Italeri 1:72 F-100F Super Sabre

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Hello, Britmodellers! 👋

 

This kit was started some time ago as a quick background build alongside with Mi-24A, but some issues were revealed soon and all slowed down... I bought the box during sale and it’ll be a great addition to my Century Series kits. As always, I want to start from a little in-box «review».

 

The box is a modern Italeri cardboard box with an excellent artwork:

 

There are four painting schemes presented on the back of a box:

 

Maybe I’ll choose this one:

 

The box content:

 

The decal sheet is large and beautifully printed, looks like there will be no issues on applying the transfers:

 

Runner A with the port fuselage half:

 

Two (early and late) types of afterburners here:

 

The quality of these moulds is a spot on, even for this kit from 80s:

 

I like these pipelines on the MLG struts:

 

Runner B with another fuselage half, lower wing surface and other bits:

 

Looks good:

 

Runner C with the clear parts (one-piece canopy and gun sight):

 

I started from filling an ejector pin marks with the Sprue Goo:

 

Also I’ve done some subassemblies:

 

That’s all for today, thanks for looking at and have a nice modelling week! 😉

 

[billn53]

Hey! Thanks for posting this. Notice that the decals include a Hun from the 79th TFS, which I’m modeling with my current ESCI F-100D build.

Italeri’s F-100s are based on the ESCI kit, but Italeri introduced a few flaws. The main wheels are too large, and on the “D” they added an extra canopy frame. On the “F”, I’ve read the center canopy frame is in the wrong place.

Nothing that can’t be corrected with a little aftermarket. 
-Bill

[Nikolay Polyakov]

30 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Hey! Thanks for posting this.

Welcome aboard, Bill! 🤝

 

31 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Notice that the decals include a Hun from the 79th TFS, which I’m modeling with my current ESCI F-100D build.

Nice-looking scheme, too!
 

32 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Italeri’s F-100s are based on the ESCI kit, but Italeri introduced a few flaws. The main wheels are too large, and on the “D” they added an extra canopy frame.

The first issue I’ve discovered here is the messy cockpit. Both instrument panels looks strange for me and the cockpit tub are too low inside the fuselage... As you can see on picture above, I’m already glued the cockpit tub to the nose wheel well. Now I separated them and started to rework an IPs. 🧐

The second was discovered on dry fitting the wings assembly to fuselage. Latter is too (2 mm) wider. Two fuselage halves were sanded and now all fits well.

 

37 minutes ago, billn53 said:

On the “F”, I’ve read the center canopy frame is in the wrong place.

I’m not ready for this yet... 😬

 

37 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Nothing that can’t be correct with a little aftermarket.

As I started to rework the cockpit and have no aftermarket parts, I decided to scratch build all the necessary parts from the sprues - let’s call it a small challenge! 😉

[corsaircorp]

Here we are !!

I started a huge conversion moons ago, turning the Old Monogram kit into a  -F 

Then Trumpeter issued a F.....

So I will have 2 F's .... I never let a kit down....

Another kit bashing.... That I will restart soon....

I(ll follow if you don't mind it...

Sincerely

CC

[Nikolay Polyakov]

19 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

I started a huge conversion moons ago, turning the Old Monogram kit into a  -F 

Then Trumpeter issued a F.....

It’s a Murphy’s law, isn’t it?! 😹

 

23 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

I(ll follow if you don't mind it...

Sure thing, Alain! 😉

[Serkan Sen]

Nice introduction Nikolay. I have many F-100 kits in 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32 scales. Who knows, maybe one day I can build at least one of them 🙂

Serkan

[Nikolay Polyakov]

30 minutes ago, Serkan Sen said:

Nice introduction Nikolay.

Thank you Serkan, welcome aboard! 🙂

 

30 minutes ago, Serkan Sen said:

I have many F-100 kits in 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32 scales. Who knows, maybe one day I can build at least one of them 🙂

I think you’ll build a few at once, according to your current projects! 😉

 

Meanwhile, I started to rework the cockpit. The seats were assembled and slightly modified, the pilot’s IP was partially scratch-builded and co-pilot’s IP is waiting for its shroud:

 

The nose wheel well already attached to the starboard fuselage half along with some supports for the cockpit tub:

 

The fuselage moulding has a slots for the pilot’s IP that were filled with the Sprue Goo. Thin plastic on both fuselage sides was melted and I added some plastic chip... Practically the same issue as @billn53 showed us earlier.

 

Thanks! 😎

[Back in the Saddle]

Looks like a great kit, I shall enjoy watching this one progress!👍

[Nikolay Polyakov]

47 minutes ago, Back in the Saddle said:

Looks like a great kit, I shall enjoy watching this one progress!👍

You’re welcome Matt, it’s great to see you’re in! 🙂

[Whirly]

Hi Nikolay,  I built this Italeri boxing a couple of years ago, please note how the seats provided are a bit wide: if you plan to use the kit supplied canopy (which is quite thick), you will have issues because the seat rails clash with the inside. At least in my case, I had to nearly demolish the seat rails to fit the canopy. 

