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

Thanks! That's a great site and has the same pictures as I had found.

I painted those heads today. All that's left is the white of the helmet. I use a mixture of Vallejo Shadow Flesh and white to create a decent flesh tone. I was able... barely... to paint the eyes along with the iris. I then used the Molotow Chrome Pen to put a coating of bright silver on the visors and then go back and coat with Tamiya Clear Green. Tomorrow I'll get the white on and put the heads together with the bodies.



I then got back to work on the cockpit proper. I painted the knobs and switches on the kit side sill parts and then added the starboard side Eduard 2-layer diagonal panels. I added all the extra PE on the folded PE startboard side panels and got the forward one installed. The aft panel was ready to install when dinner time came.


There's a couple of added pieces in the above picture that still need some paint besides the gray primer. I like how the side panels are going to really spiff up the cockpit, and am also concerned that little or none of this will be visible when the cockpit's closed up. I certainly hope it will be seen. This is slow, painstaking work, but it's fun.

I use gel or thick CA to hold PE to a model. I didn't used to, but Brian Bunger, proprietor of Scale Reproductions, Inc, our excellent local hobby shop, said that he uses gel since it stays put and you can apply tiny amounts in a very controlled manner. And it doesn't set instantly so you actually have the chance to move the part a bit if it's not perfect when you lay it down.

I have another question. What's a way to add that yellow or white seal that's between the canopy glazing and the canopy frame? I've been thinking of different ways to do that, but haven't come to conclusion about how to actually do it without making a mess.

Very nice. I've seen some canopy decals in 1:48 but nothing larger. Montex makes a set of canopy masks that may or may not cover this. Note the top set says "Rubber Color"

Thanks!
Those masks would be perfect! So I did a search and found them at a U.K. purveyor. Problem is, part cost is less than $5.00 USD, shipping is $27.00. I don't want to pay over $30 for the privilege of getting that rubber gasket in place. BMA had them listed (your link) but they're out of stock. I think I keep looking or go to plan B.

Lovely work so far!

Looks like Plan B for the gaskets. I'm going to do some practice masks to get the routine down and then hand-mask the transparent parts.

I painted the pilot's helmets on Sunday and glued their heads in place. The heads are exactly the same so I had them facing in different directions so it was harder to tell they were twins. In the picture you can also see the left front side panel in place for the picture. It's not glued in. One of the Eduard add-ons was some kind of map case that side on the right side control panel in the rear cockpit, but it's sticking out too far. It's causing the ejection seat to be forced to far to the left. I'm going to remove it. The arms will go on when I can verify their positioning.



I started working on the front instrument panel. As usual, I had my normal wrestling match with Eduard PE. A couple of parts disappeared into the ether, and another, after preparing it, just wouldn't really work. But all in all, the panel is impressive.

The plans call for a plastic rod 5.5mm in diameter and 10mm long to simulate the radar scope housing. I took a piece of excess Plastruct ABS 1/4" tubing and machined it down to 5.5mm, but it was way too small. The opening actually measured 5.82mm, so I machined more of the rod further down and got the size correct. Then you have to file a flat to correspond to the flat in the opening.

I glued it in and painted the housing semi-gloss black.



The tubing had a hole in it (hey... it was tubing), so I cut a styrene circle to close it off.



Onto this goes a PE pre-painted ring. Before I put it on, I first chromed the screen with the Molotow and then coated it with Tamiya Transparent Green to make it more "exotic". I then glued on the PE ring. I think I see a blip...



It created the desired effect. I also coated all the gauge faces with multiple coats of Testors Wet Look Clear to simulate glass faces.

There was another piece of IMPOSSIBLE PE that was supposed to go on this. It was the sun shield. I was very narrow, although tapered to wider at the top. You were supposed to somehow connect a tiny tab on the one end to the widest part at the other. I chose to attempt to solder it. I did solder it, but it was not round, looked like crap, and I decided it was better off, then on looking like that. The one for the back radar disappeared into the ether so neither radar will have one. I may make one out of some scrap PE fret.

This is what it looked like. Sometimes "not used PE" is better than "really terrible PE".



