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

[Builder 2010]

Thanks! I thought I lost the whole deal on that spotting issue. From now on, I'm scanning the entire decal sheets of any model I get. There were other decals that would have benefitted from having some spares laying around. That way, if the damage was too great or too close to the decals, I could remove them, fix the blemish and re-apply new, home-made decals. Live and learn.

 

[Builder 2010]

Happy Monday!

We are at the beginning of the end! I'm doing all those things that were left until now so they wouldn't get wrecked. Even with all those precautions, I still knocked off a few things that needed re-attachment.

I started by making the slot in the rear cockpit bulkhead to receive the newly added hinge bracket. I measured the brass tab's width and marked that with a dividers. I then drilled these three holes which were then opened to a slot using the #11 blade. I'm surprised that there wasn't a slot in this part already. This was a kit part.

I then flipped the beast over, put it in the bead foam support and mounted the gear doors and the missiles. For the inner gear door and the main door I used "Glue Dots" which are very sticky bits of contact adhesive. They're very tenacious and hold well, plus they're a bit flexible and won't break loose like CA which is brittle. Henkel Loctite makes a flexible CA which has rubber in it, but it's not available on the retail market and it's black which doesn't work well for a lot of modeling situations. You buy the Dots at Michaels. If you get it, be careful. There are both permanent and removable versions now. I suppose the removable ones could be used for holding masks.

For the inner doors I used the dot form of the adhesive, and I recently bought some linear strips and used them on the main doors. I just put the adhesive strip on the flat side of the strut and stuck the door on. Once you've placed it, you pretty much have to live with it since it holds like crazy.

I used Testor's Tube Cement to hold on the missiles after scraping some of the paint off. Then I knocked some off when I put the model on the bench and the missiles hit some paint bottles. This was my fault! The work bench was a mess!

I also glued the big center tank in place. I did not rebuild those missing auxilary levers that would close the small third gear doors. They're really hard to see and even harder to scratch build. I'll see what kind of mood I'm in tomorrow.

I went to insert the belly marker light which I pre-painted on the sprue, but the darn thing didn't fit into the opening and it was getting all screwed up (paint coming off, etc.). At least I was using my new Testor's Canopy Cement. I decided to go the Bondic route by filling the opening with three layers, each UV cured, and the final having the same shape as the original lens. I painted it Tamiya Clear Red. Bondic is a life saver.

I then flipped the model over and got back to work on the topside punch list. I built the HUD with Canopy Cement, added a couple more PE instruments on the instrument panel cowl, did some touch up painting and got it ready to receive the windshield.

It was time to finish up the canopies. Based on Marty Schwendau, the Plastics Dept. Manager at Scale Reproductions suggestion, I bought some 1/32 "Pin Stripe Tape" used for model car building. With this I made some very believable gasketing for those Thud canopies. In the pics, none of these are in their final, glued positions.

In the process of putting the stripping on the windshield, I broke off all the added pieces hanging from the bottom of the windshield frame. At the end of the session, I was in the process of remaking some of these including the rearview mirrors which weren't looking so hot. I'm making new ones out of very high polished PE fret left over from one of my grandson's projects.

I also attempted to add some wiring details in the gun bay. I broke two carbide drills in the process and was getting very annoyed, so I gave up on it.

I also attempted to put the blue identification lights in their holes in the sides. like the bottom lens, these did not fit nicely. Again, I went the Bondic route. I started by painting the holes silver, filled them, and then painted them clear blue.

I had resisted getting Bondic thinking it was a bit of a gimmick, but I rely on it for all kinds of interesting modeling uses.

On another topic, I've been getting some things 3D printed at outside sources. These jobs have generally cost me about $40 each for some very small stuff that I didn't want to or have the skills to create myself. But the Filament Additive Machines (FAM) generally only get down to about 100 microns (a 1/10 of a millimeter) which at 1:32 and 1:48 scales show up badly. You need to have them printed on an optical resin machine. These traditionally are very expensive, starting at about $3k and then going up... way up. Then I read about units that use UV LEDs instead of lasers and are being sold on Amazon for under $400, and they produce 10 micron layers. These work very well for model work.

