09/24/2005 -- Here are a couple of photos of what has been done so far.  Nothing major has been constructed, but the main panel is done and the seat partially done.  I am using Eduard color photo etch for the cockpit as well as a cast resin ejection seat.  The seat will be dressed up with some tubing and wire to make it look more realistic, and it will also get a coat of clear flat.  It is still glossy right now because I still have some work to do.  The belts and harnesses are photo etch as well and have not been added yet.  Also note that nothing has been glued into the cockpit yet.  The panel and seat are just sitting in there for the photos which is why they aren't sitting flush as they should.  The panel sides fit into some slots in the cockpit and will be flush when everything is done.  Finally the tab on top of the main panel is for the SAM warning gear.  I'm not sure at this point whether it will stay or not.  I'm using parts from two resin sets and two PE sets on the cockpit.  It makes it kind of difficult to know what to use, what to ignore, what to leave, and what to cut off.

There is an area above the red arm rest on the right side of the seat that looks like red paint has gotten onto the gray frame of the seat.  There are also some minor areas around the yellow ejection handle that look the same way.  Those are reflections of the color on the gray seat frame.  Everything is still glossy and causing the reflections.  It will go away when I get the seat flat coated.
 

10/17/2005 -- At the request of the owner I've made a couple of changes to the seat.  The tube along the edge of the seat has been revised so that it is right against the seat.  The garters have also been removed from the leg restraints.  According to him they were kept in their lockers with the other flight gear.  When they got to the airplane they connected the garters to the leg restraints.  I also added a seat safety pin on the right side of the seat with a "Remove Before Flight" streamer.
 

If I counted right, the cockpit consists of 118 pieces of styrene, resin, photoetch, foil, and wire, so it did take some time to assemble.  In addition to the Legend Dimensions resin ejection seat and parts of the Eduard PE Seat the cockpit consists of the Eduard Color PE Cockpit, the kit "Tub", and some wire and foil added for other details.
 

11/05/2005 -- One of the worst things about this model, and I remember it well from the F-105G I built last year, is the afterburner.  The burner is a cylindrical section that is assembled from four curved pieces.  All four of the sections are liberally sprinkled with ejection pin marks and other trash.  To complicate matters even worse the four pieces are ribbed so getting rid of the trash without ruining the ribs takes a good bit of work.  Once that is done you still have to assemble the four pieces and get rid of the seams in the joints, not an easy task.  I painted it once and wasn't happy with the way it looked so I stripped it and repainted it.  I'm still not completely happy with the results but it's about as good as I can get it.

The remainder of the engine is pretty easy since virtually all of it will be invisible once it is installed in the fuselage.  The only things that really need to be painted and detailed, other than the afterburner section, are the front and rear turbine faces, the flame holder, and the exhaust nozzle.  The engine is hollow and the front turbine face is open but it will be visible through the intakes.  I recommend that you cut out a piece of sheet styrene, paint it flat black, and put it behind the front turbine face to improve the appearance.

One other thing you can do that will help is to put a shield around the front face of the engine.  On both my F-105G and this model I constructed a cone-shaped piece out of sheet styrene.  It extends forward from the front of the engine to the rear of the intakes.  Anyone looking into the intakes won't be able to see the inside of a plastic model that way and it looks much better.

Just for the record, when I look at a jet model one of the first things I do is look into the intake(s) and exhaust(s) because, to me, these are the most difficult areas of a jet to get right.  They invariably contain lots of seams that are difficult to remove, and making them look right makes the whole model look better.

CUTTING EDGE CEC32154 FUSELAGE CORRECTION SET #1

This set contains, among other replacement parts, a repalcement ventral strake that goes on the lower area of the fuselage, and it is a piece of cake to install.  All that is necessary is to cut off the old ventral strake and then slide the replacement resin part into the slot that is left.  When trimming the area of the fuselage for this piece I'd recommend trimming it as smoothly as you can.  The instructions say to use a razor knife and score the existing strake tangent to the fuselage until it comes off.  This is probably the best and easiest way to do it, and only takes a couple of minutes.  It is important that the cut be smooth because the replacement strake is thinner than the one on the kit.  It fits the slot exactly but the cut edges of the kit strake extend out past the resin strake and will be visible if they aren't cut smooth.