There's some other nearly impossible PE that goes on the front panel in the form of T-handled levers, and one other lever. They're supposed to be glued end-on onto tiny points on the panel and I am dubious about how well this would work. I would be much happier if they were able to be inserted into holes. But drilling holes in some of these areas will be very, very difficult. We'll see...

Impressive looking IP

Good work so far!

Got the left side cockpit walls in place today.



And I got two of the four rudder pedals in place. These are PE folded and glued assemblies. I momentarily thought about soldering them together, put quickly dispelled that idea since there's no stress on these pieces which wlll be out of sight under the pilot's feet. The pieces are not finished painted or showing any wear yet. I'll do that on Friday. Tomorrow we're heading to Cincy to go to the art museum. The left one's a bit cockeyed, but please refer to my last sentence regarding the time I should spend trying to rip it off and glue it on straighter.

Short session today, interrupted by a delivery for the trains. That said, I did get a lot done on the rear seat instrument panel. Again, like I did in the front, I put a spacer between the panel base to stiffen it up a bit.



The front panel is very interesting with some added PE parts that were inserted in small tab slots. I still have more to add and will do it on Monday.



On Monday also, all the cockpit parts will be installed including the pilots and their arms and then it will be onto the rest of the airframe. Have a great weekend. Spring appears to be arriving in Louisville. Trees are blossoming and allergies are terrible.

Great work so far!

Well... thank you! But you may have to eat those words after you read today's post.

Today was kind of bittersweet. It started well and then ended weird.

The start was finishing the rear panel, installing both and then getting the pilots all fitted. The rear panel looks terrific. There are layers of PE that adds to its dimensionality, even though it just flat PE. It went into the plane without too much difficult, although it meant removing the replacing the front position's rudder pedals. I really like the raised sun shields that were separate pieces of PE with actual locking tabs to secure them to the panel.



I had to file the inner sides of the pilots' shoes to have them pass by the front and back panel's center console. I also had to clean up the resin casting a bit around the shoulder joint so the arms would glue on flush. The left hand sort of reaches the side panel. The right arm should grasp the stick, so I put the sticks in, and before they dried hard, I put on the arm and moved the stick head and the arm into junction.



The pilots need some touch up painting due to the handling and arm joining exercise.

That was the good part of the session. I removed all the sprue nubs on the long fuze sides, but didn't doing any filing. I'll do that when the halves are joined and filled. The next kit steps included building the 20mm Vulcan Cannon. I was looking forward to this build, but got more disappointed the further in I got. So problems are Trumpeter's engineering and some are my idiocy.

The barrels are separate pieces and are frail. I got it together, and it was annoying to get the barrel ends into the end piece. There were small divots for each barrel end to lay, but they weren't deep. I'd get one end and two would pop out. This end should have slid over the barrels ends like the center spacer. If it was a Tamiya kit it would have gone togehter perfectly.



I put this aside to dry. I then went on to put the rest of the gun parts on. Now... I usually don't clip all of the parts of a particular step off the sprues, but I've watched a lot of videos build videos and a lot of the guys clip all the parts of a particular step and have a pile of parts waiting to be assembled.

So I did this for the gun. And now I also know why I usually don't build models this way. There is a 2-part curved mounting bracket that wraps around the breach portion of the gun. I found one part on the work bench, but the other was... where? Not on the bench any more. So I did the floor sweep and search and found the part broken in half with half missing. My desk chair wheel caught when I wheeled back to try and find it. That's not the first time that's happened and when it does, it's usually bad. Murphey's law at work.

So I had to scratch-build one half of the part. I carefully measured all the critica measurements and fabbed the missing part out of 0.040" square styrene stock.

I used 0.040" round styrene rod for the spacers with 0.021" phosphor bronze wire to hold it all together. Then disaster struck again. I was using the hot air gun to force dry some touchup paint on the flight control sticks and the darn thing blew the other good part... somewhere... Couldn't find it! So I had to scratch-build the entire piece which greatly complicated it.

