Alex Gordon Posted June 25, 2022 Share Posted June 25, 2022 (edited) G'day Chums,I'd like to join in with this one if I may. This one came my way as a box of de-framed bits with no decals a few years ago. Separating out the components for use gave me this lot. I'm not going to use the gun bay so the first job was to fit the ammunition bay cover panel. The gun bay panel needed a fillet of plastic card at one end to fit properly. The seat,cockpit tub and intake trunking. The fin halves have been dry fitted and checked against the slot in the fuselage to make sure that no spacers are needed. The fuel tank halves have been glued together. Thanks for looking in Chums,more soon. Edited August 17, 2022 by Alex Gordon 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Welcome to the GB Alex,another classic to add to the Tally. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted July 2, 2022 Author Share Posted July 2, 2022 Hello again Chums,a spot of progress to show. Steve,thanks old chum.The kit seems to have been issued originally during 1980,Monogram really did do some good stuff back then that still stands up today. After a dry fit to make sure this would work the intake trunking was glued to back of the mouth.The pursuit of a seamless fit led me to spread the forward ends of the trunking to match the inside of the mouth. The seat has been painted,it just needs the black striping on the pull handles. The control column has been glued into the cockpit tub and a spot of Medium Sea Grey has been hairy sticked on to the visible bits with a matt black highlight for the twiddly bits. The underfuselage light glasses as supplied look like they are at the far end of a cave. They should look like this photo found here https://aeroscale.net/list/f-100d-super-sabre-walkaround The edges of the lenses were trimmed off leaving the centres which were flush fitted into the holes and some fancy finger work with some aluminium foil and a leather punch cutter eventually gave me some suitable looking reflectors to back them with.These were fixed in place with a drop of Klear. The aft fuselage section has been glued to the upper fuselage half and carefully aligned for minimum sanding and smoothing the joint.This isn't the best photo by any stretch but there is a visible arc at the joint where the fuselage moulding flares out slightly and will need to be levelled down to properly match.The inside of the jet pipe could do with a little extra something too. The intake trunking joints have been filled and patiently fettled to be seamless.The intake mouth has been glued to the upper fuselage half and lined up for a fettle free joint. More soon Chums,thanks for looking in. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 Nice work so far, The Monogram Hun is one of my favorites and my only sadness is the never offered an “F”. The Thud kit came in both options and their Delta dart should/could have come both ways 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 2 minutes ago, Alex Gordon said: The kit seems to have been issued originally during 1980,Monogram really did do some good stuff back then that still stands up today. I remember it coming out, it was not an area of interest, but always appealed from the review. So much so I did pick one up on here years ago from Julien, with some Aeromaster decals, a later issue in olive drab plastic though... Some excellent construction tips on this, I recall some other Mono kits of the era that I did (Me262, B-26) that now I could make a much better job of with some tweaks like the ones above. This kit was one of two that had a very good bit of AM made for it, a rescribing template! https://www.scalemates.com/kits/upnorth-scr48002-na-f-100d-scribing-pattern-tool-monogram--1028728 A really good idea for older kits with good shape... Anyway, I look forward to further tweaks of yours, often seems modellers have got lazy and expect AM fixes, when with 'some modelling skill' a lot can be quite easily improved. cheers T 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted July 3, 2022 Author Share Posted July 3, 2022 (edited) G'day again Chums,a bit more done this morning. Troy,thanks for dropping by old chum.That scribing template would be a useful thing to have but,noted tightwad that I am,I'd only buy one if I was going to build several of these.I've read a number of build threads on this kit,as no doubt have you,that seemed to imply problems in several places to the point of being fatally flawed and almost unbuildable.I can't remember the specifics in most of them so I'm feeling my way a little and finding that it's nowhere near as difficult as others have pointed out.As you say a little modelling skill goes a long way and is the whole point of playing this game. The tail section joint has been levelled down and just needs polishing to make the forthcoming metal finish easier.There was a bit of scratching in adjacent areas but nothing too serious. One problem I do recall in various build threads was the fit of the one piece wing. Dry fitting showed that one of the four locating pins was a bit tight,the top left