F8 Crusader

[Model Maker]

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.

[lastvautour]

I look forward to your F-8

Lou

[Model Maker]

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

[Model Maker]

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.

[lastvautour]

I am going to like this one. Keep to photos coming.

Lou

[Gearup]

Nice to see you are picking up on a paused project.
Fraser

[Boomerang]

 Watching with great interest.

 Gordon

[Model Maker]

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.

[lastvautour]

An excellent way to secure the parts.

Lou

[Gearup]

I like the robust construction of your models. Built to last!

Fraser

[Model Maker]

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).

[lastvautour]

Nicely shaped wing.

Lou

[Boomerang]

 Coming along nicely.

 Gordon

[Model Maker]

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.

[lastvautour]

Excellent Crusader. I love the way you join your flight surfaces to the fuselage. Well beyond my talents.

Lou