The unit above is Chinese, but most of the lower price 3D are. It uses a resin that's water soluble until cured and the models produced generally need more exposure to UV to become really solid. Amazon sells another UV that can be used to harden the models.

At this price point, if I do 10 parts, I pay for it. Furthermore, even though the resin is pricy ($40 - $80 per bottle) after downloading their slicing software, I ran the part that I just had done by Shapeways, and it ended up usng $0.72 worth of resin. Resin that isn't directly cured by the UV scan can be returned to the bottle and re-used.

I'm seriously considering this for a my father's day/Birthday present to me. My son, last night, said "For $360 what's the risk?" Exactly!

 

[fubar57]

I am seriously awaiting you getting and testing this. Model looking great as well

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Looks good so far!

 

[Builder 2010]

Details, details...

It's time to put all the little bits on. I wanted to install the upper red marker light. It, like the other plastic clear parts, had a lot of excess that needed trimming in order to fit inside the raised rim. When I went to fit it, the darn thing fell inside the fuselage through the open hole at the bottom! Why in the world would they mold it with an open bottom? It will never come out since it's worse than getting a coin out of the slot in a piggy bank. So I went to plan B. Plan B was a bit of overkill.

I cut an over piece of the same shiny PE sprue and filed it to shape. Then, in the process of fitting it into the bezel, it too fell into the model through that %*((^@ hole!

Plan C was to make the oval out of thin card stock. Easier to shape and didn't matter if it too fell in the hole. After gluing in the oval, I used the chrome pen to make it nice and shiny and then with three layers of Bondic, made a very nice light lens. This I painted with clear red. Should have gone this route right from the beginning. So all the lights on the plane to this point are Bondic replacements.

I then built a custom nose pitot tube. The kit tube, besides being quite fragile, was out of scale, out of round and looked awful. From the get go I planned on making a metal replacement.

I used a piece of hard steel wire for the smallest diameter, a piece of 1/16" brass tubing for the large diameter and a piece of .8mm Albion aluminum tubing for the mid-diameter. I soldered the inner steel to the brass tube since the tube was a little bit oversized. I then used CA to hold the aluminum piece in place and then more thick CA to form the transition cones between the diameters. Forgive the shaky focus.

I had polished the steel before construction and then painted it semi-gloss black. I took the time to then add the 1/32" yellow tape stripe around the nose cone and the front was done.

The new pitot looks good and is very, very strong. The plane could be used as weapon if someone was so malevelently inclined.

I glued the windshield on with the Testor's Canopy Glue and it worked well, but there is a ledge that is not to my liking since, (as I've noted before) the Eduard cockpit raising widen the fuselage enough to make the canopy no longer fit the fuselage perfectly. I'm thinking how or if I'm going to do anything about this.

So here's the plane just before the other canopies are final fitted, the fuel probe and gun door put on, and the few little tiny Angle of Attach sensors are added to the fuze sides. There's a couple of spots where I need to touch up the matte finish. And the model will be done. I have new backdrop paper which I will install before taking the final beauty shots.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Builder 2010]

This is my 2nd post of the day since I did yesterday's this morning. The model for all intents and purposes is finished!

I'd rate this job a B+. There's a lot I could have done better, and some of it is just old Trumpeter engineering. After building the Tamiya Corsair, this was definitely a step backwards. I finished up the day with put all the remaining stuff including the air brake petals. According to the Squadron book, when landing, only the side petals were opened. The top would foul the parachute release and the bottom could impact the ground. Before gluing them on I did a quick dusting of Highlight White powder. According to references, the J75 would put a white coating on the exhaust stack.

I added the angle of attack sensor and painted it after it was on the plane. I put on the refueling probe and the gun door. After putting them in place I did some touch up painting. I touched up the windshield joint, but didn't attempt filling it. I'll just let it be. I did the job in my head and found too many ways to screw up what already was done.

