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Kinetic 1/48 CF-188 Hornet


Seawinder

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This will be my first GB participation. It happens to coincide with my local club's annual theme, "Oh Canada." I have chosen Kinetic's 1/48 CF-188:

 

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I'll be using what looks to be a wonderful decal set from Two Bobs for one of the RCAF's over-the-top anniversary schemes, "60 Years of NORAD." There are many photos of this plane to be found online. This one is from the Two Bobs instruction sheet:

 

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Here's a shot of the decals:

 

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I'll also be using 3D cockpit decals from Quinta Studios. I'll post pics of the cockpit once they're installed.

 

Cheers, Pip

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I've finally gotten going on this project. I used a Quinta Studio set for the cockpit details. Call me lazy, but I'm really focused on the paint job/decals and want to get the assembly done as quickly and easily as possible. If you haven't ever tried any QS sets, they're vinyl decals with 3-D contours and excellent color detail. First task is to remove all molded detail from the cockpit tub pieces and instrument panel.

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Here's the tub after removing the detail. I mainly used the No. 10 Xacto knife and, especially, the file pictured. The latter is a special tool and dear to my heart: It belonged to the father of close family friends, a model builder in his retirement and before that an engineer employed by Grumman Aerospace for many years. He was hired in 1943; his first task was the design and engineering of the Hellcat wing. He remained with Grumann right up to the Tomcat era, so he was involved in all the 50s and 60s jets.

 

Once the raised detail is removed from the cockpit tub and instrument panel, the Quinta Studio bits are applied. Just like ordinary decals, you cut one off the sheet, dip it briefly in water, and then slide it off the backing paper. Unlike ordinary decals, there's not enough adhesive to affix it to the model, so you pat it dry on a piece of paper towel, spread some white glue on the model, and put the piece in place. There were a total of 14 separate bits, some overlapping, and they all fit perfectly.

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My only criticism of the QS set is that the gray areas don't match what should be the cockpit color, Dark Gull Gray 36231. I repainted the tub in Light Ghost Gray 36375 for a better match. There won't be too much of it showing once the ejection seat is in place.

Cheers for now, Pip

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1 hour ago, Seawinder said:

My only criticism of the QS set is that the gray areas don't match what should be the cockpit color, Dark Gull Gray 36231. I repainted the tub in Light Ghost Gray 36375 for a better match. There won't be too much of it showing once the ejection seat is in place.

Cheers for now, Pip

 

I've noticed the same problem with the Eduard LOOK instrument panels... completely wrong grey, almost blue in their case. 🙄

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The colour may not be entirely correct (I had similar issues with an Eduard PE set on my Do 217), but they do look good in place, Pip. I've yet to use one of their sets, but I'm definitely interested. Quite a tale about your friend's father, that was quite a career!

 

James

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After several more days of work, the top and bottom fuselage assemblies are just about ready to be joined. The cockpit assembly fits neatly into the lower fuselage:

 

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I had read that the intakes would be an issue, so I diverged from the assembly sequence in the instructions: I assembled the splitter plates and outer intakes first before installing the interior intake ducts. Without them in place, the rear fuselage could be flexed enough that I obtained a decent fit of the outer intakes, just necessitating a relatively minor amount of filling to hide the outer seams:

 

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I then was able to tweak the placement of the intake ducts to get as good a match as possible. They're not perfect, but I think they're much better than if I had installed them first. Here's the rear lower fuselage with the ducts and exhaust trunking in place. The main gear wells piece has also been installed and painted white with a wash of Tamiya Dark Brown panel line accent to dirty them up. The piece is underneath the intake ducts.

 

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That's it for now. I've already dry-fitted the upper fuselage piece; looks as if it'll go on without fuss.

 

Cheers, Pip

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I reached a significant milestone today: The fuselage top/bottom halves are now joined, and the nose assembly has been attached.

 

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I was prepared for a struggle getting the nose assembly to fit, but it went together surprisingly well -- much better than various online articles had led me to believe. Test fitting the joint minus the nose gear bay front bulkhead looked promising. When I added the bulkhead, I found the small lower locating pins were too widely spaced for the piece to mate with the fuselage, so I simply cut them off. I also thinned the bulkhead slightly with sandpaper just in case. The resulting joint had no step and just a few small gaps to be filled.

