RF-101C Voodoo 1/48. +++ Finished +++

[Rob K.]

The main reason for not progressing very well with my Spitfire Mk XIV is partly down to some Home DIY, but mostly the fun distraction that the Kittyhawk Voodoo has presented itself with.

Got the kit a couple of months ago from mainland China and soon discovered that it needs quite a few corrections to make it an accurate representation.

 

 

Luckily there is a great thread here on BM from@quangster and I have pretty much followed his methods for improvements albeit in a different order.

 

So it is not going to be an extensive WIP, because pretty much all of the info is in @quangster ‘s thread below:

Nevertheless, I’ll post some of the progress I am making and I first decided to tackle the most difficult modifications:

 

The Exhaust or Burner Cans. Even these shorter ones need to be modified and additionally reduced in length:

 

 

The intake lips were modified with the 4 unnumbered parts  in the kit to represent the correct shape for the RF-101C following @quangster ‘s method. Enlarged the front external splitter plates and inserted new internal intake splitter plates which took multiple efforts to get the contours right. I completely removed and discarded the internal kit splitter plates. The intakes are the most difficult modification and it took me a few hours for a few days in a row to come up with an acceptable result. The lips were very easily damaged and had to be carefully repaired/filled more than once with sprue goo, Tamiya filler, car filler and CA glue. The intakes don’t actually come as separate parts. They were sawn off the wing and will be glued back later with panel and rivet detail scribed on the primer coat. 

 

 

 

Adding some vents/exhaust on the Starboard fuselage (some tidying up to do still) and removing the reflective strips which have been sanded away with primer applied for checking:

 

Painted some of the jet engine parts:

 

 

 

Planning on doing an Natural Metal Finish. 
 

Probably one of the top 2 schemes below:

 

That’s all. Thanks for watching.

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

 

[TeaWeasel]

Looking good so far. I much prefer the second scheme down, that art on the tail is pretty cool. 

[RidgeRunner]

Sun Run! 

[Rob K.]

9 hours ago, TeaWeasel said:

Looking good so far. I much prefer the second scheme down, that art on the tail is pretty cool. 

 

6 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Sun Run! 

Thanks. The top 2 schemes are definitely my favourite. The Sun Run scheme has the benefit of a nice story behind it. See YouTube link below:

 

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

Rgds,

 

 Rob 

[RidgeRunner]

The Sun Run programme had a few nice Voodoos

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Excellent start with an excellent kit, Rob! I’m in. 🍿

[RidgeRunner]

It interesting that Kittyhawk got the Taiwan machine wrong. It was an RF-101A!

[Rob K.]

42 minutes ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

Excellent start with an excellent kit, Rob! I’m in. 🍿

Thanks Nikolai. I have seen your posts adding to the Quangster thread and made full use of them. 
 

Rgds

 

Rob

42 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

It interesting that Kittyhawk got the Taiwan machine wrong. It was an RF-101A!

Yes, I am not sure. Perhaps that is where the slightly longer exhaust from the kit came from. (Which I hade to slightly modify for the RF-101C). So maybe correct in the kit from that perspective? Anyway, not entirely sure. Will have to dig into the Quangster thread again to solve that question. 😉

 

Rgds,

 

 Rob 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

13 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

It interesting that Kittyhawk got the Taiwan machine wrong. It was an RF-101A!

They’re not knowing about its modifications, despite it’s a lovely kit. This kit is a mixture between all the Voodoos... 😉

 

13 hours ago, Rob K. said:

I have seen your posts adding to the Quangster thread and made full use of them.

Also you can find some useful information in my own thread here:

[Rob K.]

8 hours ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

 

Also you can find some useful information in my own thread here:

Thanks Nikolay, I just went through it with my morning cup of coffee. Very useful and I have picked up a few things along the way to use for my build. Great end result by the way 👍

 

Thanks for pointing this out.

 

Rgds,

 

 Rob 

[Rob K.]

Hi, last night I addressed the sink marks with CA filler and Tamiya filler:

 

The air brakes had the most prominent distortions, but hopefully addressed after the filler was sanded down (I also have the Eduard PE replacements, but will keep these kit originals as a backup in case they don’t turn out well):

 

 

The back of the fuselage also had 2 spots on either side where the plastic had sunk a little:

 

 

And last but not least the various doors etc, now ready for primer:

 

 

That’s all, thanks for watching,

 

 Rgds 

 

Rob 

 

 

[Rob K.]

Whilst going to the various threads, I realised the reflective strips on the wing tips also have to be removed. So sanded the wingtips into shape. The nav lights will have to be added at a later stage.

 

 

Looking at some pics of the undercarriage, the small insert as per below do not show, so the seams were filled with CA and sanded flat:

 

 

Managed to do some painting as well. Tamiya LP-7 for doors, flaps and housing, air brake. Wheel wells call for FS-34102, which happened to be mr Color 303:

 

 

 

That’s it for today.

 

Thanks for watching,

 

 Rgds 

 

Rob 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Looking good, Rob! 👍 The painting job is so accurate.

[quangster]

Haha, for whatever reason 😉 this WIP gives me a pleasant feeling of deja vu.