one in this piccie. This was not letting the leading edge of the port wing sit properly.This was cured by shaving a touch off the contact side of the pin thus widening the gap slightly. The aft end of the lower fuselage needed to be pushed to starboard slightly and a 10 thou shim at the back port corner to level the joint. The port side intake joint needed a 20 thou shim for the same reason. There was a step on both side joints to sort out too. The upper fuselage needed to be spread a little both fore and aft of the wing.The prospect of this is limited by the way the wing fits.I put my SAM saw through the leading edge to fuselage joint and made a gap that the fuselage could be spread into. A couple of spreaders were then made and fettled until the main side joint matched up without the step and then glued them into place. Anyway,this is where we are this lunchtime. Oh,and I dropped it which elicited some pointed Anglo Saxon rhetoric and a clean snapped off starboard tailplane.And a couple of slat mountings. Thanks for looking in Chums,more soon. Edited August 13, 2022 by Alex Gordon Spelin 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 1 hour ago, Alex Gordon said: That scribing template would be a useful thing to have It was made a long time ago, the only other set they did was for the Heller Mirage IV https://www.scalemates.com/kits/upnorth-scr48001-mirage-iv-scribing-set--176882 I don't know how much they cost when they were available, but I bet a fair few are stashed away as they wear out.... I think they only did the two sets, perhaps not as a good idea as they thought? 1 hour ago, Alex Gordon said: that seemed to imply problems in several places to the point of being fatally flawed and almost unbuildable. Sort of thing I take as challenge.... Though it does depress me a bit that just doing some basic trim and shim work seems to be "too difficult" so the more these basics are given due space the better. Greatly enjoying the detailed build tweaks, having these written up will surely help someone later on. cheers T 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 Great progress Alex looking good,we have an ex-French A F F-100 in our local transport museum which I managed a sit in the cockpit a few year's ago. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted July 9, 2022 Author Share Posted July 9, 2022 Hello again Chums,some more to show. Troy,thanks for dropping in old fruit.I have to agree that the basic making the bits line up to avoid later fettling and building it up so that the fettling is where it is easy to get at seems to elude some folks,but there was a time when I was like that and wondered why I seldom made anything presentable.The thing that got me into making life easy was the few months I spent in a steel fabrication works as the grinder monkey,I soon learned the value of a well prepared good fit.I do try with any of my build threads to point out snags and remedies that work for me so that anyone treading the path after me might have an easier run at it. Steve,thanks old chum.I've only ever seen the one at Newark Air Museum many years ago when my fascinations lay elsewhere so I didn't pay much attention to it. Anyway,all this whittling about fettling I set about fitting the fin.As it is it sits a bit high in its slot and is slightly too short to cover the full length. Of course it has to be a curved mating face so bashing off the excess can't be done with a flat file.The edge of a scalpel blade did the honours with several dry fits throughout.I decided to put the slightly too short gap at the aft end and glued on a bit of overhanging plastic card to act as the backing for a spot of filler. No this is not the same photo as above,the difference is there but very slight. There are gaps at the wing roots on both sides,upper face and lower face.Masking tape was laid over the lumpy bits of detail to stop them filling up with the Milliput I slathered on and the smoothing was done using insulating tape wrapped around a small wad of bog roll and a drop of water. The previous owner separated the two mainwheel bay doors,a suitable piece of plastic strip will cure that one. The outer door panels were glued on and alignment set up with the aid of the rather natty diagram on the map. The black striping on the seat handles was next.The black outline on most decal sheets is ideal for this.I haven't a hope of masking and painting this accurately enough so the easy way it had to be.I found some useful photos here https://formulaf1results.blogspot.com/2017/03/f-100-super-sabre-ejection-seat.html The lining in the above photo broke up on contact with water so I found some on an old Heller Sabre sheet which had a carrier film and used that instead.One side went on easily,the other side just wouldn't (sticking to the tweezers,not staying aligned) so I went for it'll do and that's why one side looks a bit off. Gloss black paint has been dragged along all the major joint lines to make sure that they've been suitably fettled. The instrument panel has been drybrushed to pick out the quite superb detail on all the dial faces.I was going to use white paint but the tin had dried up so used a drop of Duck Egg Green instead. Dear Mr Humbrol, Why is it that my 40+ year old half empty tin of paint stirs into life with the merest provocation and works perfectly and yet my 9 month old only opened once and resealed properly tin of 34 Matt White has completely dried out in the tin and is unuseable. This isn't the only tin of your paint that has done this and at getting on for a couple of quid a time this is getting un-necessarily expensive. Anyway,I'm off to have another look at this site http://www.f-100.org/hun.shtml .More soon Chums,thanks for looking in. