Since a friend of mine sent me the AC F-6B kit I thought I might as well build them both at the same time as they are pretty much the same except for the wings/armament and some extra unused drop tanks.
Since he is in the US, and this is a builder, he sent it as cheap as possible so no box, which is ok as I don't need one. Originally I posted some pics on the "What's on the bench" thread of the MK1a but I'll repost them here.
Test fitting reveals a very good fit, for the most part, with panel lines that line up very well. One of the 2 main niggles are that the wings in both kits are badly warped, I'd started the MK1a by gluing them from the centre out, but with the F-6 I started from the tips and worked to the centre. Doing it that way made no difference to the end result, but I found it a bit easier.....
The second issue is the fit of the cockpit floor to the fuselage. Here you can see that it is a bit sloppy to say the least, the alignment slots are pretty useless if you want to keep things centred so I've started filling them
And then I've added a bit of .015"/0.4mm card stock to each side of the floor
and a scrap card stopper to the fuselage sides
And now a much better fit
Another minor niggle is the fit of the fuselage to wing fit, another bit of .015"/0.4mm card stock is glued to the bottom of the fuselage and thinned a bit to aid the fit.
A test fit reveals that the fuselage front where it attaches to the lower wing needs to be spread a bit, and that the engine cowling is the correct width so that when everything is glued together all will fit good. after playing around a bit I figure that it will be easier to get a good fit by fitting the cowling after the fuselage is glued together rather then gluing the separate cowlings to the separate fuselage halves.
And playing around with a bit of paint while playing catch up with the F-6, I never liked MM Interior Green as to me it always looked like a color that should be painted on the rims of a LawnBoy wannabe, so I mixed up some of my own to satisfy my idea of what it should almost look like, basically Tamiya black, Yellow Green with a bit of IJN Green thrown in for good measure
Another minor issue is the prop blades, basically out of the box they look like something that should be stirring sludge in a settling pond, nothing a good sanding stick and bit of beer won't fix though, so after a couple of good swallows I set about re-profiling and thinning the offending blades, maybe not the most accurate results but close enough for government work......(if you can't see the difference the reworked prop is on the left)
and what things look like in the last picture I took.....
Since he is in the US, and this is a builder, he sent it as cheap as possible so no box, which is ok as I don't need one. Originally I posted some pics on the "What's on the bench" thread of the MK1a but I'll repost them here.
Test fitting reveals a very good fit, for the most part, with panel lines that line up very well. One of the 2 main niggles are that the wings in both kits are badly warped, I'd started the MK1a by gluing them from the centre out, but with the F-6 I started from the tips and worked to the centre. Doing it that way made no difference to the end result, but I found it a bit easier.....
The second issue is the fit of the cockpit floor to the fuselage. Here you can see that it is a bit sloppy to say the least, the alignment slots are pretty useless if you want to keep things centred so I've started filling them
And then I've added a bit of .015"/0.4mm card stock to each side of the floor
and a scrap card stopper to the fuselage sides
And now a much better fit
Another minor niggle is the fit of the fuselage to wing fit, another bit of .015"/0.4mm card stock is glued to the bottom of the fuselage and thinned a bit to aid the fit.
A test fit reveals that the fuselage front where it attaches to the lower wing needs to be spread a bit, and that the engine cowling is the correct width so that when everything is glued together all will fit good. after playing around a bit I figure that it will be easier to get a good fit by fitting the cowling after the fuselage is glued together rather then gluing the separate cowlings to the separate fuselage halves.
And playing around with a bit of paint while playing catch up with the F-6, I never liked MM Interior Green as to me it always looked like a color that should be painted on the rims of a LawnBoy wannabe, so I mixed up some of my own to satisfy my idea of what it should almost look like, basically Tamiya black, Yellow Green with a bit of IJN Green thrown in for good measure
Another minor issue is the prop blades, basically out of the box they look like something that should be stirring sludge in a settling pond, nothing a good sanding stick and bit of beer won't fix though, so after a couple of good swallows I set about re-profiling and thinning the offending blades, maybe not the most accurate results but close enough for government work......(if you can't see the difference the reworked prop is on the left)
and what things look like in the last picture I took.....
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