • make sure the decal paper is thoroughly soaked
  • get a kettle of water boiling, so that there's a good jet of steam coming out of the spout (you'll need to hold the auto cut-off down to keep it boiling)
  • hold the decal, paper side down, in the steam jet for a couple of seconds (tweezers recommended!).

The decal should then slide off, no problem!

 

Cheers

Cliff

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Thanks Cliff,

 

I managed to get the nose part of the red flash on but as I feared the replacement nose if thinner and more "pointy". It was a bit of a struggle but they have lined up reasonably well with only a little cracking and I will see how they respond to Microsol. I imagine some touching up will be required.

 

Pete

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Everything is now on except for the rockets, which I am just finishing off. The Panther will shortly join the Meteor F8 in the spray queue and should be finished by the end of the week.

 

DSC02094-crop

 

Here is a comparison with the slightly larger Banshee - almost the same length but a couple of centimetres less span. The natural metal leading edges are wider than on the Banjo and the F9F-5's used in the film Bridges of Toko-Ri also had the inner wing behind the intake in NMF full chord as mentioned earlier. I got away with using the nose red flash decs with just a little touching up, but it was a good thing I cut off the rear "flash" part and fitted it seperately as it took a lot of fiddling about to get the front part to fit the replacement nose. At the moment the kit has a coat of gloss varnish on for the decs, but I will tone it down a bit. No doubt the shade of Sea Blue is the wartime one and the post war one may differ a little, but it will have to do.

 

I do like the sea blue finish on the early jets and am seriously considering getting the Phantom 1 and maybe even Fury 1 and Pirate to go with them, now that they are available as injection moulded kits not vac-forms.

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What an excellent pair of jets Pete. I'm seriously envious! Really nice to see them sitting side-by-side. And well done with the red nose. :goodjob:

The Hasegawa Banshee seems quite hard to find, drew blanks at King Kit and on ebay.

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5 hours ago, ejboyd5 said:

Corogard on upper wing root was unit identification marking. Also seen on some Panthers and Cougars flown by the Blue Angles.

Reasearch on my Banshee build thread indicates that the leading edges were originally in the normal camo colour, but as that peeled off after a short while they were then initially left in NMF with a layer of wax or varnish it seems. Corogard (various spellings) does not seem to have come into use until around 1955/6 I think (about when the grey/white scheme was introduced) and thus post dates both of my builds, The kit manufacturers of course just say silver but I have used Duraluminium paint. I gather the Corogard had aluminium pigment added at the request of the Navy so it would have looked about the same, although some reports say it looked grey.

 

Interesting you should say that the inner wing band was an ID mark - before switching to the grey/white scheme there were a few experiments with various finishes I believe, and indeed some the Banshees seen on deck in the film "Bridges at Toko Ri" seem to have been in an interim scheme of overall NMF according to Tailspin Turtle, who wondered if the inner wing NMF was in fact one of the experimental schemes to investigate wear and tear on the paint/airframe. My references only show the "silver" inner wing band on late model Panthers.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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40 minutes ago, Johnson said:

What an excellent pair of jets Pete. I'm seriously envious! Really nice to see them sitting side-by-side. And well done with the red nose. :goodjob:

The Hasegawa Banshee seems quite hard to find, drew blanks at King Kit and on ebay.

Hi Charlie, the Panther is Hasegawa, the Banshee is Airfix and I got it from King Kit about 6 months ago. They had 1 in stock just now!

 

Pete

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Agree with Charlie, side by side they look even better than seperate items, which is something I always fall for and end up buying almost two of everything! 

Cheers.. Dave (also known by some mates as Noah.. of Ark fame!). 

 

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Both the Panther and the Meteor F8 are sprayed and finished and I will see what the weather is like on Friday. Hopefully I can get some outdoor pics for the gallery, but for the moment I have taken one of the underside indoors - I had to lighten it a bit!

 

 

 

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The white "T" shape is around the edges of the air brakes - not sure if it is a warning or what. I have gone with green door and wheel well interiors, blue main legs and silver nose leg. May be wrong but all are possible according to previous posts on this thread. Like the Banshee it has come out a little less glossy than intended - must be something to do with the Sea Blue Gloss paint I am using, as I sprayed a 50/50 mix of satin and gloss!

Edited by PeterB
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I gave up waiting for a bit of sunshine as the forecast is for rain until well into next week. The pics are going into the gallery shortly but here is one to close this build.

 

DSC02131-crop

 It is a nice looking plane to my mind, and went together easily enough except for a few problems with the decs. Whether or not the replacement nose makes any real difference I don't know. I can highly recommend this kit to anybody including the less experienced builders and it has been fun building it.

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  • PeterB changed the title to 1949 - Hasegawa 1/72 Grumman F9F Panther ****FINISHED****

Congratulations on another great build Pete. I’ve got the same company’s Cougar and this is a little motivation to perhaps bring it down and fondle it’s lovely crisp parts once again. Your Panther has turned out lovely and is a great deck mate to your earlier Banshee. 
 

Cheers and thanks once again.. Dave 

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