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Monogram Thunderchief


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This is my first build for this groupbuild.

 

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Scalemates states that the kit is originally from 1958 although this boxing is from 1976.  I believe that the original version of this kit had a working ejection seat.  The seat in this kit has a huge hook on the underside which fits into a slot in the cockpit floor but all the rest of the mechanism has been removed.

 

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This kit is pretty much as one would expect from a kit nearly 65 years old.   It is covered in huge rivets!  Millions of 'em!  :lol:   It also represents an early production aircraft without the cooling intakes on the rear fuselage. 

 

I usually build this sort of kit as a nostalgia build but this time round I think it will end up as a weird mutant - neither fish nor fowl.  I am building a Trumpeter F-105 in the Century Fighters GB. I have replaced the cockpit with a resin unit and will not be using the fuselage cooling intakes.  I will therefore be grafting these onto the Monogram kit but I won't be doing anything about the rivets or detailing the gear bays.

 

I will also use the Trumpeter decals to represent the famous "Polish Glider".  Lifecolor have released a new set of paints to represent the SEA camouflage scheme, so I will be trying these out on this build.

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Enzo Matrix said:

This is my first build for this groupbuild.

 

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Scalemates states that the kit is originally from 1958 although this boxing is from 1976.  I believe that the original version of this kit had a working ejection seat. 

 

Funny you should mention that! My parents bought me a kit when I was young - it had both a "working" ejector seat and a "droppable" Nuclear bomb and I could not remember if it was Monogram or Aurora, but I have had a look on Scalemates and the Monogram 1958 version did indeed have those debatable attributes. Here is mine not sure what scale it actually is or if it is Monogram.

kits

Not the best of photos as my cameras was pretty basic in those days. The Airfix Phantom and Revell F-111 were somewhat later purchases of course. Airfix grey paint on the F-4 as "Gull Grey" was only just starting to arrive in the model shops in Yorkshire after I built it!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Looks like they replaced most of the old "working" parts but I think the cockpit floor still has the slots in for the length of spring steel and the hole that the "hook" on the seat went through! If this boxing is "9808" then the review in D&S says it seems to be based on the short nosed YF-105B of which 13 were apparently built, but they reused it a few times claiming it was the longer nosed F-105G, though the nose looks quite long to me. No sign of the revolving bomb bay door which I think it had so you could open it and drop the bomb or the hinged canopy!

 

I will watch with interest!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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16 minutes ago, PeterB said:

 No sign of....  the hinged canopy!

 

 

The canopy is definitely hinged.  The hinge is along the centreline which is incorrect for a Thud canopy but would have made the part easier to mould.  However, the pivot pins are tiny and I imagine that the canopy would have followed a similar trajectory to the seat.

 

 

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Don't remember any problems with the canopy but the pilot went a fair distance - however he had a bright orange survival suit so that helped😆. For some reason I thought all US jet crew wore them - don't know if it was the kit instructions or I had seen a photo somewhere. Might even have been correct in this case if the red tail means it was supposedly based in Alaska, not that I would have known that at the time.

 

Pete

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am building a Trumpeter F-105D in the Century Series GB using a replacement resin cockpitr.  This meant that I could use the Trumpeter cockpit for this model.   Hiwever, it did require the length of the cockput floor to be reduced to fit.  As you can see, plenty of room for ballast!

 

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Fuselage closed up.  I sprayed the splitter plates with the relevant camouflage colour but I think I got it wrong, so I will need to do a bit of work with a hairy stick later on.   The kit actually represents an F-105B and so does not have the rear fuselage cooling intakes.  These were taken from the Trumpeter kit with some plastic card used as a very basic representation of the strangthening plates.

 

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Main assembly complete.

 

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Firstly I sprayed a couple of thin coats of lacquer from a rattle can and then followed them up with grey car primer, again from a rattle can.

 

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Then a coat of tan.   I am trying out the new SEA paints from Lifecolor.  This is UA-562.

 

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a coat of lacquer to protect the paintwork and then some masking using my usual technique of blutak worms and masking tape squares, sealed with Copydex.

 

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Sprayed with Lifecolor UA-561 to represent FS 34102 and then another round of masking.

 

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Next job was to spray the FS34079.   The new Lifecolor paint is UA-560 but to my eye it is far too light.  There is barely any contrast between it and UA-561.   So I went back to my old favourite of Xtracrylix XA1110.   I rather like the way it has turned out.

 

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On 7/20/2022 at 6:00 PM, Enzo Matrix said:

 

 

Maybe a spring.  Maybe a lazzy band. 

On my old version there was a length of spring steel which slid into slots in the cockpit floor. The seat, complete with pilot had a "hook" underneath and was pushed down against the spring and once in place was held by a catch operated by a small "button" on the side of the fuselage AFAIK. You pushed the button backwards a little to release the catch and the seat/pilot was shot up and out of the pivoting canopy - fortunately mine was wearing an orange painted "survival suit" and could eventually be recovered as it was a powerful spring! You can just imagine a dad building up the kit and presenting it to his small son at Christmas - kid presses button and family spent half of the day trying to find the ruddy pilot!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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