	Here is a photo of the installed ventral strake.  The image to the left is a link to a larger image.  Click that thumbnail to view the larger photo.   Notice that I added a small piece of styrene on the aft and sanded it to match the profile of the strake.  The end of the ventral strake should be very close to the frame that holds the arresting hook. I notice in the photo that I still need to do a little sanding on that side of the strake to.  You can see a small line at the top of the strake (the bottom in the photo) where the epoxy I used to glue it in place oozed out a little. If you need a chuckle, take notice of what else the instructions recommend that you do with the old strake!  Since their instructions are copyrighted I won't include what they said here, but if you want to know send me an Email Message
	The kit also includes a replacement radome and RHAW antenna / strike camera.  If you follow the instructions the pieces go together quite well.  You have to sand the nose of the fuselage down about 1/8" (down to the first panel line).  Here is a photo of the cut-down fuselage.  The image to the left is a link to a larger image.  Click that thumbnail to view the larger photo.   Notice that after sanding you are left with three small notches that would hold the latches of the factory nose cone.  I used some 0.040 styrene to fill them in, and if you look closely in the photo you can see that I let them extend inside slightly.  The resin radome fits slightly loose so I used these three pieces to tighten up the fit.  It won't matter at all once the radome is glued in place, but for fitting pieces I prefer to have things fit somewhat tight.  The radome is not glued in place at this time, it is only stuck in the fuselage opening for the photograph.
	The instructions have a note to add 100 grams (3.88 ounces) of weight in the nose.  Since the resin radome was solid it just seemed appropriate to drill a hole in the rear of it and epoxy a 1/2" lead weight into it.  I didn't try to get it all the way into the radome, I just ground out a cone-snaped hole, stuffed it full of epoxy, and stuck the weight in.  I'll still need to add some more but since this was so far forward it just made sense to add some weight there as well.
	Here is the resin radome installed in the fuselage.  It is not glued into place, just stuck in the fuselage for the photograph.  As can be seen it fits quite well.
	The factory RHAW antenna / strike camera underneath the nose needs to be cut off.  It also needs to be cut off in such a way as to leave as much of the underlying plastic as possible since the resin replacement isn't as wide as the factory one.  I cut this one off with a razor saw slightly above where it neets with the fuselage and then sanded it down smooth.  This leaves the thickness of the plastic in place.  The inside of the cut doesn't have to be smooth.  Cutting Edge gives you a choice of an RHAW antenna alone, a combination RHAW antena / strike camera, or neither.  If you choose the "Neither" option they include a resin plug to close up the hole that is left. All the white dust in the rivet holes and panel lines is sanding dust and will be cleaned off thoroughly prior to painting.  No point incleaning it off now since I've still got some more sanding to do in places.
	Here is the resin radome and combination RHAW antenna / strike camera balanced in place.  The parts are not glued in place which is why there is a big huge gap between the radome and fuselage.

Notice in the photo to the left that both the main gear doors and the Scale Aircraft Conversions metal main gear BOTH have the brackets that mount the gear door to the gear strut.  One of the two has to go because they both can't occupy the same space!  I chose to sand them off of the gear doors and use the ones cast onto the gear struts since that would provide a more secure mount for the doors.  Note that this may not be a problem with either the kit gear struts or another brand of metal gear, but it is a problem with the ones I used.

While you are sanding, you might as well remove the pins that locate the door onto the gear since they don't line up properly either.  The one toward the bottom of the door won't even reach the gear unless you cut the brackets off of the gear strut and use those molded on the gear door.  The one to the top is about 1/32" off of where it needs to be for the doors to line up properly.  Again, let me emphasize that this may only be an issue with the Scale Aircraft Conversions metal main gear.  I really like that cast metal gear and highly recommend it, however it doesn't mate well with the BlackBox main gear doors.

If you choose to use the brackets on the gear struts you need to notch them down.  The strut should recess down into the gear door.  The photo to the left doesn't show it very well but I did file the brackets down very thin so that the strut would fit down into the door.  I also redrilled the location for the upper mounting pin so that it lined up with the hole in the strut and used a short piece of 0.025" styrene rod to mount the door there.  In reality, this is wrong.  The real gear door could not mount at the top and bottom of the strut or the oleo strut would not be able to expand and contract.  If you choose to omit the top mount the gear will be more correct, however the door will be very fragile as well.  The only thing holding it will be the two very small spots of glue on the brackets at the bottom.

Here is mine ready for further detailing.  It will now get the brake and electrical lines added as well as the landing light that mounts on the gear strut.  I think I'll clean up some of the "Dirt" I left on the edges of the gear door as well ;)  Fixing the problem, even with the gear strut and door already painted, was not a major task and only took about an hour to do both sides.  It would have been a lot easier to fix the problem if I had noticed it prior to painting everything because I had to be very careful not to scratch the paint while cutting and sanding the struts and doors.

