N.A. / Sud Aviation T-28S 'Fennec', 1/48th scale.

Most excellent old chap!

Thanks chaps.
I've been measuring and checking in preparation for fitting the nose wheel bay, and dropping the flaps. As the kit is designed to have retracting undercart, with the nose and main gear bays being, I think, later additions (can't remember them on the original, 1950's kit), there's a bit of fiddling and botching to be done, and a lot of work to make the kit gear legs resemble actual gear legs.
I'll post pics of the results of my efforts when there's something to show, but meanwhile, here's what the kit landing gear legs look like - as you can see, basic is a bit of an understatement!
In addition, the nose gear leg has the yoke and axle on the wrong side - it should be on the starboard side of the leg!
There is a white metal set available for this old kit, but in truth, it's not much better than the kit parts (possibly a direct copy, in metal!), and also has the nose gear yoke on the wrong side!
Improving the legs, and swapping around that nose gear yoke, shouldn't be too difficult, but fitting the rather nice resin wheels will take some thought, as the kit 'axles' are far to big, so will probably be replaced with metal 'pins'. Again, I'll illustrate this when I reach that stage.
The pics show the main and nose gear legs, along with the part for the nose gear bay, which has been cut-down in order to allow re-location of the nose gear leg mounting point.
I'm having an early night tonight, as I'm off to the RAF Museum Conservation Center at Cosford tomorrow morning, so won't get much more done now before Thursday.

Great results Terry. You'd never know that you're having trouble with your hands after seeing those pics. Keep it up!

awesome work on the cockpit Terry

Thanks very much, Andy and Wayne. Just got back from Cosford, so I'll be busy re-sizing pics of the restoration of the Wellington, Hampden, Typhoon and Fw-190, to post on the forum sometime tomorrow, so next up-date might be tomorrow night or, if not, then sometime on Friday.

That sounds tasty Terry!

Great stuff Terry and I admire your perseverance. My dad and Granny had severe arthritis in the hands so I can understand what you are going through.

Geo

Thanks Andy and Geo.
Almost finished selecting and editing the Cosford photos, and should have some posted by tomorrow. Just about to get back to work on the Fennec, with the nose wheel bay and wing fit to sort out, before moving on to working on the wings. Might have some pics later.

Looks good so far Terry! Keep plugging away.

Thanks Hugh. Nothing further to show yet, as I've been sorting the Cosford pics, but should have some more done tomorrow.

A bit later than anticipated, but more progress has been made, and I feel as if I'm getting somewhere now.
Quite some time has been spent checking on the fit of the wing and the adapted nose wheel bay, bearing in mind the departure from the kit build sequence, and also establishing if the undercarriage legs, once modified, can be fitted after the wings, main wheel bay and nose bay are in place. These are supposed to be mounted before joining the wing and fuselage, which, of course, would cause complications when painting, not to mention probable damage to the modified parts whilst handling.
Having established that this can be done, with a little modification here and there, and some fiddling about, the wings were attacked, literally, by separating the flaps.
As every T-28 I've seen on the ground, 'live' and in photos, has the flaps lowered, and the aircraft even has an external lever to manually lower the flaps, in order that the boarding steps, set into the surface of each flap can be used, I decided that this had to be done.
After checking and measuring, it was apparent that the flaps could easily be separated from the top and bottom wing halves, and then fitted in the down position, later in the build, after minor modification and additions.
PIC 1 Shows the flaps being removed, with the aid of the trusty razor saw.
PIC 2. Holes for the landing lamps have been drilled, filed, and then backed with plastic card, and will be 'mirrored' and glazed after painting the model. Holes have also been drilled for the mounting pins for the SNEB rocket pods. The scratch-built gun pods will be mounted by glueing the flat rims of each pod directly to the wing surface, the areas for each pod being masked during painting. These will be modified drop tanks, from the spares box, and will be shown later in the build.
PIC 3. The blisters shown arrowed 'A' are a requirement of the kit's retractable undercart and operating doors, and need to be removed, as they are not on the real aircraft. Scratch-built doors, and retraction mechanism and door stays, will be added later. The gap in the front of the wheel bay, shown at 'B' needs to be blanked off, and the hole in the speed brake ('C'), which I believe was intended for a support rod in the original kit, also needs to be blanked on the inside.
PIC 4. The blisters have been removed, the wheel bay gap covered by plastic card which was trimmed and filed to shape, and the hole in the speed brake blanked off internally, again with plastic card. The wing was then fitted, after much test-fitting, and some filing and sanding of the wing roots. Due to a slight 'spread' of the forward fuselage, caused by the bulk of the resin cockpit tub, the wings, although they fitted snugly, lacked dihedral. This meant that the joining surfaces on both wing and fuselage needed to be filed back slightly, in order to allow the wings to be set at the required dihedral angle.
PIC 5. The wings in place, with the slight gap at the roots just visible. Once fully set, the gap will be filled with stretched sprue, and sanded as required, before positioning the cut-down nose wheel bay, and crimping the lower nose around this, whilst at the same time joining the lower nose to the wing root.
Once that is done, attention can be focused on the engine cowling, which needs to have the intakes hollowed out before fitting, some detail added to the engine, and finally, once in place, the extra air intake needs to be fabricated and fitted to the top of the cowling.
I hope to get this done over the weekend, and I'll post progress shots during the course of this work.