The last thing I did was add some shims to the canopy hinges and the put them in with J-B Weld epoxy. Tomorrow, it will be hardened and done. I'm still toying with those auxiliary gear door levers and scratch-building the missing ones. Or not.

I put up some new backdrop paper and it really makes for some snazzy pics!

Note: When I took the pics the canopies were just hanging there. I actually glued them in tonight after we got back from dinner.

Next up: I'm building a scratch-built, laser cut, engine house for my railroad. It's 40" long and 15" wide covering three tracks. It is destined to be an article in Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine when I build and write about it. Also, my Victorian Townhouse model article is scheduled to start in the November issue of the same magazine.

I designed the whole thing in SketchUp and then drew laser-cutting drawings in CorelDraw. Nice thing about SU is you can do things like this fairly easily. All of the structure has been cut and is in my possesison. I'll make a master of the vent stacks and the resin cast them. The length was too great for my laser cutter's machine so the long parts are in halves and will have to be spliced.

I'm sratch-building an non-working gantry crane for the building. I just got some of the hoist mechanism 3D printed by Shapeways. It will cut out a lot of nitpicky time.

If anyone is interested in the building of the gantry, which will be mostly styrene, let me know and I'll post it in the FSM Forum. I'm not sure under which category it should go.

My next plastic kit choice is not finalized yet. I thought I was going to receive (as my commission on the Thud) a Tamiya 1:32 DeHavalind Mosquito, but there's a new Trumpeter 1/32 HEMTT Airport Fire Truck that's not out yet and it looks very intriguing. And then there's that 3D printer... I'd really like to try that out, and possibly instead of a model. Decisions, decisions...

As you've probably noticed a pattern; plastic kit, railroad project, plastic kit, railroad project, and so on. So thanks for watching and stay tuned.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great job on the Thud.

 

[Airframes]

I agree, very nicely done.

 

[Builder 2010]

I know I said it was "done" yesterday...Before I talk about today's "fun", I took some more beauty shots of the starboard side.

I did glue on two parts that were still on the sprue... the wing tip running lights.

Then the fun began. I you recall, I said I didn't want to mess with those little gear levers because the model was at a point where messing around could end badly. But, my AMS kicked in and after I did the end-of-project workbench cleaning I decided to give it a try making a scratch-built lever that would work.

I bent some 1/32" brass wire and then bent it to conform the a good one that had fallen off. I then added layers of Bondic to build up the profile and with lots of filing, I made a reasonable shape. After a coat Tamiya "real metal", I was ready to install it.

After fussing with it a while, I realized it was about 10% to big and didn't fit right so I decided it really wasn't worth the effort. I glued the plastic one back and decided to leave the missing lever... missing.

Then when I went to turn the model rightside up from the holding jig, I bumped the front canopy and heard a "crack". It was now very wobbly side to side. I added some thick CA to reattach the lug to the back of the cockpit and use accelerator to set it. When I tried it to see if it was now secure, the damn lug broke off and I now had a canopy in my hand.

My worse fears did come true. I knew that the model was at a point when messing with it could turn about badly. I hate when I'm right!

So I quickly made a brass replacement and it's now sitting down in the basement curing with J-B Weld.

Notice: I carefully masked the whole deal EXCEPT the area where I had to file off the old lug's remains and didn't want to do any further damage. With my luck, the tape's going to pull paint off, or at least pull of the yellow gasket tape. We'll see tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'm re-gluing it back on the model and never touching it again!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Beautiful plane! Well done.

 

[Builder 2010]

Thank you very much!

I checked this morning and the new lug is strong and will work better than the plastic lug it replaced. The masking DID protect the canopy from all the filing and gluing. No harm no foul. Today, I'll remount it and tomorrow the epoxy will be cured.

 

[Builder 2010]

I added a styrene shim to fill the space and CA'd the front Canopy back into place. Problem solved... model done.

 

[Wurger]

Well done.

 

[Builder 2010]

Thanks all! Next project is not defined yet. When it is, I'll be sure to post it here (as long as it's an aircraft).

 

[Wurger]

Looking forward to that.

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!