This resin set provides a complete replacement for the M-117 bombs in the kit.  When used in conjunction with the Eduard 32208 F-105 Thunderchief Armament Set the result is some highly detailed replicas of the M-117 750 pound general purpose bomb.

	The set contains four complete bombs in the package, and each bomb consists of seven pieces as shown in the photo to the left.  A nose section, a tail section, four fins, and your choice of a nose fuse or nose plug.  Note that the casting plug has been cut from the nose and tail sections for this photograph.  They are not difficult to cut off, just put a razor saw right against the shoulder where the plug joins the part, saw a little bit, rotate the part, saw a little more, and repeat.  Keep the saw right against the shoulder and the parts will cut rather cleanly.
	The only problem I ran into assembling them was that the nose section of most of the bombs was not cast square.  As can be seen in the photograph the 90° triangle does not line up with the edge of the bomb.  It isn't a real serious problem, it just takes a little sanding to correct.  At first I thought it was the way in which I was cutting them from the casting plug, but when nearly all of them were the same way and the tail sections weren't I decided it wasn't me.
	Here is one that is roughly primed.  I wanted to see how much of a gap I had to fix between the fin and the tail, and judging from this photo I still need to do some work on it.  Also notice that the gap between the front section and tail section is completely gone.  The real ones show a panel line there as can be seen on This Photo Of The Real Thing on GlobalSecurity.Com's web site (an excellent resource for ordnance photos, by the way!) so I will probably go back and scribe a panel line on them.  I prefer to do that than try to maintain an even panel line depth when gluing parts together at the panel line.
	I didn't like the way the decals fit the bombs so I decided to paint the yellow nose stripe.  Masking around a curve such as the nose of a bomb is not the easeiest thing in the world to do but with a little time and effort it can be done.  The photo to the left shows one bomb masked (top of the photo) and a second with an initial coat of light gray primer.  I have never found yellow paint that covers very well so if the base color is dark I always spray a coat of something light in color before the yellow. To mask them two pieces of tape are needed, and they need to be cut on an arc.  For these particular bombs the piece to the rear was cut on an arc with a 0.740" diameter and the one at the front was cut with a 0.520" radius.  The stripe is 3/32" in width, the masking tape at the rear is 5/32" from the nose and the piece at the front is 1/16" from the nose.

Here's a hint for sanding the halves: Place a piece of sandpaper on a hard surface (I like to use flat ceramic tiles), then sand the part in a figure-8 motion across the sanepaper.  If you do this you won't get a rounded or off-center end, it will be nice and smooth and even.  Unfortunately the photo of the nose section in the middle photo above doesn't show that very well.  If you look where it is sitting on the ceramic tile you can see a slight gap on the left side and it should be completely flat on the surface.  I haven't assembled that one yet so I need to work on it a bit more.  However, as can be seen in the photo of the assembled bomb above it is so even that when the parts are glued together there is hardly any gap at all.  I used 2-part epoxy to glued the halves together, by the way.  Once it cures it sands quite easily and conforms very well to the shape of the bomb.

LEADING EDGE FLAPS

The leading edge flaps are somewhat problematic.  Specifically, they fit really badly.  You can see what I mean in This Photo of the F-105G I built last year.  Keep in mind that the photo was taken after messing around with them for a good while getting them to fit that well.

I've decided to change tactics on this "D" model.  The parts are the same as on my "G", but this time I chose to leave out all of the hinges and pins that Trumpeter provides because they cause a good bit of the fit problem.  The flaps are designed to pivot, but I wound up gluing them closed on my "G" and this one will be built with them closed as well.  I also closed off the back of the assmblies with a piece of 0.020" styrene sheet 5 5/16" long x 3/16" wide at the inboard end and 1/16" wide at the outboard end.  The flaps are hollow but there is a ledge inside the back that the strip of styrene fits into quite well.  I used a styrene pin in the middle of the rear of the flap (a piece of 0.025" styrene rod) drilled through the backing and into the leading edge of the wing to hold things in place and then glued it using Tenax 7R.  I still had to do some sanding and then escribe the line between the flap and wing, but all in all it worked much better than on my "G" model.  A couple of photos are included below, but I still need to do a little cleanup on the joint.  As can be seen in the photos there is a bit of a gap on the bottom side of the wing but there may actually be one like that on the real thing.

The five small spoilers at the rear of the wing look like they are sticking up in the photo but they are not, they are dead flat with the surface of the wing.  I'm going to have to go back and rescribe the panel lines between them and the wing because the sanding completely eliminated most of them.

