North American F-107C

[Guest]

It’s a simple kit, though it needs a little work to get everything to fit. There is a little flash around some parts, fit of a few parts is tight while others are slightly loose — it reminds me of a 1980s kit instead of one released in the last 20 years. But it’s a cool-looking plane and I wanted something quick and simple, so it’s fine by me

The build is essentially finished now, aside from weapons pylons and the weapons themselves. I spent some time today going through the weapons I have in various spares boxes and accessory sets, and comparing them to a little research in what would be realistic for a USAF plane in Vietnam to carry. I’ve more or less narrowed it down now to either four Mk. 83 bombs under each wing (three on a TER, one on a single pylon), or one AGM-62 Walleye guided bomb under each wing, either with no outboard pylons or with an AIM-9 Sidewinder on them. The Walleye is plausible but not likely, as the USAF didn’t use it much, but at the same time: in an alternate timeline in which the F-107 was favoured over the F-105, maybe the AGM-62 was also received more enthusiastically despite it being a Navy weapon …?

[Allen Dewire]

Nice to see you doing this little sidetrack Jakko. Very interesting wing thingy kit and you seem to be whipping into great shape. Like the idea of making it a production model too. Proto's always have kinda boring camo/paint schemes on them anyway.......

If you had to eject in front of that intake you'll probably lose your phone :smiling2:

Oh, and don't worry about Mark too much!!! It's either something serious in the South London air or the Old Bean has forgotten to take his meds again...............

Prost
Allen

[Guest]

Now with canopy and pylons:

[ATTACH]459930[/ATTACH]

Here’s a better view of the pylons:

[ATTACH]459931[/ATTACH]

The outboard ones are from a Fujimi A-4 Skyhawk kit I built 30+ years ago, the inner ones from some plane I don’t recall; both had to be fettled a bit to fit the curve of the wing, but they sit OK now. They’re probably wildly inaccurate for an F-107, but I couldn’t find any good photos of the real ones, and in any case, I have to make do with what I have I did try and put them in the correct locations under the wings, by measuring in photos and drawings of the real plane.

The white triple ejector racks (TERs) are also from a Fujimi Skyhawk I built around the same time as the other one. Armament will be three bombs each on these and one bomb on each outboard pylon, as that neatly uses up all the bombs in the Thunderchief kit. The centreline will just have the tank supplied in the F-107 kit.

[papa 695]

Just seen this one Jakko, one I’ve not seen before. Great idea to do it as a what if, and a cracking start.

[Guest]

Thanks, though the start is some way behind me now that I’ve finished building (other than the wheels)

[ATTACH]460017[/ATTACH]

The pitot tube is scratchbuilt:

[ATTACH]460018[/ATTACH]

I didn’t want to use the kit part because it’s very long and looks like the kind used on prototype planes, like those near the wingtips — which is why I cut those off too. The replacement you can see here is shorter and consists of three lengths of brass tube one inside the other: 1.0 mm, 0.8 mm and 0.5 mm.

And here’s a better view of the stores:

[ATTACH]460019[/ATTACH]

The fuel tank is from this kit, the bombs like I mentioned earlier, are from the Trumpeter F-105A Thunderchief kit. It has four fuse extenders and four normal-length fuses, which I find odd. Why not give eight of each? But hey, make do with what you have …

Once the glue has dried, I can start painting.

[Guest]

Here it is with a basecoat of Games Workshop Corax Grey White (called the latter but actually the former) primer:

[ATTACH]460088[/ATTACH]

Hopefully, I’ll put on at least the underside colour tomorrow.

[Jim R]

Always nice to get a coat of primer on. Doesn't appear to have highlighted any issues.

[PhilJ]

Thanks, though the start is some way behind me now that I’ve finished building (other than the wheels) :smiling3:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n[/ATTACH]

The pitot tube is scratchbuilt:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n[/ATTACH]

I didn’t want to use the kit part because it’s very long and looks like the kind used on prototype planes, like those near the wingtips — which is why I cut those off too. The replacement you can see here is shorter and consists of three lengths of brass tube one inside the other: 1.0 mm, 0.8 mm and 0.5 mm.

