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1:72 Emhar McDonnell F3H-2N Demon


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Re painting the fuel dump pipes. Paint them red and use strips of white decal sheet like I did on my Phantom prototype. It's a fun way to while away a few hours.

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John

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On 17/05/2022 at 19:20, Navy Bird said:

One of these days I will have to build one of them shake 'n' bake kits one hears talk about.    :hmmm:

What's one of those?

 

Ignorant of Mars👽

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The Emhar kit of the Demon has quite a few braces/linkages, etc. missing from the landing gear. I added the most obvious bits with styrene rod, hoping that the gear covers will hide my laziness. The nose gear has two rods called "shrink links" that are quite obvious. They extend from the torque links up to the corners of the nose gear well. The Airwaves PE set includes these, but being PE they're flat. I prefer rods so I didn't use the PE. Now, the starboard shrink link has an interesting bend as you can see here:

 

nose gear 5

 

I assume this is for clearance of something when the nose gear is retracted. I managed to put a curve into the 0.025" rod (without breaking it!) - it's not perfect, but nothing I do is. The horseshoe that holds the nose wheel is a separate part from the strut, so I pinned that to make it stronger. I also made a new drag brace from rod which has the correct triangle where it attaches to the nose gear well, and the straight brace that connects to the nose gear strut. The rod that goes from the bottom of the drag brace to the lower portion of the strut contains the nose gear lock. I stuck some rod in to represent that as well.

 

IMG_6448

 

You can see that one of the shrink links is not straight! Better photo later on...

 

The main gear struts needed the addition of the lower lock link, a short piece that goes from the strut to the side brace link, and the drag brace which goes from the strut towards the rear into that small slot-like opening in the gear well. I hope I'm identifying all these properly - I'm trying my best to interpret the drawings in the Ginter volume, but seeing that I know virtually nothing about these sorts of things I could be wrong.     :)

 

IMG_6447

 

You can also see the PE that I added to the main gear well floor - I think this will look OK under some paint. Putty work has started on the wing roots, but still needs finishing. Actually, most of the putty work will need refining once some paint goes down. The indented slot on the lower fuselage above the front of the gear well is where the pylon for the drop tanks attach. If I don't use the tanks, these will need to be filled. I think.

 

Oh, yeah, I started working on the empennage - I rounded the end of the beaver tail and began work on the light at the very end.

 

IMG_6449

 

The light is a portion of a very small practice bomb from some CMK kit. I used a razor saw to split it so half would be above and half below the tail. I need to finish sanding this into shape, but I'm happy with it so far.

 

So, obviously the landing gear is in place. Cue shock and amazement from @giemme. I adjusted the location of the nose gear to help achieve a better nose-high sit of the aircraft. Once the tyres are added, the nose won't sit quite this high since the main gear tyres are larger than the nose gear tyre.

 

IMG_6450

 

You can see the bend in the shrink link better in this shot. So that's where we are. About 75% of the work is done, now I just need to concentrate on the remaining 95%.     :drunk:

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. On the down side of things, I discovered a nasty flaw in the vacuform windscreen (a rather nasty dimple) that will render it useless. I'm really disappointed in this Pavla set - I previously let you know about the issues with the resin forward fuselage parts and now this with the vacuform. I'd complain to Pavla, but, uh, they're out of business. I wonder why?      :hmmm:

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17 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Very Impressive detail sir, Im on the lookout for one of these or the 1/48 kit. Its one of my missing USN early jets.

 

Thanks! I don't build 1:48, but I think Hobby Boss and AZ (ex-Grand Phoenix) make injection moulded Demons.

 

12 minutes ago, Cookenbacher said:

Wow, that nose gear looks like it will actually actuate Bill!

 

Well, this is 1:72 scale young man. Let's not get carried away.     :)

 

5 minutes ago, Procopius said:

Holy crap, Bill! 

 

I'll take that as a compliment. Let's see what it all looks like when the gear doors are on and everything is hidden.     :doh:

 

Cheers,

Bill

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16 hours ago, John R said:

Re painting the fuel dump pipes. Paint them red and use strips of white decal sheet like I did on my Phantom prototype. It's a fun way to while away a few hours.

 

I forgot to respond to this - your idea is what I actually had in mind. I've learned from trying to hand paint arresting hook and/or missile stripes that I'm a real lousy hand painter. I may get lucky, however, as the more I look at this colour photo of the plane I'm building, the more the fuel dumps look to be grey or white. I have some other photos where they look grey or white as well. More research!