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterB Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 (edited) According to the review in my 1989 Detail and Scale, they considered the best kit of an F-100 in any scale at that time, and only had a few minor niggles about fit and slightly undersized drop tanks. They also say it comes with 2 different options for the jet tail pipe, an early one and a later one similar to the one on the F-102. They also said that most of the decs were wrong so no great loss there! Pete Edited July 10, 2022 by PeterB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted July 16, 2022 Author Share Posted July 16, 2022 G'day again Chums,some more progress to report. Pete,thanks for chipping in old fruit.Those who seem to know regard this kit highly.The spare aft end option is a useful thing to have,I've been using it to try out a few ideas for the heat stressed metal finish. I thought I'd have a bash at the jetpipe. It should look like this Photo by Bill Spidle,found on Primeportal here http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle2/f-100d_55-3754/index.php?Page=2 I drilled it out. That's when I realised that if I was going to make a proper job of it I should have done the work before fitting the back end.I decided to make a bag cover instead and,on the upside,the hole is the right size to take the length of wooden dowel that I will use when painting.I started with a square of carrier bag polythene. This was arranged and taped in place. Bog roll and slightly diluted PVA glue were prepared. I placed a decent size dollop of the goop on the polythene and added the bog roll square. More goop was brushed on around the sides and the bog roll was pushed on to it.The excess paper was then folded back to make a reasonable edge. More goop was then liberally slathered on,flattening out the paper and generally making all look like it grew there. This was left to dry for a while.I thought I'd have a play with the canopy.The insert was given a coat of grey at the same time as the cockpit tub. There were a few wince inducing moments as the four ejection pin marks were filed off the transparency edge followed by the verge of mild panic as the insert was fixed in place using liquid glue and set level so that it all sits right when fitted.There wasn't a lot of contact area between the two bits so a couple of lengths of stretched runner were added to give it all half a chance. The pylons needed a bit of a clean up and ejection pin marks addressing.I've decided to separate the fuel tanks from their pylons for ease of fitting and painting. By the time I'd got through that little lot the paperwork was dry enough to lay another square of polythene over the top and smooth everything off with a fingertip without it sticking when removed. A little more drying time later,not difficult given todays summertime temperature,has given me a reasonably solid cover that will fit and,after a cleanup,should look the part. More soon Chums,thanks for looking in. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mottlemaster Posted July 20, 2022 Share Posted July 20, 2022 On 09/07/2022 at 22:07, Alex Gordon said: Dear Mr Humbrol, Why is it that my 40+ year old half empty tin of paint stirs into life with the merest provocation and works perfectly and yet my 9 month old only opened once and resealed properly tin of 34 Matt White has completely dried out in the tin and is unuseable. This isn't the only tin of your paint that has done this and at getting on for a couple of quid a time this is getting un-necessarily expensive. Thats an intresting observation Alex as iv noticed this too . The last two tins of Humbrol iv purchased ,matt brown and satin black both had lids that felt too small . They practically came off useing my fingers rather than needing to be prized off with a lever . I always now clean around rim of pot and lid with cloth befoer putting lid back on and iv now taken to putting some tape over the top to help avoid gas escape from pot . Has anyone ever used 100% of a humbrol matt black pot apart from useing it all in one go Cheers Alistair 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ballman Posted July 20, 2022 Share Posted July 20, 2022 (edited) Interesting idea on making a Blower cover. Well thought out plan of attack with your HUN. thanks for sharing this. JB Edited July 20, 2022 by John Ballman 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted July 22, 2022 Author Share