Thought I'd also start a more detailed model of the F8 Crusader and progress the shaping of it along with the Toy version.
This one will be painted, while the toys will be primarily finished with a child safe natural finish. Scale is 1:48. Fuselage and wings are pine. Since the horizontal and vertical stabilizers are fairly thin, I've opted to make these from maple to provide some additional strength and resistance to potential future breakage. Tang at nose (which will be removed at the later stages of assembly) has been incorporated to facilitate clamping during the shaping stages.
I look forward to your F-8
Lou
Centrelines and station lines penciled on to cut out fuselage.
Since the model will be painted, I don't need to worry about the seam of the lap joint being along the centreline in the same manner as the toy crusader. This means I only need a simple lap joint with the joint seam on one side of the fuselage.
Lap joints on wings cut. I used a shoulder plane to perform the final fit up of the lap joints. First time that I have used one. The blade on the shoulder plane goes right to the side face of the plane, so it shaves right up to the wall of lap. With the grain direction of the wings, the shavings came off very thin allowing for good fit up. The lap joints are a little longer than required. Once the fuselage is shaped, I will trim the length of each lap. I'm slowly becoming a convert to lap joints for the models with the wings located at either the top or bottom of the fuselage. They seem to be stronger than stub ins.
At the thickest part of the root, the wings are approximately 3/8" thick, so each lap is 3/16" thick
Finally returning to this model. Have decided to re-cut the tail and stabilizers using maple due to their thinness. Cut the kerfs to facilitate chiselling out the rabbit for the wings.
I am going to like this one. Keep to photos coming.
Lou
Nice to see you are picking up on a paused project.
Fraser
Watching with great interest.
Gordon
Daddos rough cut for wing and tail. Tail rough fitted as well. Wing daddo will be tidied up later, when the wing is fitted into the fuselage.
An excellent way to secure the parts.
Lou
I like the robust construction of your models. Built to last!
Fraser
Dare I say Fraser, I sometimes build the models like a brick outhouse.
Have been distracted on other projects, but back on this one now. The wings were too wide for me to cut on my 4" band saw, so had to resort to an old fashioned way of cutting kerfs on the wign and chiselling the excess material away.
Photo 10 shows a side view of the kerf cuts
Photo 11 shows the wing surface with the kerf cuts
Photo 12 shows the chiseling process to remove the material. It was certainly a challenge managing the grain of the pine material in order to prevent gouging. If I have many more models with delta wings, I may have to purchase a Japanese pull saw.
Photo 13 shows all the roughed out components. You can see the Shinto rasp (red handle) on the workbench. This rasp is great for rapid material removal for models this size (1/32 scale).
Nicely shaped wing.
Lou
Coming along nicely.
Gordon
Thought I would be clever and used a small instrument plane to shape the fuselage. However, I became carried away and destroyed the subtle contours at the tail end of the fuselage. So I have re-cut a new fuselage. I should have stayed tried and true and used files for more controlled material removal. But nothing ventured, nothing learned.
Images 14 and 15 show drilled holes for the stabilizer mortise and finished chiseled shape. Whenever possible I prefer mortise and tenon joints rather than dowels or equivalent to fasten parts to the fuselage. The mortises are usually not too difficult to establish for 1/32 or in this case 1/48 scale models.
Images 16 & 17 show the tail mortise and tail / stabilizer fitted
Image 18 shows the fuselage in the carving clamp. Rear section to be rough shaped to allow correct placement of the fuselage strakes. By only shaping the rear portion of the fuselage, I was able to retain the square cut surfaces of the fuselage mid section as a good clamping in the tilting vise (see photos 19 & 20)
Figures 19 & 20 show the fuselage in a tilting vise and the mortise for the fuselage strakes. I opted to use the tilting vise to chisel out the mortise due to the incident angle to the fuselage (42 degrees) and the narrow width of the strake. By tilting the vice appropriately, I was able to chisel the mortise outline simply by keeping the chisel in the vertical direction. Because the strakes are thin and project away from the fuselage, the were cut from hard maple.
Figure 21 shows the rear components fitted to the fuselage. Final fitting will be performed when the fuselage shaping is complete.
Excellent Crusader. I love the way you join your flight surfaces to the fuselage. Well beyond my talents.
Lou
Welcome back Lou!! We've missed your ongoing encouragement over the past while, but recognize you have had more important items to deal with. Trust you are recovering from the tragic loss of a loved one.
I'm afraid I am not buying into your comment that the mortise and tenon approach is beyond your skill set. You are a very skilled craftsman!! I suspect it has more to do with the scale you typically work in (1/72 or smaller). With 1/48 scale and larger, standard chisels can be used for most mortises. The tenons are simple, since they are an extension of the root area of the attached component.
Below 1:48 scale I suspect miniature chisels would be required for the mortises. For the strakes, which are only 3/32" thick at the root, I had to resort to a small electronics screw driver to remove material. If the scale was smaller, I could see myself either buying some miniature chisels or making some using nails, drill bits or similar thin metal sources. There are a few YouTube videos on making miniature chisels.
Thank you for the vote of confidence.
Lou
Finally finished the second attempt. Still requires a little sanding, but should be ready for the shellac sealer shortly. I used some poplar for the tail and horizontal stabilizers since it is a little stronger than pine. But it seemed to be a courser wood, so I'll stay with my pine / maple combinations on future models.
