Trumpeter 1:32 F-105G Wild Weasel Build Thread

[Builder 2010]

Happy New Year!

I'm not starting this build right now so don't get too excited, but I have the kit in my possession. I have to first finish the Bronx Victorian which I've invested $$$ heavily.

The Wild Weasel is a commision build for the same person for whom I built that nice "Yankee Lady" Monogram 1:48 B-17G a couple of years ago. He was able to buy this new model for a very low price since Allied Hobbies in Philadelphia is going out of business and was selling things for 70% off. This time I'm getting paid! We're bartering... He's going to give me a Tamiya 1:32 De Havalind Mosquito kit. I've really wanted to build that plane!

The kit shows $124. He got it for $50. Good deal. It's an older Trumpeter kit and I'm expecting the usual old Trumpeter problems. This will be my 3rd Trumpeter large scale plane so I'm getting used to them. It has those finicky PE flight surfaces hinges. On the TBM I just glued the flaps and ailerons, but did get a movable rudder and elevators. On this one, I'll try that again.

I've ordered some aftermarket for the F-105G including two resin ejection seats with pilots, Eduard cockpit details, and G-Force brass landing struts. The model is big and heavy and I've read that the plastic gear isn't sturdy enough. It has a complete J-75 turbo-jet included which will be completely hidden so I'm either going to cut some access hatches to show it off or make a service rack and mount it outside the plane. I will attempt to super-detail the engine and the other usual places. The plane has a fully detailed Gatling gun and I will show that off too.

So sit tight. I will be back at this thread in a month or so when the Bronx Building is complete.

And after it, I will also regale you with the construction of the Mossie.

 

[Builder 2010]

Well sports fans, work has finally commenced on the Trumpeter F-105G Wild Weasel. I am just about finishing up on the Victorian town house that's a few days away from being installed on my model railroad. It came out really well and represents another potential model railroad magazine article.

Building is lit by surface mount LEDs and the interior is an art gallery (which is the use of the actual building in the Bronx). Here it's mounted on it base ready to go on the railroad.

What I'm currently doing is adding some resin cast roof parapet caps. I made the master out of Super Sculpey and cast them, one at a time, in a silicone mold. When I finish the last three tomorrow, I will paint them a terra cotta color and glue them to the roof edge.

BACK TO THE WILD WEASEL:
I unboxed the whole deal today and again used my home made, albeit too narrow, sprue organizer.

Not shown are four large sprues containing lots and lots of ordinance, most of which will not be used.

Here's the aftermarket solid brass landing gear. They will not break! I'll probably solder the retracting link on the nose gear and main gears.

The first thing I did today was attack one of two Aires resin ejection seats with pilot. There is a huge block of resin that you optionally can remove to free up the seat's legs that sit on the flight deck. I chose to do this to see if I could.

Using razor saws, then carbide router and finally a diamond coated burr, I was able to hollow other the bottom without accidentally removing the legs (which is quite easy to do with a Dremel and Flexi-shaft.) I did put an errant divot in one rear leg, but I have the best solution ever for this kind of repair: Bondic UV curing clear resin. You fill the hole, shine the attached UV LED light on it and in about 5 to 10 seconds it's solid as a ceramic. Dentists have been using this stuff for some time now.

Here's the first seat sitting in the cockpit tub just for fun.

It's going to be fun painting all the details in these seats.
I'm also going to add the Eduard Interior set. It's quite huge and comprehensive.

So stick around folks. Over the next couple of weeks construction will move ahead apace. It's going to be a very big (long) airplane.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

I continued working today cleaning up the resin casting of the ejection seat. I cut the legs free on the 2nd seat, and did slip with the carbide router and clipped off half of one of the front feet. Luckily, I had a "dental" solution. I drilled the leg stump with a 0.022" drill and inserted some phosphor bronze rod of the same diameter held with some CA. I then built up layers of Bondic UV curing filler. Between each layer I illuminated it with the UV LED light. It cures in 5 to 10 seconds and is ceramic hard. With the rod reinforcing the piece the new leg is stronger than the existing one. This will not be visible in the finished cockpit, but the new leg does have to support the seat at the right height and angle. This is almost exactly the same technique that dentists use to restore a broken tooth with a pin and composite light-cured material.

In addition to replacing the missing leg, there was also a large entrained bubble in the seat bottom that penetrated through the seat side and also got filled with the Bondic. If you havn't done so, get some Bondic. It's not the ultimate adhesive, but it does some things that other materials just can't. Unlike CA, it doesn't cure until you shine the light on it. You can wipe it off and not screw anything up. It's great for adhering transparent parts where the UV can hit it. No UV, no cure.

The last thing I did was clean up the arms and heads, and then insert some more phosphor bronze rods to act as holders for these parts. After trial fitting the arms and heads I realized that they would block access to body parts lying underneath making painting more difficult. So I'm going to paint these pieces separately and then join them. I'll liquid mask the spots where the arms and head will go to make gluing more secure.

I added the plastic control boards to the four armrests in the cockpit tub. These pieces need to be there and then you're supposed to remove all of the relief detail in prep for the Eduard PE replacements. I have a quandry. I'm not sure what color to paint the interior. It calls for "Interior Gray". I have no idea what that is. The light gray of the kit could very well be the "interior gray". Or could Tamiya Gray Primer be the color. Who can help me here? If I paint them, I'm going to mask the surfaces where the PE goes again to insure a good glue bond.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Looking good so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

I bought some Tamiya Japanese Light Gray to see if it will work as the "interior gray" called out in the Trumpeter instructions. And I've been told that Light Gull Gray will work too. I started working on the PE officially today and coordinating the work with the Eduard instructions. It's a challenge (to me at least) switching back and forth between what and when Eduard wants, and the kit's instructions. I like to prime the PE using a good primer to help the top coats adhere. Before priming I went over all the non-pre-printed PE with a scratch brush to rough up the surface on both sides to provide tooth for the primer and the CA that's going to hold the PE to styrene.

