As soon as I saw the quality of this 1/72 kit from Meng Models it jumped immediately to the top of my build list. Click here to see my review of the F-102A. A dry fit of the parts reveals parts that fit very well indeed. One obvious feature that I wanted to rectify was the lack of blanking wall behind the air intakes. I created a cardboard template so that I could cut out the two plastic card inserts accurately. Once in place I dry fitted one of the glued two piece intakes to see if there was much to see down the ducts. To be honest, you could probably get away with not blanking the intakes off. Or of course you could use the old trick of placing a FOD guard over the intakes. The fit of the two piece intakes is very good and blends nicely with the fuselage.
Dry fitting the wings I did notice the leading edge joint has quite narrow area of contact. Any undue pressure could result in the failure of the glued joint. A very simple way of overcoming this is gluing a couple of strips of plastic card on the inside surface close to the leading edge joint. There is nothing worse than hearing that horrible crack while handling a model when a join or seam fails, particularly during painting.

Cockpit and undercarriage bay detail is excellent. The decal included for the instrument panel certainly saves a lot of careful painting. It will be used after painting the cockpit parts. The three piece seat looks very good, just missing some harnesses.

To be continued...

Hi all
I added the harnesses and seat cushions using painted masking tape. The instrument panel detail come courtesy of a decal included with the kit. The three parts of the main undercarriage bay fit in place beautifully. The central bay fits into the fuselage and provides very useful mid fuselage stiffness to the model. The interior of the wheel bays are interior green. I added a little light weathering, but generally the F-102’s in service looked immaculately clean. The detail for the jet pipe is also excellent as you can see. I have painted the re heat matrix and added some shading, but whether you will see much of it we will soon see. At the other end I packed the one piece nose cone full of small pieces of solder.
To be continued....

looking good so far sir

Hi All
Thanks for that Justin, it's much appreciated

The gluing of the fuselage halves and wing present no problems at all. Liquid glue was used throughout as the plastic is fairly soft. I glued in place the weapons bay although I am not planning to display the weapons. It’s worth doing as it does add significant stiffness to the fuselage. Also I needed to know what the fit was like, and it’s very good. Engine air intakes have been added as have the outer wing tips. As you can see they fit very well, they just need a little cleaning up. The separate wing tips may mean a Case XX Wing might be in the pipeline from Meng Models. The separate one piece nose fits very well indeed.
I think the blanking plates I attached to the rear of the air intakes are probably unnecessary.
To be continued…

Hi all
The main construction of this fine kit is almost finished. I have not found any problems so far, the kit has been a pleasure to build. The joints have been very accurate only requiring liquid glue, the only filler I have used is on a couple of points where the sprue was attached to parts and bleding the inner surface of the two bulges around the jet pipe. Be a little careful with liquid glue, don’t let it build up too much on the plastic surface. The plastic is pretty soft. I decided to open up the air brakes just to add interest. The detail inside is very good.
To be continued…

Looks good Tim. The Deuce is one of my favorite post war jets. Russell

Thanks so much for doing this, Tim! I'll get this kit and the upcoming Caracal F-102 decals, as I want to do a Happy Hooligans jet.

I was a USAF meteorologist at Grand Forks AFB in the 80s and our wx detachment had observers supporting them in Fargo. A crazy group, but fun.

I also have an F-89, F-101, F-4D, and F-16A ADF and decals for them. This'll finish the jet lineage, I think, of the unit.

Tom

Cheers Guys
It's been an excellent build so far thanks to the quality of the parts. Hopefully I will be able to apply some primer and some of the natural metal finishes this weekend.
Tim

Hi all
A bit more progress with the “Deuce”. It’s been a bit slow because of the time spent on masking. Well worth while though.
Halford grey primer has been used overall. I also used Halfords black to paint the area around radome and anti-glare panels in front of the cockpit and on top of the air intakes. I used Tamiya masking tape to cover the areas painted black. I reapplied grey primer over the black over spray to create a more even base coat for the overall colour: light aircraft grey. I did paint some of the areas white where the Alcad was being applied. I wanted a little variation in the colour on bare metal areas.
The bare metal parts on the air intake splitter plate and the area around the jet nozzle and a tiny area on the lower part of the air brake were sprayed aluminium using Alclad paint. Before the Alclad was applied I sprayed the bare metal areas with Vallejo gloss varnish. A gloss varnish really improves the shine of Alclad paint.
Overall light aircraft grey [Xtracrylic] was sprayed on and it took four sessions. In hindsight white primer might have been better. No weathering is being applied overall as the “Deuces” were kept very clean. I will weather the area around the jet pipe though.
Once the paint had cured overnight I peeled back the masking. Always an exciting if nervy moment. As it turned out everything looked good. One noticeable thing are the two parallel lines on each side of the windscreen glass. I had not noticed them before. Next stage is applying some decals.
Thanks for looking, to be continued…

Hi all
Well I’m calling this “Deuce” build complete. It’s been a pleasure to put together. For me this kit along with the Eduard 1/72 Bf 110E have to be close contenders for the model of the year.
One thing to watch out for with the decals is the ID numbers for each decal. There is no carrier film covering them, so they fall apart in the water soaking the decal. The tiny black parts get everywhere. Do cut the decal ID numbers away from the sheet before immersing the decals.
The decal quality is first rate and responds very well to Microsol.
Thanks for looking in.
tim

Hi, Tim. Very nice build, indeed. Now, I've just got to get a couple of those kits. There's lots of great schemes you can do. Or a dio with a Duece pulling up to a Bear to say " Hi'. All the best.
Happy Gluing, JT

A forced perspective shadow box diorama using this and a 1/200 DML Bear would look fantastic.

Hi, Jessica. You're right- it would make a great dio. Only trouble would be the size of it. Very big- nice, but big. Anyway, as it so happens, Sprue Brothers now have the Duece in stock. I just ordered 2 of'em plus some decals. Thinking about doing the Wa. state version. All the best.
Happy Gluing, JT

Hi, Tim. Very nice build, indeed.
I just order my Deuce!!!!

Cheers all, it was a very enjoyable build. Jose and JT you will not be disappointed with your purchases. I hope this build log helps.
All the best.
tim

Hi, Tim. You're right: the kit is beautiful and Draw's decals are great. I wonder if we'll ever see a Six? I'm going to try and build the Deuce while I'm working on my F4D. I hope I don't poke my eye out with something. And, oh, thanks for your build- you did the Hot Rod right. All the best, JT