Will have to get moving on this model to have it completed by year end for the annual photo album.
Was able to salvage the first attempt, so will work on assembling and finishing it in parallel with painting this one.
An excellent Crusader.
Louis
Looks amazing Ken.
Looking forward to the finished model.
Gordon
Have laid down base colours (grey & white) and started work on the details. Wanted to utilize homemade decals for the star and bars, but the shape of the re-fueling pod would be a bear to form a decal around. So have opted to paint the star & bars with masks.
First photo is the test to see if the stencil would appropriately form around the re-fueling pod. It did using FBS Gold Mask, which is a paper masking material. I find for certain profiles this adheres better than the plastic masking material since it is paper. Test install was performed on primed finish before wet sanding.
Next photo is the Star & Bars partially completed. A couple of knife knicks in the star trying to remove the mask. Will touch this up at the end
Last photo of the completed bar and stars. Not quite as crisp as a decal. But looks acceptable from a distance.
On to airbrushing the remaining details
Very nice! Did you cut the shapes for the insignia out yourself? If so, did you have a pattern to follow or anything?
I utilized a site which listed the dimensions / ratio of the various components and redrew the image in Inkscape so I could import the stencil into the Silhouette cutter software. I suspect I could have redrawn directly in the Silhouette software, but I am not as familiar with the various functions in this software. Once imported I let the Silhouette cutter cut out the various components of the stencil along with some spares.
Magnificent painting.
Louis
Excellent work Ken.
Gordon
Thanks for the positive feedback. I'm still honing my painting skills.The separation clear coat went on with some orange peel appearance. Will perform a sanding with 2000 and 3000 grit sanding medial before applying the final clear coat.
Have completed all the painting as shown in the pictures. Still have to add the decals on the rear portion of the fuselage and then apply the final clear coat.
That looks great! I admire your very smooth finish.
Excellent workmanship.
Louis
The finish is a little rough, although it may not be apparent in the photo. Will sand with 2000 grit to smooth before applying final clear coats.
Photos show positions of decals and alignment using tape. I use 1/16" FBS fineline tape which has low tack and a greater thickness than some of the other masking tapes. Using this approach allows me to establish vertical and horizontal reference points. It also allows me to check the positioning of decals on each side of the fuselage to ensure mirror locations without the worry of a decal setting up.
Homemade decals installed. They install very quick and easy as two decal edges simply butt up against the reference tape. Used Microset solution to set the decals. Since the surfaces are relatively flat, there was no requirement to apply Microsol as a follow up.
On to minor paint touch ups and clear coat.
That looks great! I like the idea of using masking tape as a reference. On plastic models, I always had panel lines to go off of, but with wood models, I was just eyeballing it on my Thunderbolt.
What kind of decal paper do you buy to print your own? I did a quick search on Amazon and there were tons of options. I'd love to hear what everyone uses for theirs, as that seems to be a more economical way to go, in addition to giving you more freedom of markings.
Yes, the tape provides a temporary set of panel lines. I use a set of digital verniers to position the tape. I always import the plans into my CAD program (Turbocad) which allows me to obtain acurate measurements from specific reference points on the model.
I have two brands of clear and white decal paper. Years ago when I bought my first batch circa 2015, I ordered Papilio water slide decal paper. This was the brand which most modellers seemed to use.
I misplaced these and went to reorder some more in 2022, but it seems to be very scarce. Not sure why although I suspect they are not in business.
When I ordered my second batch I purchased ROLURIOUS products. I've only used the clear, but it seemed to work well. Prior to purchaseing, I looked at the review percentages (4 and 5 star) and number of reviews as guidance. This brand seemed to have great ratings with a large number of reviews.
Upon performing some recent searches, it seems the decal papers have a shelf life. But the Papilio paper worked fine on this model after 10 years since purchase.
Magnificent Crusader. It's an excellent addition to your flight line.
Louis
Thanks Lou!
Roll out Feb. 11, 2025.
Two coats of gloss varnish applied over decals for protection.
The F8's incorporated a gloss finish on all the white control surfaces and a matt finish for the grey areas. The gloss varnish looked too stark so a coat of semi gloss varnish was applied to the white area. The grey areas received a partial matt finish (4 parts matt with 1 part semi gloss). All varnishes were acrylic as these do not yellow with age. This combination of finishes "Looks Right", even if it's not completely accurate.
A magnificent creation and a perfect representation of the USN Gunfighter.
Louis
That looks great! Well done!
Thanks for the positive feedback. I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Thought it may not be very colourful. But I am pleased with the results.
As previously mentioned, I was able to address the issues with the first fuselage, so will assemble a second model, but with different markings. All the components were previously fabricated, so all that is required is to assemble the model.
Now that it's assembled, will perform some tidy up and final sanding before starting the paint process. Will change my approach on the primer as I incurred issues with the BIN shellac primer peeling off from the wood on the trailing edge of the wings when I removed some masking tape.The Tamiya paints stuck to the BIN. I am certainly perplexed as to why the shellac primer did not stick to the wood. Maybe I sprayed it when the weather was too cold. I don't like spraying shellac indoors due to the odours.
Terrific result Ken!
Gordon