Posted July 22, 2022 (edited) Hello again Chums,a little more to show. Alistair,thanks for chipping in old fruit.I've never finished a tin of Matt Black yet and there's been a few over the years. John.thanks for dropping by old bean.I hope this build gives you a few ideas for your projects,most of the stuff you have seen here has been half inched from other builders but I'm not picky about who or where. The exhaust cover has had a coat of my approximation of Insignia Red (my tin of Xtracolour had dried out too) and I started to sand it smooth when I realised that it's PVA which doesn't play that game and I ought to think again. The main undercarriage bay has had some of the pipework picked out and the beam for mounting the mainwheel doors has been made from a piece of ICM Spitfire cannon bay cover and a length of plastic card strip. Around four years ago Mike Sweet of this parish sold me some decals,this sheet was among them. I've had a good dig round for photos of Triple Zilch but I've only found three,this one from f100.org one on ABPic https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1049478 and one on flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/dwhitworth/5686428912/ .These photos show two different exhausts and with or without pylons. The pylons as supplied would benefit from a bit of refinement.The outer ones just need the sway braces shaping,the inner ones have had the sway braces made from the closed maingear doors from the Airfix Pe 2 I finished last year. Thanks all for looking in,more soon. Edited January 21, 2023 by Alex Gordon 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ballman Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 How about putting some Mr. Surfacer on the Blower cover. Might help or make a thinly sheet of Miliputt and try the same technique again. JB 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 (edited) My first Monogram Hun was Triple zilch but using A/M decals. Its always been one of my favorite set of markings and someday will rebuild her. As for the exhaust cover Ive used tissue & foil cut in a circle just larger than the ring and pulled tight. This leaves little or no wrinkles. And then I just slop red paint on it. Edited July 23, 2022 by Corsairfoxfouruncle 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 Progressing nicely Alex. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted July 30, 2022 Author Share Posted July 30, 2022 G'day again Chums,a spot of progress. John,Dennis,Steve,thanks chaps. I wiped a thin layer of filler over the exhaust cover. The fuel tank pylons seemed to sit a little too far to the rear and impinged on the flaps. The mounting holes were turned into slots and the pylons now sit where they should.A spot of filler should fill the gap between it and the wing. There is no marked location for the wing fences but the map is definite about where they go. The arrestor hook is an odd thing.It doesn't sit well and some light modification seemed to be in order.Finding photos was a little time consuming.The first place I found was a chap who'd restored one http://www.supersabre.com/TailHook.htm .This didn't give me what I was looking for. Anyway,I chopped off the bit that wouldn't sit properly and had a ponder. The slats had a coat of silver paint which revealed some ejector pin marks that would benefit from removal. That done I had another dig around and found some decent photos here http://yolo.net/~jeaton/century/100/hun.htm .A couple of slips of thin plastic card later gave me this. The exhaust bag had a coat of paint and looks much better for it. More soon Chums,thanks for looking in. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted August 1, 2022 Share Posted August 1, 2022 Coming along nicely Alex with some great touches along the way,we have an ex French machine not far away at the Sunderland air and transport museum which I've been lucky enough to sit in! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted August 6, 2022 Author Share Posted August 6, 2022 Hello again Chums,a little more progress. Steve,thanks old chum.You did mention that earlier but I don't mind 'cos I still think you're a lucky,lucky... A small antenna made from copper wire has been fitted to the fuselage spine just aft of the cockpit and the hole for a blade antenna further aft has been filled with stretched runner. Gloss black has been sprayed as a primer. I've been having a look at photos of contemporary machines to this one and come to the conclusion that silver painted fuselages were the thing in the UK squadrons.The fuel tanks are different too so I'm not going to fit any 'cos I've none in the spares box.Photo from http://www.f-100.org . Revell 90 Silver was sprayed and the fuselage jointwork stuck out like a sore thumb. This joint is the worst one but they all needed a scrape back and a sand off to some degree. There has been more paint and some headscratching about how to set about the rear fuselage heat stressed metal. Thanks all for looking in,more soon. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 You will have the seam sorted soon enough. When I first came back to modeling I did one of these kits. I dry brused various shades of metals, clear blue and clear smoke, and finished with a hint of bronze and copper. I did everything with vertical streaks to get the heat stains. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted August 10, 2022 Share Posted August 10, 2022 You're doing a great job on turning this into a very nice model indeed. I think that both types of fuel tanks were carried by UK based F-100's so you could use the kit tanks if you want to. 🇺🇦 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted August 13, 2022 Author Share Posted August 13, 2022 G'day again Chums,paint on and something new attempted this time. Dennis,many thanks old chum.You're about to see my attempt at the heat stressed metal finish. Craig,cheers old fruit.My get out with the fuel tanks is the photos I've seen of this one don't have any fitted so I'll leave them off. Something I've never tried before is the very prominent characteristic effects of heat on the aft fuselage.I had a bit of an idea.Using this photo in the last post http://www.f-100.org/images/f-100d_53644-3.jpg as a guide I started masking,first the general area. The humble Coop carrier bag was then wrapped around the rest of the airframe. I then gave it all a light wipe over with some ground up pencil lead on a wad of bog roll.This revealed every fingerprint.Further rubbing didn't make it disappear,neither did IPA or water.The slightest whiff of white spirit stripped the paint so I decided to live with it. The substructure was then masked using narrow strips of tape. The first application was some highly thinned Humbrol 15 Gloss Midnight Blue and some Humbrol 68 Purple put on using a brush.This method threatened to remove the silver so I had to be a bit careful. The forward end was misted with a drop of very thin Xtracolour Dark Sea Grey using the airbrush.The aft end had a waft of Humbrol 9 Tan the same way,trying to graduate the tan/grey join.This was left overnight to dry. The substructure masking was then removed and another light waft of Tan sprayed in the general direction of all over. Once this had dried all the rest of the masking was stripped off and the whole airframe given a brushed coat of Klear.One thing I found is that I had been a bit heavy handed but that didn't come to light until the masking came off.When I do something like this again I'll have a paint chip of the base colour to hand so that I can compare and not lose sight of how subtle or otherwise I want the finish.The other thing I found was that the Revell 90 Silver,while it only needs the words "White Spirit" whispered gently in its vicinity to prompt it to strip off,is completely unaffected by my masking tape,no marks or anything. I always break something during a build,this time it's the Pitot Probe. A spot of drilling,reaming and trying to get the thing straight later 13 1/2 mm of 0.6mm stainless steel rod has been inveigled into the remaining stump to act as a replacement.It still looks bent,I'll maybe rework it. More soon Chums,thanks for looking in. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevej60 Posted August 14, 2022 Share Posted August 14, 2022 Coming on a treat Alex,what silver paint did you use ? I have a couple of kits on the go needing the dreaded silver finish. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted August 16, 2022 Author Share Posted August 16, 2022 Hello again Chums,there has been decalling. Steve,cheers old chum.The silver paint is Revell 90 enamel thinned with white spirit.It's a bit snot like in the tin and it doesn't respond well to the Terebene that I usually thin with. Spot the deliberate mistake.I was not going to remove the pylons so I had to think of a different method. I started by finding the outer end of where the star 'n' bar and the USAF markings were supposed to go and then placed a length of masking tape across it.A piece of plastic card was then cut to give me the angle of the pylon relative to the long axis of the decal. That gave me a template to cut the relevant decal.Making sure I was working on the correct item and the right way up I set up a straight edge and gently sliced using a new blade.The decal was cut slightly long allowing for the thickness of the pylon. While the decal was soaking off masking tape was wrapped around the pylon. Well that bit worked. The decal was bedded on a drop of Klear and positioned appropriately.The other end was positioned and aligned with the first bit,pressing down with a wad of bog roll and pushing tight into the corners followed,the masking tape on the wing was removed and all was left to dry. The No Step and Walkway markings are all on a continuous carrier film which I didn't notice until I came to use them,good job I had that new blade to hand. The canopy doesn't have anything in the way of positive location to mount it open. Some 0.6mm copper wire and a spot of hole drilling took care of that. More soon Chums,thanks for looking in. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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