Really getting into it now Terry.

Geo

Thumbs up Terry...!!

Thanks guys. I hope to get some more done tonight, starting with cleaning-up the sanded areas, before tackling the engine and cowling joint.

Spiffing work old boy, have a snifter!

Thanks awfully old boy - I'll have the whole bottle!
Couldn't sleep due to discomfort with this bl**dy shoulder - and hands, wrists, knees and ankles!
So I gave up, got up, and did a bit more, although not much to show for four hours or more work.
PICS 1 and 2. After measuring, checking and test-fitting, the cut-down nose wheel bay has been fitted into the aperture in the nose. The white plastic shims on the side will also form the base for mounting the scratch-built gear doors, and the slight gap, at left, will be closed when the nose cowling is fitted, crimping it into place. The white plastic extension, at the front of the open bay, will act as a mounting point for the adapted kit nose wheel leg, with some additional 'brackets' added from tube and strip. The ejector pin marks have been roughly sanded, and will be covered (I hope) by the addition of wiring and 'plumbing' etc, plus the darker zinc chromate on the bay roof. Not that this area will be seen, of course.
The open area around the inside of the nose will be filled with roofing lead, cut to fit, and held in place with 'Plasticine'. I didn't need to do a balance test to learn that the weight of the resin cockpit definitely makes the tail drop!
PIC 3. The engine and nose cowling, as supplied in the kit. Compare this to an actual Fennec (PIC 4), and it can be seen that, although the kit part is a reasonable representation for the T-28B, it needs work to improve it, and changes and additions to look like the R-1820-76A, fitted to the re-engined T-28S Fennec.
The carb intake (arrowed, A), and the oil cooler intake (arrowed B) need to be opened up to give a more realistic appearance, the oil pump (C) is too angular and needs rounding-off, the little blister (D) is for the 'working' gear door of the kit, incorrectly modelled as one, single door, and needs to be removed, and the single, moulded 'spark plug' and 'ignition wire' on each cylinder will have to be removed, and replaced with twin plugs and leads, at the top of each cylinder, made from lead wire and copper wire.
PIC 5. Shows the engine after completing most of the above work, but still awaits cleaning-up, re-engraving of the cylinder barrel cooling fins, and the addition of the ignition harness and auxiliary intakes, followed by painting.
Once this is done, the engine itself will be masked, after positioning the prop shaft, held in place by a small spot of PVA, and the unit fitted to the fuselage. Once set, the joint will be filled and sanded if required, and the whole model cleaned and polished, to remove sanding marks and other scratches and imperfections - the plastic is quite soft, and easily marked, so there are quite a few marks to polish out !!
Thanks again for your interest and compliments, and I'll try to post another up-date later today.

Lots of hard work going into this old kit Terry. Doing a great job.

Lovely work so far Terry!

With all.

Thanks chaps. I've just hit a minor snag which might cause a short delay in the intended progress.
Reading some information in an article on the Fennec on a French web-site, it seems they did not have the 'perforated' speed brake on the under side, so I checked the photos I took at Duxford. Sure enough, the perforated brake itself is absent, being a plain alloy panel in this area, but it appears as if the hinge mechanism is still present, or at least the 'channels' where the hinges lay, which is contrary to what is stated on the aforementioned web-site.
This isn't a problem, as I can fill the 'holes' and the main panel lines, leaving the outline of the hinges.
But the same source mentioned the armour plate, which turns out to be applique, mounted around the outside of the pilot's cockpit, rather like the Ju87D. I knew of the armour, but thought it was internal, like the U.S. aircraft used in combat, and hadn't noticed it any photos until seeing this article, so I now need to check all the references I have and, if the armour is there in all photos, I need to add this, using either thin plastic sheet or maybe copier paper or tape, to get the scale effect.
B*gg*r, just when I thought I was getting somewhere too !
So, more progress shots will be posted when more progress is made!