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RAAF Ca27/F86 AVON Sabre Fujimi Tasman models conversion 1/72


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Howdy, another start, and hopefully a finish to this one, the A7M2 is going slow, scratch building parts and mods need a learning curve, more on that later.
On the the GB contribution, one of maybe 3, follow on if you would like to see what else is up!
Plan is to do OOB mostly with some "necessary" mods if needed.

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So I got the kit by the start date, hard part out of the way, so its all easy from here, scratching everything would be well a pain.
Until I seen what lay waiting for me.
Check out the sprue gates...use your imagination and you can see the part!

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By this stage i was most definitely no impressed, have had this extremely hard plastic close to shatter if cut wrong. Flash was bad, but not atrocious.
this actually looks like desaturated Jade (stone) and has a feel much the same to boot. shatters too!

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Ok looking past the initial shock, i went to do a dry fitup of the fuselage halves and wing assembly. i must say with a spot of sanding the seams were spot on, with the lines being consistent and continuous.

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  So far so good!

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Will definitely add some nose weight, she looks like a tail sitter at this stage and seeing other examples in a local hobby store.
Regardless, first impressions aside, the Tasman models conversion to the fuselage and nose seems accurate, albeit with its own issues inherent to conversions.
I would buy it again if my hands were tied for options. 

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Till next time
Darius

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@Corsairfoxfouruncle the fit is surprisingly good, and lines well done considering it's a small run.

The funny part is the contrast if the super hard tasman fuselage to the super soft fujimi parts.

Seems to go together on a test piece with normal glue so must be just normal styrene.

Yeah go slow and do many cuts, the experience with the nose was not as bad as i expected, cutters and diamond file made light work, and once brought together, there are minimal gaps in the fuselage, so i can recommend. 👍

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A small job done for the day was making sure attachments were square such as nose cowl, and tail jet exhaust outlet.
Fitted cockpit and sanded, then some more, then s'more. Got it mostly fit as well as spread out the intake tube to open it to match the intake nose cowl as were the instructions, which fowls on other parts such as undercarriage unit.

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All going swimmingly...
Observed that the kit doesn't have internal structure to hold the various bits in location for correct mounting.
One such item was the rear can. To resolve this from floating basically anywhere out back, i used the original kits fuselage as a jig, with the fan blade backing moved back 1mm to compensate for the Tasmans differing dimensions.
This was attached with a bit of sprue from the donor kit with a bit of .5mm sheet to compensate the gaps in the fortunate hole in the fan casting.
Since was the original location, i could be confident of it all being central(ish) and was rather pleased with the result.

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Used the wing opening to glue the back of fan once the rear can was seated and central in the fuselage.

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So far so good

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That was until  i was doing some research on the exact model serial i was building. Bad move..
Specifically this image which is what im basing off
http://www.adf-gallery.com.au/gallery/Sabre-A94-988/A94_988_Kev_Kearle 

Problem wasnt obvious, then i noticed the fins on the wings, then the fins on the drop tanks..then i saw this 

 

I bought the wrong damn kit!!!! it was meant to be a F86-F, not a F86-F40

 This means longer wings...so they need clipping, no fins on either wing/tank, and wrong lines on the spoilers. A big old damn!
Well the money is down so will have to work around it and well, scratch I guess. Another learning curve.
Before getting too upset i decided to see if all the work and alingment was in vain or not...

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And the rear can. All obviously mocked up.

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Got the intake made up, needed 0.5mm spacer to line up.

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Made some locating tabs for the cockpit area. Not having them is a pain to line up... every..single..time, and would make it even harder when exactly I don't need it such as last fit up.

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Also decided i needed better detail behind the ejection seat. This took a little while.

Made come card to the canopy profile as a base, then added the hydraulic train for added effect. Turned out just right to my eye.

 

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Super glue is super tacky, so most of my issues came simply from static electricity and the glue itself. The fit was no worries!

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I...i couldn't help myself. 

Saw missing landing lights, and they needed to go in.

I plan on using SMD less to light them up. For lenses i also plan to cut up old LEDs plastic tubes to insert.

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I started drilling out and chiseling the machine gun ports, until i stood back to see what a mess i had made. To rectify as well as define the shape correctly i proceeded to form a 3.2mm tube in the right profile and then add the slats the original guns have. 

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So finally this is the result, on the left is a prototype of the original guns shape on the fuselage skin, decided i needed more precision i didn't have, then moved to the tube version. The cutout piece is the one I tried to refine, and the kits gun lacking depth. 

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I promised myself not to scratch build, but i also need to flex the skill otherwise there is no learning it. Struggle alright 

 

 

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Well you at least saved me: I bought exactly this combination to make an Avon Sabre (one day).  I've never been able to get clarity on whether Fujimi kits are really available in both short and long wing versions, nor exactly which is which. Most kits are just labelled 'F' which doesn't help much. Greetings from across Bass Strait.

