Hi Everyone,

I have made a start on a HB F-105D for the Cold War Campaign in progress and I have decided to take the plunge and do a Step by Step build.

Firstly a bit about me to give you an idea of my abilities(or lack of). I am 37 and have only been modelling for about 3 years now. I have built a huge 13 models in that time but feel I have learnt a lot mostly through websites such as Aeroscale and I have also joined the local Illawarra Plastic Modellers Association and have learnt a lot from the guys there.

My builds so far have been OOB Tamiya and Hasegawa without any aftermarket items except Ultracast seats and all have been WWII planes in 1/48 scale except a single Tamiya F-16C. So I have not had too much to complain about build wise.

Onto my build:

I have purchased the Aires Cockpit and Wheel Bay sets and this will be a test for me to say the least. I also have (hopefully) a second kit with the same aftermarket items along with a Albatros Decals "Thud Alley" sheet in the mail:
http://www.zotzdecals.com/reviews/alc48004/alc48004.htm

I plan on ending up doing a dual build for the Bare Metal "Pussy galore" as well as the SEA "Pussy Galore II).

I am very keen to get all your thoughts, ideas and tips etc as I progress as I am doing the SBS to learn from you all!

So where am I at? I have spent a few nights on the lounge cleaning up parts and building the engine section which is quite detailed:





I will be building mine with the tail section closed up but you have the option to have the whole tail section off to display the engine in all it's glory.

I have to work out how to clean up the seam lines in the very tail section as these are provided in 4 parts and when the fuselage is together will be the only section that you will be able to see. They represent inside the cans and have a corrugated looking surface?

While that is drying I have opened the Aires Wheel Bay set and cleaned them up, not something I enjoyed as I sawed throught where the lines on the slab are but still managed to have paper thin sections and a small couple of holes as well.



I have dry fitted the wings together to see how it fits, but first I had to remove some of the original detail:











After this has been done I am ready to dry fit the Aires part to the wing section:



It slides into place:





Nose wheel bay section already cleaned and primed:



So there you go, feel free to comment. Another update to follow soon.

Great start Mark, I'll be watching this one closely ! Like you, I've mostly done WWII birds, but I'm branching out into some jets for current and pending campaigns so I'll need to take careful notes on some past builds here as well.

Carry on sir, and please post lots of progress !!

Cheers, D

G'day

looking forward to seeing this progressing- might inspire me to build a jet also!

I've spent all weekend working on my he219 uhu.

Good work sofar! Sanding the wheelbays can be really daunting. When I did my F14 wheel bays I had to sand them that thin that you can almost look through it.

Looking forward to your next update!

I'm back, I contined working on the Aires Wheelbay resin parts.

I also noticed that I still had to sand down one side of the wheel bay a bit more to get the rear section of the wing to join together flush.

I then taped the wing section to the fuselage to test fit that against the aires whellbay and found it wasnt flush:



Realised that I needed to remove a section from the fuselage that the wing slides over:





I used my hobby saw and scalpel and cut to where i had lined up the aires part, and I taped up the fusleage to protect the detail:



Not pretty but once the wings are on you cannot see any of the area at all:





I have some more pics to upload so I will leave them for the next update.

Mark

Great work mate!

Looking good Mark. Oh the joys of fitting resin parts to plastic. It's worth it though. Good idea to provide us with a build log.
All the best.
tim

Nice work to date Mark.

I look forward to seeing this one progress, both here and in the flesh

Next Installment:

I then had my first piece of Photo etch to install, a small round grill cover:





So I got out my Mission Model Etchmate 3C for the first time, the process is pretty straight forward. Line up the etch part into the grove and use the orange tool to fold it up"



Picture is a bit blurry but here it is installed into the main wheel bay.



I then primed the wheel bay pieces and then sprayed Humbrol German Grey Enamel. Note I have done this as a preshade color to the entire wheel bay, something new I wanted to see how it would work?



Let this dry for 2 days and then sprayed some Mr Hobby Lacquer Interior Green! I aimed to leave some of the grey to create some depth of field and also to dull down the green a bit. What do you think?



I also started to glue some small pieces to the rear of the wing sections:



Cheers,

Mark

Looking great Mark ! I love these comprehensive build logs, they always give me heaps of ideas. The wheel bays came up really well with the dark primer as well.

Cheers, D

Thanks Damian,

As a relative beginner, i am always on the lookout for in-depth SBS builds so i can learn from other modellers. Hopefully someone that decides to build this kit can learn from my mistakes as i go!

I am working on quite a few bits and pieces on the build that all need to be done before i can close up the fuselage.

Here is the Aires resin cockpit installed, it has been cut off the slab, and thinned somewhat. I then dry-fitted it to see just where I stood.





To summarise the fit is ok except that I cannot close up the front section as is. I then discovered that there is a protruding hole secion on each side that alowws a part to be added from the outside. To allow for this the Aires cockpit needs a section removed at the front:



Once this has been done the fit is much better:



EXCEPT the Aires cockpit is not a complete match for the shape of the top section, any tips on fixing this guys?

.

Also I have taken some pictures of some problematic areas for my build based on some info I have read in other builds of an earlier Thud that I am depicting:

Nose Camera needs to be cut off and this will need some sort of styrene filling?



Armor plating in tail section will have to be sanded off, any tips on how to remove this without losing too much of the surrounding detail?



Also a section of the spine on top between the tail and cockpit will have to be cut off, again any thoughts on how to accomplish this? My thoughts initally are to cut them off prior to joining the halves and then trying to fill with some styrene and putty. there is some intricate detail around this secion that I will have to try to re-scribe and replace rivet detail etc?????????



Anyone got any ideas about any of the above will be greatly appreciated.

thanks for looking,

Mark

Looks good so far Mark.

Perhaps use Tamiya tape to protect the surrounding detail?

Great work mate!

Hi Mark.
Anthony 's idea of using tape to protect the detail when sanding down is one that I use a fair bit. Just keep checking the tape while working to make sure it's intact. If you are replacing the spine, I would cut it off before joining and try some plastic card or even a suitable plastic rod or sprue to fill in the gap. Any gaps or depressions fill in with your choice of filler. Looking good Mark
All the best.
tim

Hi Mark

If I'm not to late some suggestions.

For the rear of the cockpit it looks like you can thin the kit on the inside a fair bit to get the cockpit to fit up a bit better. you could also sand the edges of the aires pit a bit.

As for removing the detail, like the other have said protect the detail with tape but be prepared for re scribing.

The if the nose camera fairing is what I think it is then obviously you'll have to use some styrene and putty to restore the shape.... Good luck. Try some Milliput or similar expoy putty . This stuff can be shaped with water (a wet finger or cotton bud) before it cures. Very handy in places where you want to keep the lose of detail to a minimium.

t.