The Eduard instructions call for the entire cockpit tub to be installed 4mm higher in the fuselage. To accomplish this they have you remove the 4mm from the bulkhead that lies behind the pilots position, and provides PE folded shims that raise the tub up higher into the fuselage. Very clever... I hope it works. It will make the cockpit details more visible.
Also included in the Eduard set are fully detailed side panels. They are folded affairs with a very tight double fold that has about 1/32" between one bend and the other making a full 180 degree turn. I primed one side of the PE, and then after folding, primed the now bare-brass backside (don't say that last phrase too quickly[] too.

This image shows the primed PE, the cut-down bulkhead, and the folded side panels for the starboard side of the aircraft. The model did not have any side panel details.

I'm still not sure if I want to scrap off all the arm rest details and use the printed Eduard PE parts. While the Eduard printing is highly detailed, it has very little relief. Besides, I really enjoy picking out cockpit details. I have some amazingly pointy brushes perfectly equipped to do this. I may mix and match, using the Eduard in some cases, but the model's in others. There are a whole raft of little PE boxes and details that go onto those side panels. And I am going to use those.
I also primed all the ejection seats/Pilots pieces to get ready to paint them. That too will be fun.

I bought some "eyeliner" brushes from Amazon that are amazing. They're these little plastic-handled, very fine pointed brushes that cost $8.00 USD for 100. Yes, that's right, $0.08 a piece. That means when they get munged up, you throw it away. But wait… there's more. They really work! They're impervious to all of the solvents I use: Iso Alcohol, Acetone, Mineral Spirits, etc. They clean up nicely so you don't have to toss them. I've had them for two months and have tossed 3 of them. You never know what terrific modeling stuff comes from unusual sources. This is just one bag. You get two of them!

If you interested here's the link: Amazon product ASIN B00DW2Z9JK
They don't replace all my brush needs, but for detail work, they're the best I have.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Great tip. Bought myself a set.

 

[Airframes]

I'll be looking for some of those.

 

[Crimea_River]

Jan should have some extras Terry.

 

[Airframes]

That was my first thought !
Found some - they're called 'wands' in the UK, and on e-bay at around £2.50, including shipping, for a pack of 50.

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[fubar57]

Good start

 

[Builder 2010]

Glad you were able to find those brushes. I used one today and it was terrific. Holds a better point than my sable brushes.

I started today's session by finally deciding that I was going to leave the kit's unpainted light gray to be the base color for the cockpit. I also decided to use the kit's side panel switches instead of scaping them off for the Eduard PE. But I did decide to scrape off the knobs on the angled panels since I like the Eduard's better. I really enjoy painting knobs and buttons... I masked the tub to just expose the side panels and airbrushed them semi-gloss black.

After pulling all that tape I was pleased with the result.

I found some great pictures of the Thud's ejection seat and used it plus the instructions that came with the resin seat/pilot to color it. The instructions didn't include any information about the seat itself. It's not the light interior gray like the cockpit wall are. Instead it's clearly a medium gray.

The resin seat is very complete, but still has a couple of things missing including that yellow (ejection handle?) on the seat's left side. I airbrushed the gray first.

The resin seat was also missing the red head pad, but the kit's pad was not configured right to just glue on, so I used the fine razor saw to separate the pad from the rest of the molding and then CA'd it to the seat frame.

After gluing I painted it red using Vallejo paint. Although the instruction called out "Olive" and "Olive Green" as the two colors for the flight suit and the Mach suit, I don't have colors by those names. But the ones I do have (Olive Drab and Khaki) look very much like the colors actually printed in the resin seat's instructions, so I used them.

I used a combination of brushes to paint all these details. The seat picture (above) showed the seat cushions to be darker than the frame and the seat belts to be a much lighter gray, so I attempted to match them as well.

There's some wet paint in the above picture which is where the highlights are coming from. I started using Tamiya Retarder for the first time. It improves flow and slows down drying which helps in brush painting the Tamiya colors. The oxygen hose and mask is Tamiya Nato Black. Shoes are semi-gloss black.

I also painted the arms which are hung in a cool painting fixture that I won as a door prize at a Military Modelers Club of Louisville. It was designed and 3D printed at the Advanced Manufuring Processes Lab at University of Louisville Speed School of Engineering. One of our new club members is a technical manager at this facility. It swivels on an enclosed ball bearing.

The arms are Olive Drab with Khaki gloves. The last pieces to paint are the all-important heads. The eye openings are very narrow and I suspect, it will be close to impossible to render the eyes in any meaningful way. You can see those metal extension paying off in holding these small parts.

Here are the two seats sitting in the tub for a status shot.

I really like cockpits! To me, they're the most interesting aspect of aircraft modeling. Next is engines and followed by landing gear. It's way I find modeling drones and UCAVs very dissatisfying. No cockpit!

I'm a pretty basic figure painter. I don't really do shading and shadowing, although I probably will on the facials features. I'm careful, just not that artistic. Once the pilots are done, I really dig into putting the cockpit together with tons of PE.

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Good stuff. This site for all your ejection seats...The Ejection Site

 

[Crimea_River]

Beauty.

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff.
Many modellers 'overdo' the eyes when figure painting. I use a retractable pencil sanded to a fine point, and draw the eyes onto the paint. the (not very good) pic below shows the effect on a modified pilot figure for the old Monogram 1/48th scale P-47.