I could probably have left the seam there since there is a track for the intake plug that runs right down the centerline of the intake, but I would have known it was a seam and I plan to do something different for the intake plug track.

COCKPIT PROTECTION

Once the fuselage is assembled the cockpit presents a rather delicate assembly that is just looking for a chance to get broken.  This is the method I use to protect them during assembly.  I cut a piece of stiff cardboard and bend it to fit over the cockpit area and tape it in place.  It's quick and simple and goes a long way to help prevent damage to your cockpit.

On this particular model the nosegear is also easily damaged since it has to be installed before the fuselage is closed up.  I have a similar cover for the nosegear but it was off when the photo was taken.  This nosegear is metal so it won't break easily but the paint is aluminum metalizer and is somewhat fragile.

LANDING GEAR

This is a large and heavy model when completed, and I don't think that the plastic landing gear provided in the kit is strong enough to hold it up.  It might last for a while but I suspect that over time they will begin to bow.  To be honest though I never even tried them.  I used metal gear for the F-105G I built in 2004 as well as this one.  If anyone has built this model and used the plastic gear I would be interested to know how well it has held up, and will be glad to add your comments to this page.

Personally I strongly recommend that anyone building this model invest in a set of cast metal landing gear, it is well worth it.  There are two companies I know of that provide these parts: Scale Aircraft Conversions (available from Meteor Productions) and Aeroclub Models.  The Scale Aircraft Conversions set contains the main gear only whereas the Aeroclub Models set includes all three gear struts.  There may be other companies that provide these parts but these are the only two that I am aware of.

WEIGHT AND BALANCE

This model will be a tail-sitter if you don't pay attention to what is going on!  The instructions, Page 9, Section 16, incicate that 110 grams of weight (3.88 ounces) need to be added to the nose.  With all of the resin I added to the rear of this model I added about 6 ounces of lead to the nose to be safe.  From everything I can tell so far it will be fine, but I'm leaving the nose cone off until the very end so that I can epoxy some more lead in the nose if I need to.

This additional weight also emphasizes the need for stronger landing gear, especially the main gear.  See the paragraph above pertaining to the landing gear.

JANUARY 3, 2006 -- GENERAL CONSTRUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS

I sent an email to the owner and told him that I don't give a damn what they say about "Stealth" and "Mission Capability" or any of the other modern buzzwords, there is nothing as sexy looking (As far as jets goes ;)) as some of the Vietnam era planes.  That Coke-bottle fuselage, and the graceful curve from the trailing edge on one side through the fuselage to the other side.  All of it topped by that big 8' vertical stab.  And, of course, those distinctive intakes.  The 105 was a beautiful plane by any standards, and I'm jealous as hell of the guys that got to fly them ;)

MARCH 4, 2006 -- GENERAL CONSTRUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS

About all that is really left to assemble is the centerline MER, some of the M-117 bombs, and the main landing gear.  I also have a few gaps here and there I need to fix and some minor parts such as the tail hook, speed brake petals, canopy, etc., but most of what is left at this point is painting and decaling.  For that I need some warmer weather, but that should happen in the next couple of weeks.

CENTERLINE MULTIPLE EJECTOR RACK

I'll pass on a little tidbit that I got from the man I'm building this one for.  The bombs on the bottom of the centerline MER should be oriented so that the fins form an "X" whereas the bombs on both of the shoulders should be oriented so that the fins form a "+".  This helps prevent them from fouling each other when released.

MARCH 19, 2006 - GENERAL CONSTRUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS

If you wonder why the piece of tape over the cockpit reads "Bad Tape" it's because it isn't stuck to anything and I didn't want to trust it to block any overspray.  I apparently poked my finger through it and shoved it down into the cockpit.  I lifted it back out with some tweezers but didn't want to push on it too hard to get it to stick back.  The cockpit is very fragile!  Luckily all the painting up front was done when it happened.

MARCH 26, 2006 - SPEED BRAKE PETALS

The photos above show one of the four speed brake petals (part I-8) that fit around the exhaust end of the engine.  Look closely and you'll see a problem with them (click the images to see a larger photo).  The photo on the left shows three very prominent ejector pin marks; two at the front (top of the photo) and one in the middle towards the rear.  When the engine is shut down and the hydraulic system loses pressure the speed brake petals tend to open up.  The top stays down, the sides open about 7 degrees, but the bottom petal flops wide open.  If you don't fix those pin marks they will be very visible on the bottom section, especially the one toward the rear.  The two at the front are easily sanded off but the third one needs to be filled and sanded.  It doesn't take much work and certainly improves the appearance of the model, as can be seen in the photo to the right.