 

It wasn't very clear how the refueling probe door fit the inner box, nor how the assembly would fit the fuselage. Since I intended to have the probe retracted, I left the pieces out and carefully glued the probe door in place once the nose had been attached. It fit just fine.

 

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The LEX and rear fuselage seams left gaps that will need to be filled. Thankfully, the surfaces in both areas are without significant steps, so the filling should be fairly easy:

 

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Once the seams have been filled, the next step will be slats and flaps. Here I've got a dilemma: Although most photos of parked Hornets have the slats and flaps extended, the Two Bobs decals for the wings are not segmented and so would have to be cut to pose the model that way. I'm a bit leery of trying that because the risk of ruining the decals seems fairly high. What do people think?

 

Cheers, Pip

 

 

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You're making great progress there Pip - you've dealt very well with the fit issues that I found so frustrating. Re the flaps, build it your way! I did it with flaps up when I built mine. I guess it would have been nice if Two Bobs had included segmented decals - Leading Edge did in the set I used.

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Thanks, Zebra. Actually, a closer look at the Two Bobs sheet revealed that they did segment the wing decals for the flaps, but not the slats. I'm thinking that the deflection of the slats is small enough that I can probably do it safely.

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I've made up my mind to do the model with extended flaps and slats. There are a good number of photos of the plane showing the flaps extended, but none that I've found showing the slats down taken from above. What I therefore can't determine is whether or not there would be an interruption of the wing graphic with the slat down. If so, I assume it would be a thin strip of dark blue. What do folks think?

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By the looks of the Hornet on the box top, the slap looks hinged around the top of the wing and not much of a gap there. I found some A-A images of your bird and the is a very small strip of blue visible with slats deployed.

 

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Looking forward to seeing this one done, I found Julian's build thread here as well which was nicely done.

 

 

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16 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

By the looks of the Hornet on the box top, the slap looks hinged around the top of the wing and not much of a gap there. I found some A-A images of your bird and the is a very small strip of blue visible with slats deployed.

 

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Looking forward to seeing this one done, I found Julian's build thread here as well which was nicely done.

 

 

Thanks for that info Ray! Having test fitted the slat, at small deflection angles the gap appears to be insignificant, so I may not even bother trying to replicate the blue strip.

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It's been a while since I posted, but I have been making some progress. I've begun the paint job: the under surface Light Ghost Gray is done, and I've started masking for the white areas. I'll post some photos once that's a bit further along. In the meantime I've done one small bit of scratch-building: Canadian Hornets are now fitted with an anti-jamming GPS antenna on the fuselage spine aft of the cockpit. This prominent feature is neither provided in the Kinetic kit nor by any aftermarket producer of which I'm aware. I made the antenna by cutting three circles from .010" sheet styrene, 3/8" in diameter and gluing them together. I then cut a circular piece of masking tape to cover the central area which will be left in gray. I used sanding sticks to bevel the housing, and I rubbed the bottom of the fitting over sandpaper placed on the fuselage piece so that it would conform to the contours. Here's the finished antenna with the masking tape still in place:

 

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Cheers, Pip

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Quite a bit of progress since my last update. After dealing with various small gaps I got started painting. First up was the under surfaces Light Ghost Gray. I primed with Mr. Surfacer 1000 and finished with MRP LGG, which I found to be a better match to my FS595 chip than Mr. Color's rendition. Next were the lower fuselage white areas. These required cutting masks for the white/gray demarcations, which don't have any red striping (decals sooner or later). At this point I also painted the large white area along the fuselage spine and nose. For the white, I primed with Tamiya spray white primer, decanted, thinned with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. The final white coats are Mr. Color Gloss White (C1). I then applied masks for the white/blue demarcations. These will have red striping, so I carefully laid Tamiya masking tape over the stripe decals, traced them, and cut the curves with a sharp blade. This shot shows the masks in place:

 

