Trumpeter 1/32 F-117A

[LOX]

Hello all,

 

To take a break from my X-15 and in an attempt to keep the motivation going I started on the F-117A from Trumpeter.

The ad hoc shape of the plane is something I really like, and again it is a all black plane.

But this time with no special metal alloys or ablative coatings, but stealth black or whatever that means.

 

I was surprised by the immense size of the model, I know it is in 1/32 but it did not hit me until the mailmen drop it off at my doorstep.

The whole fuselage is in one piece, the details are nice and clean, no deformations in the plastic. Lets hope this giant is less of a challenge to build than my X-15.   

With this model I also ordered some detail sets.

 

- The cockpit set from AIRES

- The big ed set from Eduard

- The weighted wheels from Armory

 

Lets begin. The bomb bay looks spectacular so I decided to build that first.

No real issues here, it all fits. The only thing I need to do is add some details from the Eduard detail set, paint it and glue it together.

The front of the bomb bay is where I begin, this looks the most challenging with the PE parts from Eduard.

 

 

 

 

And that is all for now, cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LOX]

Hello all,

 

Not much to tell, things go smooth. Continuing on the payload bay, I am just adding some small details.

The mechanism that lowers the payload have some badly placed ejection marks, so I am looking how to remove those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by LOX
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[Alan P]

Excellent project! Big, ambitious and you have the surgical PE and fabrication skills to make it work.

 

Don't mind if I pull up a chair for this build...  (as long as it doesn't stop you finishing the X-15!)

[LOX]

Thank you guys.

 

Work continues. The payload bay is mostly done, I added some details and PE parts to the bomb carrier.

The idea is to put one GBU-24 in the payload bay ( that's why only one bomb carrier has a brass pin in it)  and leave one out so you can see a bit from the inside. 

I probably gonna put this model on a mirror once it is finished because the most interesting parts of this plane are in the underside. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by LOX
Spelling

[LOX]

On 11/24/2021 at 7:45 PM, Alan P said:

Excellent project! Big, ambitious and you have the surgical PE and fabrication skills to make it work.

 

Don't mind if I pull up a chair for this build...  (as long as it doesn't stop you finishing the X-15!)

 

The X-15 sits right in front of me on my desk, so this should not be a out of sight out of mind situation

 

[Lewis95]

Looking great so far. May I ask what you used for the piping in the bay? Looks like kanthal vape wire to me or possibly lead?

[k5054nz]

I'm glad you're back on this one LOX, it's shaping up nicely. The F-117 has always been such a cool machine to me and with the recent videos of a pair being used in ANG exercises your timing couldn't be better!

[billn53]

1 hour ago, Lewis95 said:

Looking great so far. May I ask what you used for the piping in the bay? Looks like kanthal vape wire to me or possibly lead?

Same question here. And, how do you fix it in place without leaving ugly glue marks?

[LOX]

19 hours ago, Lewis95 said:

Looking great so far. May I ask what you used for the piping in the bay? Looks like kanthal vape wire to me or possibly lead?

 

17 hours ago, billn53 said:

Same question here. And, how do you fix it in place without leaving ugly glue marks?

 

Hello there.

 

I use solder wire for the piping. I have solder wire from 0,5 and 0,3 diameter, for the payload bay I used the 0,5.

 

And for fixing it in place, the way I do it is bending the wire in the shape that looks good to me and cut it in the right length.

Do a test fit to make sure it is good and then add a bit off zap a gap medium ca+ to the bottom of the wire and lay it in place.

Not to much, just a small dip from the toothpick onto the wire is fine. And I also have a very sharp tweezer.  

[Lewis95]

Thanks LOX. I may have to have a look at adding some pipework to things so I feel like a proper modeller now! I've never actually bought or used solder. Does it come on a spool? Anything to be wary of when using it?

[FZ6]

Looking good so far. I keep toying with the idea of getting one of these but haven't so far.

 

If you've not seen it yet, check out this thread for some inspiration

 

Look forward to seeing further progress.
 

Regards,

Mark

 

[uilleann]

Great work Lox - I recently pulled mine out of the box again and am hoping to start work on it again soon.  Several related projects in the works as well to improve several important aspects of the kit such as the engine RCS screens, the gear wells and the main gear struts, (they should all be "T" style as the nose gear is), correction of the exhaust vanes, and possibly even corrected intakes if you wish to model with the blow in doors open.