The rest of the gun seemed like it dried enough to handle and I went about trying to drill out the muzzle ends on that end cap piece that had little stubs sticking out representing the barrel ends. In my handling of the gun, the barrels separated from the end cap. Now they were harder to get in place since there was another ring surrounding them and it made positioning them much harder.

I added some CA into the end cap and hoped to get the guns into their respective divots, but what I didn't realize until it was too late, that I was torquing the whole deal and three of the barrels had broken in half in their middles.

So now I have to scratch-build them too. They measure a nominal 1.0mm and I have some great Albion Brass Tubing of that diameter. I tried to separate the muzzle ring from the backing ring, but of course the CA really held that So I can't use that piece either. The last thing I did was machine a new muzzle ring (.218"), scribe the barrel spacing, and start to lay out the six barrel holes.



Here's the end view of the muzzle end showing the beginning of the hole spacing. Using the 3-jaws of the lathe chuck as a spacing guage, I located three of the six holes. The other three will go between these.



If none of this works, I can always just close up the gun access hatches and just have the muzzle end behind the cannon opening. I think it wil work. I have to drill the other end of the barrels to tie the 1mm brass into the rest of the gun.

I'm not going to pre-cut stuff before building. Too easy to lose parts!

I have learned from experience that if I drop something on the floor, I DO NOT roll my chair. I rotate the chair from under my desk, scope out the floor where I will put my feet, carefully get out of the chair to stand only on the spots I inspected then repeat from the next steps until I can turn around and look under the wheels of my chair before moving it aside and looking further.

Nice to have metal working so you can replace those parts. Something I don't have.

Lovely work so far!

I've adopted a similar 'getting out of the desk chair' protocol. It's nice to have the lathe, but you still need a print, or an existing part to know what you're actually making.

Now to today's disaster...

After I decided to make brass barrels and a new end piece, I realized that I could still use the kit's front piece by just drilling out the muzzle ends nubs and inserting the brass barrels through like the real guns do.

I drilled the other end where the barrels widen to accept a piece of .8mm Albion tubing which the 1mm tubing will slip over. I did this becuse there wasn't enough beef in barrels behind that piece to let me drill the 1mm holes without the barrels disintegrating.

I also realized that the plastic barrels being so wrecked I really didn't know the actual barrel length I needed to cut out of the 1mm brass tubing. So I temporarily installed the main part of the gun and the forward support in their respective locations and then measure what the barrel length should be.



I drilled out the front piece, but because of the support around it, I was hard to see inside when I had to insert all 6 barrels through the holes.

To cut the barrels equal length I put down some 3M double-sided tape, then marked off the length with some Tamiya tape and cut the barrels by rolling a sharp #11 blade until the thin tubing breaks. The sticky tapes helps keep the cut piece from going ballistic. Helps… not prevents.



I slide the 1mm tubes over the .8mm tubes and held with a tad of thin CA. Then I attempted to wrestly all those barrels into all those holes while keeping the front piece in the proper location since it had an alignment lug on the rear side that engaged in a slot in the plane's gun chamber.

After fussing with it try to hold everything still with my left hand while trying to position the tubes I realized quickly that it wasn't going to work. So I put some 0.021" phosphor bronze wires of varying lengths into the barrels to act as guides to get the barrels into their respective holes. Then I put the main part of the gun into my PanaVise.

I fussed and fussed, and wasn't getting anywhere. I found that even though the guide wires were different lengths, they weren't positioned properly. I rearranged them so the two longest on opposite sides, the next longest on the right side of these and the shortest on the left. That way I could manage how and to what holes they were going into.

Then the $^&(*^% hit the fan!!!

The piece will all the barrels sticking up and four out of the six alignment pins in the correct holes LITERALLY EXPLODED OUT OF THE VISE!!! Some of the guide wires ended up on the bench, but the gun and all those barrels had disappeared into thin air, or so it would seem. After looking everywhere, I find it down inside the zipper hoodie sweatshirt I like to ware in the basement.

I retrieved everything except that critical front piece with the hole plate and the mounting bracket. I'll look for it tomorrw. If I can't find it, I'll drill out that aluminum piece and cobble together something to support it in the gun compartment.

This gun is turning into a real pain in the Butt!

Sounds like a movie.