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3 hours ago, Peter Lloyd said:

Well you at least saved me: I bought exactly this combination to make an Avon Sabre (one day).  I've never been able to get clarity on whether Fujimi kits are really available in both short and long wing versions, nor exactly which is which. Most kits are just labelled 'F' which doesn't help much. Greetings from across Bass Strait.

Greetings indeed! Short or long, i will scale the fujimi against some plans to double check this is the case. It may be about 2mm to cut off from memory but will make sure.

A few more discrepancies noted thus far are the wing scribe lines are not correct, nor does this kit seen to have the wing fins. 

Lastly the long range tanks are incorrect

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Last night we got lockdowns again here in Victoria (aus) so apart from watching the news to see which store had run out of toilet paper (an endemic behavioral trait re: lockdown hoarding)

That means more model time! Yay!

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Glad i did the modification, adds depth even without being 100% accurate.

 

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 Here it is with the assistance of bluetack holding it all together.

Below, the cut outs for the landing gear (front) needed clean up and plastic card filler to make the cutout fit the pan.

 

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Whilst I used 3.2mm tube, i would recommend something with a smaller diameter next time around. The problem is that the internal radius is visually tighter on the real plane. Also making a parallel jig to slide into the gun barrels on installation to help aid with alignment. It's a small thing but can pay big rewards once it's all together as both Port and starboard sides are easily seen together, and any difference is easily noted.

Another comment on the tasman kit is it seems they need to retool, as the panel line details on such things as access panel are so worn down as to be less effective than shading from a pencil. Keep that in mind as i have been avoiding sanding any more than what is necessary to bring out the lines at a later stage.

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I'm enjoying following this. I started one of these conversions a couple of years ago, now might be a good time to resurrect it for this GB, I didn't get much done & it should be under 25%. I have an Academy F-86 with I think the correct 6-3 wing.

Steve.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Slow burn on this project i must admit.

The upside that it gave me time to have parts come in.

Didn't have time at home so decided to chip away 10 minutes every lunch this week. I did get more done due to that, also helps with the image lighting!!

Namely PE 

 

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Got started on the seat, and played with some tamiya expoy for the first time to build up a pad. Not convincing but happy there is something there.

Added the canopy details for the hydraulic mecanism, which worked perfectly with the scratch built stuff so it's a win by simple luck!!!

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Landing gear 

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Sorry, bad photo.

 

Used the spare epoxy to ghetto weight the nose down, so as to not waste what i had made up.

 

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Also this is worth considering, the decals with the jays model kit.

On their own, they are...ok.

Compared to others available

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 Then there is the model alliance one; knocks it out of the park. 

 

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 I got a CMK undercarriage detail set, but will be using it in a new kit down the road.

Another idea down the road is to build a vignette with spare fuselages from this and the future build into a bone yard/ wrecking yard

Enough for now 

Darius

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Looking at said CMK undercarriage set made me yearn for more details.

This was started by walling up the wing half's with .5mm plastic sheet (i think) 

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This was all well and good till i realised my mistake of making the wheel bay narrower thanks to not sandwiching the sheet rather than lazily just popping them in. 

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Moving on, i had an ercksome feeling that the weights i placed weren't enough to hold down the nose 

Sure enough i was correct in my thinking once it was (again) dry fitted.

My solution (on top is said lead weights) was to use an american coin i had laying about in my unusual coin collection. Since it is flat it makes for the perfect shape and size (and weight to not labour the point) to do the said role. 

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CA it in and on to the next job of fawning over my half creation 

 

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Forgot that the PE set i had, actually included undercarriage details, i set out to install the paneling showing the wing spar cavity with circular cutouts, that meant to remove what i had installed yesterday, and this was the result on both Port and Stbd, but only on the fwd face of the wing, as the aft was not included.

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Cockpit details too 

 

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Next was the control stick, needed to give it more life...

From this 

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To This...

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used a pe saw, then diamond file to visually soften the leather base. I feel it worked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Finally made a decision on the wings, going from some plans (not the best but enough for measuring) it turned out i need to clip them off. I will get exact measurements soon but looks around 3-4mm.

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No going back now.

By some coincidence, the new width is almost the same as the fuselage is long. How about that. Also i feel o would like to integrate strobing position lights with the help of fibre optic cable. For now this is the result so far.

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  • 1 month later...

Cutting it a little close to the deadline, but another update from about a week back. 

Made use of the fact i needed to clip the wings and installed as a dry fit my idea to use fibre optic cable to transmit the position lights on the wings edges. These will be tinted appropriately.

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 Cockpit assembled with PE 

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 Dials sanded back and dash boxed in to make way...

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notice the 1mm hole in the back. This is effectively a projector...

 

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Black primer to help with light leakage 

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The reason I went down this road is to be able to use the clear transfers the Edward PE set had included.

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Will be using (a) for the US type, not the japanese type.

 

The rear struts got the same treatment with PE, left is the set, right is mine made up as it made the sound of ricocheting all over without being found.

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How everything looks blacked out. This is being lit with a small SMD LED. About 1mm across.

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Cockpit extra details

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Till next time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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