 

I did find a source for an almost invisible wire mesh screen for the FLIR and DLIR openings...the glass in the kit is incorrect and should not be used.  I can send on more info on that if you like.  Look forward to following along!

 

Brian~

[uilleann]

This is a quick snap with the phone of the screen.  The company, TWP Inc. out of California, provided a couple of 4" "sample" squares of their stainless "transparent" mesh for about $20.  They have several different weaves available, and I expect would work well for this application, and many others in scale modeling. I hit mine with a light spray of burnt metal paint to tamp down the sheen a bit, and it really seems to look the part.  Hoping this may be of use to others, and with apologies to Lox for the thread hijack!  😊

 

[LOX]

On 12/17/2021 at 11:03 PM, Lewis95 said:

Thanks LOX. I may have to have a look at adding some pipework to things so I feel like a proper modeller now! I've never actually bought or used solder. Does it come on a spool? Anything to be wary of when using it?

 

 

Hi Lewis, indeed you buy it on a small spool (see link). This will be enough for at least a few builds

No special things to be wary for just the normal things. a clean glue surface and patience.

 

 

 

 

 

On 12/18/2021 at 10:23 AM, FZ6 said:

Looking good so far. I keep toying with the idea of getting one of these but haven't so far.

 

If you've not seen it yet, check out this thread for some inspiration

 

Look forward to seeing further progress.
 

Regards,

Mark

 

 

Thx Mark, I found this one already. It has indeed tons of information.

 

 

 

6 hours ago, uilleann said:

This is a quick snap with the phone of the screen.  The company, TWP Inc. out of California, provided a couple of 4" "sample" squares of their stainless "transparent" mesh for about $20.  They have several different weaves available, and I expect would work well for this application, and many others in scale modeling. I hit mine with a light spray of burnt metal paint to tamp down the sheen a bit, and it really seems to look the part.  Hoping this may be of use to others, and with apologies to Lox for the thread hijack!  😊

 

 

 

Hi Brian, sadly I already glued the glass in place ... I did not noticed this. Maybe I can try and break it out ... I must think about this.

And as for the other changes you made, I have seen them, I admire them, they are in the back of my mind ... but I will see what I can do with the skills that I have now

 

What you say about the engine intake and exhaust is correct. But I am going to build this model with covers on the intake and exhaust (like on the photo). It looks cool and it brings some color into the model.

 

 

 

 

 

[uilleann]

Nice!  82-799 sits just up the road from me and I'm happy to try to get any reference photos needed if it may be of any help.  Though admittedly they haven't been exceedingly helpful in my getting any images in the gear bays for example.  But I'm happy to try again.  😊👍🏼

[LOX]

On 12/21/2021 at 4:10 AM, uilleann said:

Nice!  82-799 sits just up the road from me and I'm happy to try to get any reference photos needed if it may be of any help.  Though admittedly they haven't been exceedingly helpful in my getting any images in the gear bays for example.  But I'm happy to try again.  😊👍🏼

 

Hi Brian.

If you happen to have some photos from the back of the cockpit, and some from the HUD display that would be awesome.

Those ones are the ones I seem to find the least off.

 

 

Happy new year to all !!

 

Progress has been made, the payload bay received some paint. I did some pre shading and then the main color. painted the details and now it is ready for some wash and decals here and there.

It turned out alright. I definitely gonna put this bird on a mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[uilleann]

Here are a few I grabbed with my mobile on a day they did an "open cockpit" event with several of the jets.  Hope they may help somewhat - though the lighting was really awful in the hanger there, and the images aren't all as clear as I would have liked.  Still, better than nothing I suppose.  We were only allowed to approach from the starboard side, so no great shots of the rear of the cockpit area from port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LOX]

Brian thank you for the pictures. They will help a lot, I am a bit surprised how massive the HUD display is. On my model it is so fragile  

But I have one question. On this picture a see rivets ( bottom left) , is this normal ? I thought that the F-117 had a special "thick" radar absorbing paint that covers all the details.

Or is this one that is sandblasted and repainted ?

 

 

On 1/1/2022 at 5:36 PM, uilleann said:

Here are a few I grabbed with my mobile on a day they did an "open cockpit" event with several of the jets.  Hope they may help somewhat - though the lighting was really awful in the hanger there, and the images aren't all as clear as I would have liked.  Still, better than nothing I suppose.  We were only allowed to approach from the starboard side, so no great shots of the rear of the cockpit area from port.