And here’s a better view of the stores:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n[/ATTACH]

The fuel tank is from this kit, the bombs like I mentioned earlier, are from the Trumpeter F-105A Thunderchief kit. It has four fuse extenders and four normal-length fuses, which I find odd. Why not give eight of each? But hey, make do with what you have …

Once the glue has dried, I can start painting.

Love the brass work, nice touch

[Mickc1440]

How do you get on with their white?
I've used GW paints for over 20 years now and this latest incarnation of white is definitely lacking. It might just be the last two cans I've had but I wouldn't call it white :smiling:

[Guest]

I like it as a primer, but Corax White is not white, plain as that

[Tim Marlow]

Interesting. A lot of people use Corax White or Chaos Black as primers, but neither of them is actually marketed as a primer, just as an undercoat :tongue-out3:

[Guest]

It isn’t? I can’t say I ever noticed, but now you mention it, it doesn’t seem to say “primer” on the can, no. In any case the distinction is academic to me for purposes like here: I just want a coat on the model so that the water-based acrylics that come next, won’t bead up Not that they always do, but I’v ehad it happen a few times when using them on bare plastic so I’d rather not take the risk of it happening again.

[Jim R]

I just want a coat on the model so that the water-based acrylics that come next, won’t bead up

I've had that happen a couple of times. Do you think it is simply the very smooth surface of the plastic or is it that the plastic has some slightly greasy contaminate on it?

[Tim Marlow]

To be honest Jakko, I’ve had that happen on primer :tongue-out3:

[Guest]

I've had that happen a couple of times. Do you think it is simply the very smooth surface of the plastic or is it that the plastic has some slightly greasy contaminate on it?

Could be either, I suppose, but I’ve not investigated enough to tell for sure. Tim’s reply doesn’t bode well for my desire to avoid that, though

Anyway, I sprayed the underside yesterday and then went on to draw a camouflage pattern onto the model this afternoon:

[ATTACH]460231[/ATTACH]

T = tan, m = medium green, d = dark green. This is based on the pattern for the F-100 Super Sabre, because the F-107 started out as an improved version of that before being given its own designation:

(source)

And then I started spraying the upper sides using the Hataka paint set I had bought previously. Well … judge for yourself:

[ATTACH]460232[/ATTACH]

I started with the tan, which didn’t really want to come out of my airbrush no matter what I tried. After over twenty minutes of trying to make it, including emptying the cup, spraying water through the airbrush and trying again with paint thinned with some water, I had painted one patch of brown on the left side of the tail and chucked the airbrush into my ultrasonic cleaner for about a quarter of an hour.

Once it came out of that and I filled it again, it did spray the paint reasonably well, but it hardly covers at all Each of those brown patches has at least five coats on it just to make the pencilled letters disappear. I decided to just paint beyond the lines and then get rid of them later with the greens, because there was hardly any point in trying to do so with the tan. The fact that I couldn’t get it to spray any fine lines at all also didn’t help in neatly painting the camouflage.

So, on to the green, which I hoped would do better:

[ATTACH]460233[/ATTACH]

At this point, after about an hour and a half of toil (including sitting on the sofa stewing while the ultrasonic cleaner did its thing) I said, “To hell with this paint” and cleaned my airbrush. While I was busy doing that and cursing, probably the most appropriate song possible came from the radio in my hobby room:

Thank you, KINK

I will not be buying any more Hataka … Hakata …HawhateverthehelltheorderoftheTandKis paints, I think. The ones I used on my Dewoitine 520 a while ago worked reasonably well, but in general, they all cover like … I was going to say “like crap” but that does tend to cover well, I think, so … like coloured water, I suppose. Maybe some people like this, but I know I’m not one of them — I want paint that covers. I don’t want to build up layers to get the right transparency, have pre-shading and all that kind of modern stuff — all I ask is paint that obliterates every colour underneath when I spray it. This appears to be too much to ask from modern paint manufacturers, though