On My Bench

[Scott Craig]

I've got two projects on my bench right now, and each of them appear to be long-term builds and I'm not making much progress on either one right now.

First is Tamiya's F-15C. I've gotten the "Office" done as well as some minor other assemblies such as the nose gear, intake trunks, and afterburner "Cans" but ran into a stumbling block on the afterburners themselves. They are ribbed inside and in two pieces. Naturally when I glued the two halves together there are some bad spots in the ribs and I'll have to find a way to fix them.

Here are a couple of photos of the cockpit and electronics bay behind:





The panels are Eduard color PE. This is the first time I used it, and while it may be cheating the level of detail is just amazing. There are a couple of minor gaps between the panels that were fixed after the photos were taken.

There are more photos and construction notes on my web site at This Link

Second up is Trumpeter's F-105D. I built the F-105G (two-seat variant) last year, and this one is for a man who flew them in Vietnam. He provided the kit and more aftermarket stuff than I ever knew existed. It will be finished as closely as possible to the one he flew, right down to the tail numbers and "Supersonic Salamander" on the intakes.

So far all I've got done is part of the cockpit and the ejection seat. The panels are Eduard color PE also and the seat is resin. I have changed a couple of things on the seat at the owner's request; the tube along the edge of the seat frame has been modified so it is right on top of the seat edge and the "Garters" have been removed from the leg restraints. I also added a seat safety pin and "Remove Before Flight" streamer on the right side of the seat. According to Joe the "Garters" were kept in their lockers and put on before they got into the airplane.







There are more photos and construction notes on my web site at This Link


The large photos show a copyright on them, but that's only because of some clown on EBay who stole another person's images and passed them off as his own build. I just got in the habit of putting my name on all of mine, so just ignore that.

[animal]

I like these very much. They have come a long way with the AM PE. The cockpits on both AC are very realistic. Very clean builds I might add.

[Lobbie]

Good progress so far on both birds.

I'm building the Tamiya F-15c for a client, there is a problem with the wing fit on this kit if you follow Tamiya's instructions, the afterburner cans are in several pieces and are a work of art, some 30 odd bits in each.

[Scott Craig]

Thanks guys.

Dave, they really have come a long way with PE. My only complaint is that it looks somewhat "Flat" in places. The main panel is in two layers so there is some depth in the instruments but the side panels are a single layer and don't have any raised detail to speak of. Other than that I was quite impressed with the detail.

Rob, I haven't gotten anywhere near the wing fit yet. This one is actually on the back burner and I'm sort of focusing on the F-105. I tend to swap back and forth though, so I may shout at you when I get to the wings. I did use Cutting Edge resin cans though. Tamiya did a good job on theirs though, and I probably could have stayed with them.

[seanrgb]

Some Nice Progress Scott
mind you After the revell F15 pit i did if there was a PE set for that
i would of gone that way
but looking forward to seeing more

oh 1 Thing how do yo put up a link for a site
but you always have clich here
how do you do it
cheers sean

[thad]

Nice look Scott

Thad

[Bluecorsair]

, How did you manage to sneak out a whole cockpit from the Air Force Scott!!! Trying to pass them off as your build!!! , shame on you!!

That is ...jeez, the "Bill" has no words???, Ha, yes I do!!
Amazing, stupendous, Awesome, Beautiful, oh, and pretty nice too! It is not cheating, it is adding detail, making it look like the real thing, if a person is able to do it then more power to 'em, I actually spent quit a lot on AM stuff for the first time for my King Tiger. I won't do it for every kit but some cry out for it, I have come to realize. And, as I get better (hopefully, I am) I will continue to get AM items.
The side panels may look a little flat but still look good and...the other "gadgets" and the "dash" more than make up for it!!!! Your talent for this is, to say the least, un-believeable!
On the inside of your exhaust, did you use CA or cement? Ha, like I know something, I know I am embarrassing myself on this because you already have thought of it, a long slender stick with sandpaper glued to the end? might be ardous, but... possible??
More pix!!!!!

Have fun,
Bill

[Scott Craig]

Thanks again guys. I appreciate it.

That is ...jeez, the "Bill" has no words???, Ha, yes I do!!
Amazing, stupendous, Awesome, Beautiful, oh, and pretty nice too!

I agree! And I'll be happy to pass along your comments to Eduard. They did all the work, all I did was glue the panels in place.

On the inside of your exhaust, did you use CA or cement? Ha, like I know something, I know I am embarrassing myself on this because you already have thought of it, a long slender stick with sandpaper glued to the end? might be ardous, but... possible??

Do you mean the intakes on my F-15? If so I used Tenax 7R to glue them. There was still some seam so I painted down the seam a couple of coats of Mr. Surfacer. The sanding was the tough part because the intakes are curved. I taped a sanding stick to a toothbrush and did it that way.

The "Best" way would have been the Swanny Sander" but mine was dead. Take an old, cheap, battery powered electric toothbrush with a rotary head. Cut the bristles off and glue a piece of sandpaper on the part of the head that turns. Lets you get in the tough places without a lot of work.

oh 1 Thing how do yo put up a link for a site
but you always have clich here how do you do it

For text only use the {URL} code (replace "{" with "[" and "}" with "]") An example would be:

{url=http://www.craigcentral.com}Click Here{/url}

You can also make the link BOLD by adding the {B} tag, as in:
{url=http://www.craigcentral.com}{b}Click Here{/b}{/url}


If you want a clickable image combine the {url} and {img} tags:
{url=link goes here}{img}image URL here{/img}{/url}
Just make sure everyting is in the proper order.

Dan has pretty much taken care of that now since he has added code to the forum to automatically resize the images.

[tango1]

Hi Scott,

very impressive work so far, those cockpits look quite realistic! Looking forward to seeing more,

Regards,

Darren.

[swanny]

Nice work Scott, keep it up buddy.

[gregers]

great looking builds Scott, thanks for sharing.

Greg

[wooverstone]

The only thing I can say is WOW. Superb job on the cockpits!

[Bluecorsair]

That is an outstanding idea, the [glow=red,2,300]'lectric toothbrush,[/glow] I missed that one somehow, Drat! A rotary head huh??
Sry for presuming to offer advice to an expert, *sigh*, just can't keep my big mouth shut sometimes.
I'll just sneak out the back.

[Scott Craig]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. That's one of the reasons I like 1/32 scale, the level of detail is just amazing on some of the kits.

These two are going pretty slow. I buried a very close friend a couple of weeks ago (he was killed on my birthday) and just changed jobs (last day at the old one was last Friday) so my head really isn't into them right now. Hopefully, since I'm off for the next 2 weeks, I can get something done on them.

Bill the toothbrush wasn't my idea, it was Swanny's. Matt is the expert, not me. I just manage to glue parts together in some sort of cohherent pattern ;d Feel free to offer advice at any time, I appreciate it and I'm certainly open to advice.

[seanrgb]

Cheers Scott