Sun Run heh? I’m following this thread with interest. 

Cheers,

Quang

[AlexPopov]

Nice and tidy paint work.

[Rob K.]

53 minutes ago, quangster said:

Haha, for whatever reason 😉 this WIP gives me a pleasant feeling of deja vu.

Sun Run heh? I’m following this thread with interest. 

Cheers,

Quang

Hi Quang, 
 

Your Voodoo WIP and that of @Nikolay Polyakov are so very useful in building this kit.

Great not to have to reinvent the wheel and have various sources right there.

It’s quite a nice kit despite a few shortcomings and I am enjoying the build so far.

 

Nice to hear from you.

 

Rgds,

 

 Rob 

[quangster]

I hope you’ll have as much fun as I had. If you have any question, just ask.

Cheers,

Quang

[Nikolay Polyakov]

3 hours ago, quangster said:

Haha, for whatever reason 😉 this WIP gives me a pleasant feeling of deja vu.

Hello Quang, I have the same nostalgic feelings about it! It’s great to hear from you again.  🙂

[Rob K.]

Did run into a little bit of trouble. I had damaged the photo etch (what I think are called) exhaust flame stabilisers by Eduard through handling the aft fuselage.

 

 

 

Decided to remove them and use the kit stabilisers, but they are chunky:

 

 

They don’t look anywhere near the original part, but then neither does the Eduard P.E. replacement:

 

 

So I decided to start thining the kit part down by carving, sanding and drilling:

 

 

The final result with some lazy Tamiya spray can aluminium applied:

 

 

Not my best work, but with the nozzles to cover you will only see a faint outline, which will do fine.

 

That’s all for now.

 

Priming of the aft fuselage next, to check for irregularities and glueing the wing halves together.

 

Thanks for watching,

 

 Rgds 

Rob 

 

[quangster]

Quite an improvement indeed, Rob.
But keep in mind that in normal conditions one wouldn’t be able to see the actual burners on the real plane (unless you put your head in the exhaust and use a flashlight).
There’s an annoying tendency to accumulate tiny and (sometimes) fancy details -especially with the current 3D- print technology- and overlook glaring errors in shape and dimensions.
In my book, while it’s worthwhile to add details which are visible to one’s bare eye and under normal lighting, everything else is pure hubris.

Of course YMMV 😉
 

4 hours ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

Hello Quang, I have the same nostalgic feelings about it! It’s great to hear from you again.  🙂

Quite a class reunion, Nikolay 😜. I started a second Voodoo but got diverted to another project. Nevertheless someday soon….

 

Cheers,

Quang

[Graham T]

You're doing a sterling job on this.  I built it a couple of years ago but found it such a clunky kit that it only stayed on display for a couple of months before being binned.  Biggest issue I had was the terrible lack of detail in the cockpit & the incredibly weak undercarriage joint with the wing!  Decals were awful too.  I'm afraid it REALLY put me off any further Kittyhawk offerings!

[Rob K.]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

You're doing a sterling job on this.  I built it a couple of years ago but found it such a clunky kit that it only stayed on display for a couple of months before being binned.  Biggest issue I had was the terrible lack of detail in the cockpit & the incredibly weak undercarriage joint with the wing!  Decals were awful too.  I'm afraid it REALLY put me off any further Kittyhawk offerings!

Thanks. Agree it does need some attention. Whilst Dry fitting the landing gear, I noticed it does not seem to have a very positive fit to make it sturdy, so will have to look into that.  We’ll see how it turns out.

 

Rgds

 

Rob

[Rob K.]

Made some further progress, glued the wing halves together and checked the fuselage for imperfections. Think it looks acceptable. The arrow head shaped small inlet vents which come a separate parts on the bottom of the fuselage don’t look quite right and we will see if it needs any further work.

 

The Wings to fuselage fit is quite good. On the images they are dry fitted with only minor gaps with little filling required.

 

 

 

 

That’s all for today.

 

Rgds,

 

 Rob 

[Rob K.]

Hi,

 

Currently working on the tail and discovered like a few KH builders before me that the starboard horizontal stabiliser has no tab of significance. Have thought of trying to drill into them and fix them with a V tube arrangement, however, the stab is pretty thin and I would have to get the dihedral right. It would have been nice to place the stabs last and have them painted separately. I might just glue them with a strong Bond of Styrene cement reinforced with CA glue and smooth everything out while the tail is still bare plastic. Paging @quangster and @Nikolay Polyakov with the question how you dealt with this? Couldn’t quite make this out in your WIP’s. Any advise is appreciated.

 

On a positive note, the joint between fuselage and wings look good. Normally don’t use Vallejo putty much, but for these small gaps it is ideal and like CA filler it is non porous, so should be good with a metal coat of paint later.

 

So not much progress, but thanks for watching.

 

Rgds,

 

 Rob 

 

[quangster]

For the horizontal stabs, I remember I had a problem evaluating the actual dihedral as it appeared to change according to the viewer’s angle (in the end, it was only an optical effect).

Now about the missing tab. I think I made a spar from wire, added the dihedral and glued it to the 2 stabs. At least IIRC 😜

Cheers,

Quang