 

 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

On 14/06/2022 at 12:57, Whirly said:

Hi Nikolay,  I built this Italeri boxing a couple of years ago, please note how the seats provided are a bit wide: if you plan to use the kit supplied canopy (which is quite thick), you will have issues because the seat rails clash with the inside.

Hello, there were my first thoughts after lifting the cockpit floor. I sanded some plastic off the seats to reduce their height, also removed plastic under the seats with the help of chisel to have more space for the canopy:

 

Now the cockpit fits great and looks finished, but not 100% accurate as you can see 😼:

 

The rear IP I’ve made is too wide along with its shroud, so I decided to put a «spacer» on top to imitate its height.

 

On 14/06/2022 at 12:57, Whirly said:

At least in my case, I had to nearly demolish the seat rails to fit the canopy.

I removed nearly 1/3 off their width and now canopy fits really well:

 

Guess what?! I decided to open an intake and make some tubing inside it... Will show you later. 😎

 

Thanks for looking at! 👋

[RidgeRunner]

Does anyone out there know if the Italeri D-model of that era has the same level of detail? 

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, RidgeRunner said:

Does anyone out there know if the Italeri D-model of that era has the same level of detail? 

I went here and had a look at the instructions (there’s a link on the page). They seem to show a bit of cockpit detail, and detailing on the inside of the gear doors and wheel wells.

PS: nice work on the cockpit!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Nikolay Polyakov]

12 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Does anyone out there know if the Italeri D-model of that era has the same level of detail? 

The «D’s» cockpit has the same issue with an IP and looks similar to what we’re having for «F». I’m glad that you’re in, Martin! 🤝

 

12 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

PS: nice work on the cockpit!

Thank you Adrian! 🙂

[RidgeRunner]

1 hour ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

The «D’s» cockpit has the same issue with an IP and looks similar to what we’re having for «F». I’m glad that you’re in, Martin! 🤝

I’m interested in knowing whether the Italeri D has the extra jet pipe etc

[RidgeRunner]

1 hour ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

I’m glad that you’re in, Martin! 🤝

That’s very kind, Nikolay

[AdrianMF]

9 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Italeri D has the extra jet pipe etc

The instructions (see my post above) show two alternatives.

[Nikolay Polyakov]

16 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

I’m interested in knowing whether the Italeri D has the extra jet pipe etc

Here you can check nearly every kit’s sprues, very useful site for knowing what’s in the box.

[billn53]

On 6/25/2022 at 1:42 AM, Nikolay Polyakov said:

 

Guess what?! I decided to open an intake and make some tubing inside it... Will show you later. 😎

 

I want to see how you do this. I sacrificed a Trumpeter intake trunk for my ESCI F-100D, a method that doesn’t need a donor kit would be helpful.

[billn53]

On 6/25/2022 at 3:13 AM, RidgeRunner said:

Does anyone out there know if the Italeri D-model of that era has the same level of detail? 

 

Here are photos from the Italeri D-model in my stash:

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

And yes, Italeri's D includes both early and late afterburner nozzles.

 

[RidgeRunner]

Thanks Bill. it was the alternate jet pipe I was interested in

[Nikolay Polyakov]

On 27/06/2022 at 16:14, billn53 said:

I want to see how you do this. I sacrificed a Trumpeter intake trunk for my ESCI F-100D, a method that doesn’t need a donor kit would be helpful.

It was just a yogurt plastic bag rolled into tube. I sealed the one end, while the other was inserted into the nose kit part and some TET was applied to:

 

Also the White Acrylic Putty was used inside the tube to make it smooth.

 

Just before joining the fuselage halves I made an opening for the cockpit insertion, because I decided to paint it later:

 

Cutted pieces of plastic were used to slightly reshape the forward fuselage part:

 

I think the single-seater kit doesn’t have these problems because of its short nose. Next will be sanding...

 

Thanks for watching! 😜

[The Spadgent]

Lovely measured and detailed work as alway my friend. I’ll tag along if I may.

 

Johnny

[AdrianMF]

Nice work on the intake tube, in particular, and the other fettling looks good too.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Nikolay Polyakov]

On 12/07/2022 at 01:05, The Spadgent said:

Lovely measured and detailed work as alway my friend. I’ll tag along if I may.

Thank you Johnster, you’re always welcome! The detailing wasn’t intended - but it’s great to try something new. 😉

 

On 12/07/2022 at 15:33, AdrianMF said:

Nice work on the intake tube, in particular, and the other fettling looks good too.

Thank you Adrian, now the intake trunk looks less toy-ish.

 

There’s a lot of other work here, so I’ll notify you about some updates later. Thank you for having an interest! 🤝