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The Two Bobs instructions call for a blue they identify as FS 15056, and they recommend Mr. Color Bright Blue (C80), but neither of those colors compares well with the many good photos of the plane to be found online, so I mixed my own: I started with Mr. Color Blue Angels Blue 15050 and added Mr. Color Gloss Purple a few drops at a time until I was pleased with the appearance. Here's where things stand as of now:

 

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I'll need to attach the outer slats and the flap hinge covers before I make the curved masks for the wingtip areas. The inner slats have been installed (the metallic leading edges are still covered with masking tape) because i'm building the model with drooped slats and need to have them in place to set the proper angle for the outer slats. More to come ...

Cheers, Pip

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A couple more days of work: The main paint job is basically finished, all four slat pieces are now installed, and the four flap hinge covers (or whatever they're called) are in place. I had to install them because the white/blue wingtip demarcations pass over them. They were the most fiddly part of the build so far: They fit okay, but Kinetic didn't provide any mounting stubs since the same pieces are used for flaps extended and retracted. Luckily, some good shots of the area are available online that show the amount of droop.

 

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As you can see, the eight flap actuators are also installed, but I won't attach the flap pieces at least until after the landing gear is on. Here's what she looks like from the front:

 

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I still have to paint the "bird slicers" gray and the vent inlet area stainless steel.

Here are a couple of shots of underneath. Two Bobs provides a vinyl mask for the false canopy painted on many RCAF Hornets including this one. Once I had it properly placed (fair amount of trial and error), I mixed black and FS 36081 to make a black-gray color pretty much matching the decals TB provides for the demarcations on the lower stabilators (but doesn't provide for the lower wingtip demarcations).

 

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To make the lower wingtip gray demarcations, I traced the upper wing (red) decals onto masking tape, cut them out with a knife, and used them as templates. They came out okay, but on the whole I'm glad they're underneath.

 

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Next step is to paint the vertical tails (more white/blue demarcations with red striping). Then it's on to what promises to be a marathon decal session.

 

Cheers, Pip

Edited by Seawinder
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It's looking really good, Pip, very nice work indeed. I'm looking forward to seeing it with the decals, but I sure don't envy you for having to do it!

 

James

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Decaling has begun, and the red striping, about which I was the most anxious, is nearly complete:

 

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The Two Bobs decals are printed by Microscale, and they're really good: thin (but not too thin), opaque, and strong enough to be moved around. I'm especially pleased with the long stripes along the fuselage spine. They're printed in two sections per stripe. The front section includes the curve forward of the cockpit and a kink just about even with the strake on the LEX. This necessitated precision with the blue/white demarcation. To achieve this I scanned the decals and cut out the forward stripe. i also traced the centerline of the curved part of the decal onto masking tape and cut it out with a knife. I then taped the paper dummy onto the model, lining up the kink with the panel lines. Finally, as carefully as possible, I applied the masking tape to line up with the curve of the paper dummy. Voila. More to come ...

 

Cheers, Pip

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Okay, the main topside decals are all on. Here are a couple of shots with the vertical tails in place, but not yet glued. The big wing decals were challenging because of some bumps underneath and getting the edges of the slats and flap hinge covers delineated. Same for the outer vertical tails. Still, I'm pretty happy with the way things are looking.

 

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Cheers, Pip

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It always feels like a milestone when the gear goes on, so here's an as-she-stands photo, which also gives you a chance to admire my immaculate workbench. All the fuselage and wing decals are on, but I still have to put a fair number on the flaps and stabilators. I had read complaints about slop in the main gear, but I found that the link pieces from the well to the main struts determined and firmed up the angles. OTOH, the drawing in the instructions is of little help in correctly placing the link. I have a set of Royale Resin wheels which I'll use instead of the kit parts. The holes have been drilled out to fit the kit lugs, but I have yet to paint them. More to come ...

Cheers, Pip

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Your Hornet looks utterly gorgeous!

 

On 9/2/2022 at 1:51 PM, Seawinder said:

the drawing in the instructions is of little help in correctly placing the link

Pretty much the same as everything else in this kit's instructions then

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