 

 

 

[uilleann]

18 hours ago, LOX said:

Brian thank you for the pictures. They will help a lot, I am a bit surprised how massive the HUD display is. On my model it is so fragile  

But I have one question. On this picture a see rivets ( bottom left) , is this normal ? I thought that the F-117 had a special "thick" radar absorbing paint that covers all the details.

Or is this one that is sandblasted and repainted ?

 

 

 

You're correct.  The operational F-117's had an additional layer of filler (a putty, something like Bondo), then an additional layer of RAM material was applied over that.  My understanding is that this last layer went down something like sheets of Linoleum - just a few mm thick, but provided the final skin of the aircraft.  Any other joints or exposed rivets, screw heads and the like were always filled with a special RAM putty material to try to keep the surface as smooth and contiguous as possible, and/or painted over with the magic RAM paint you mentioned.  They were certainly extremely labor intensive to keep stealthy!

 

All of these now on display have had an extremely aggressive sandblast to remove any trace of the original RAM, and also the Bondo material as well.  In addition to the removal of the surface materials, the pressure from the aggressive blasting seems to have further oil canned or puckered the aluminum skin between the underlying frames.  In addition to the removal of any of the still "sensitive" areas such as the leading and trailing edges of the wings, and basically the entire nose and pitot tubes.

 

It seems that at least so far, none of the museums that have received these airframes for restoration have taken the care to recover the operational appearance, and seem to feel that just slapping a coat of any old flat black paint on them is more than enough.  This of course exposes the warped body, as well as the rivets you noticed - none of which was present on any operational aircraft.

 

So if you're wishing to model a true to life operational a/c (as I think most of us are), then the rule is no rivets or screw heads of any kind visible (apart from inside the cockpit), and even things like the molded on RAM tape patterns on the Trumpy kit, as well as the panel lines around the deicing lights etc, all need to go.  I think a more appropriate scale size of RAM tape  on a 1/32 jet would be much much thinner - think perhaps about the thickness of decal film (used without setting or dissolving solution of course to keep the film itself just visible), then shot over with a final coat of paint.

 

Does that help a bit?  Cheers!

 

B~

[LOX]

On 1/3/2022 at 3:24 PM, uilleann said:

Does that help a bit?  Cheers!

 

B~

 

This helps a lot, I was almost ready to draw lines and start to add rivets

Thanks for the input, much appreciated.

 

The payload bay is almost complete I added decals and a wash. It turned out pretty good, after all the setback with the X-15 I am happy this one goes smooth.

while the payload bay was drying I started on the wheel wells and again added some details, I don't know how much one will see of it in the end but I like it.

 

with decals.

 

Decals and wash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jered]

Looking good! How did you get the black cables so crisp?

[LOX]

13 hours ago, Jered said:

Looking good! How did you get the black cables so crisp?

 

Thx Jered.

I used Vallejo model air to airbrush the payload bay and to hand paint the smaller details.

 

The way I do it is put a few drops of the color on a painting pallet and then ( depending on the amount of paint ) add one drop off flow improver to it, this keeps the paint nice and liquid so you can paint without creating brush strikes.

When painting try not to do more than one or two passes. If that is not enough just let it dry ( Vallejo dries pretty fast ) and go for an extra pass. No need to rush things. 

And keep the paint brush clean. Next to the black paint I have a bit of Vallejo airbrush cleaner to clean the brush. So I do a couple of cables clean my brush and start again.

 

I have used Humbrol, Revell, Tamiya, mr.color paint but the Vallejo gives me the best result.

 

Hope this helps, cheers.

 

[GlueDad]

The bomb bay makes a great subject in itself - so I’m fascinated to see how the rest of the kit comes together. Thanks for sharing. 

[Serkan Sen]

The bay looks awesome. I will follow this build with great interest.

Serkan

[LOX]

Thank you guys, much appreciated.

 

As usual work continues, I started on the wheel wells. straight from the box it looks pretty empty, and the Eduard detail set is not all that impressive either so I added some extra details.

The photos that I found from the front wheel interior all look surprisingly crowded, To much for me to add so I tried to find some middle ground here.

 

The back covers are finished. And the front wheel cover I leave as its is from the box they look great, the Eduard detail set contains parts to add. but it basically says scrape all the existing parts off and put everything you removed back but than in PE.

So I thought I save me some time and put my energy somewhere else.