 

F3H-2N 137014 VF-122

 

Cheers,

Bill

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10 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Very Impressive detail sir, Im on the lookout for one of these or the 1/48 kit. Its one of my missing USN early jets. I hope to use your build as a study guide for when I build mibe. 

The 1/72 Sword kit looks like an improvement over the Emhar kit. Like Bill, I built my Emhar kit because I had it. I know there are modellers that sell their old kits when a better one comes out, but where’s the fun in that!

Edited by Robin-42
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15 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

obviously the landing gear is in place. Cue shock and amazement from @giemme.

Indeed! Each time you do that, my heart misses a few beats! :frantic:

 

But it's all looking excellent and carefully detailed,  so... 

:worthy: :clap: :clap:

 

Ciao 

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17 hours ago, Robin-42 said:

where’s the fun in that!

 

Wait - this is supposed to be fun? Egads, I must be doing something wrong!     :drunk:

 

Cheers,

Bill

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For those of you with exceptionally good eyesight, here is my first attempt at using my razor saw to make the slots for the photoetch wing fences.

 

IMG_6451

 

And if you're paying attention you'll know this is also my last attempt at making these slots (slits?). Why? You really only get one chance at doing this. Anyway, guess what? The Airwaves photoetch wing fences are too big (by a lot in some cases) and will have to be cut down. THIS should be interesting. At least my razor saw made a slot that is perfect for the thickness of these PE bits.    :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Ever wonder why the aftermarket stuff you bought to "correct" the kit is often worse than the kit? Yeah, I wonder that too.

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10 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

PS. Ever wonder why the aftermarket stuff you bought to "correct" the kit is often worse than the kit? Yeah, I wonder that too.

 

In my case, I assume their business model is something involving the ease with which people like me are parted from their money.

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Re the wing fences. On mine I cut the slots and just used sheet styrene, literally squares. Then a coarse sanding stick to sand them to shape. I looked at the brass in the Airwaves set and left it in the sheet.

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13 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

Ever wonder why the aftermarket stuff you bought to "correct" the kit is often worse than the kit? Yeah, I wonder that too.

In my experience that's a given if the packet says Airwaves on it! 

 

Ian

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5 hours ago, Brandy said:

In my experience that's a given if the packet says Airwaves on it!

 

Or Aires in 50% of the cases. I usually cut Airwaves some slack as these bits were designed and first made in the paleo-photoetch era. Which is no excuse, by the way, for Hannants to keep making them without any updates. But I suspect they will continue to do so as long as silly sods like me keep buying them.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. In Hesiod's scheme of the universe, paleo-photoetch slots in-between the Hundred-Handers and the adamantine sickle of Cronus. And we all know what he did with that sickle! Ouch.

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Given your dexterous detail around the nose wheel using plastic, I wonder what PE brings to the party (unless it was those spoilers with all the holes in…).

 

Sterling stuff!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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I don't think anyone would relish drilling all those holes in the speed brakes. It would have been nice, however, if Airwaves had properly centred the pattern - they have it shifted upward, almost to the top edge of the brake. Also, the arrangement and number of holes have a couple of very minor errors - no big deal on that one. Nevertheless, far superior to what's in the kit box. What I'm not looking forward to, since I plan on posing the speed brakes open, is building the structural details on the inside of the speed brake petal. There is a lot there, and I'm not sure how successfully I can duplicate it. I'm sure I will make compromises.

 

Meanwhile, having a go at the wing fences. The large wing fence, which was moulded onto the wings, was too thick and sanded off. I replaced it with sheet styrene, although I still need to do some final shaping now that it's in place. The smaller fences were put into the razor saw slots and then reshaped. Doing the reshaping in situ is a lot easier as the tiny and/or flimsy bits are supported nicely. Not happy with everything just yet, but it's getting there.

 

IMG_6453

 

These in-progress shots are always so ugly - I need to get some paint on this baby pretty soon. But that won't be real soon, as I'm heading out on Wednesday to drive to Maryland, pick up my son, and then drive on Thursday to Indianapolis for the 500 next weekend. After the race, I'll be driving the golf cart for a couple of days while he actually hits the ball, and then we drive back. I won't be back home here in Rottenchester until the evening of June 1st.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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16 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

These in-progress shots are always so ugly

 

Nope.   It’s just one plain ugly and clumsy looking aircraft; the Bill modelling is well up to usual highly exalted standards :D

 

 

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