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The source of inspiration for the purchase and build of this kit was this
photo.
Actually at the time when I purchased the Aggressor release of the kit,
I did not realise it had the right markings to do this scheme. In fact,
this actual aircraft 'Red 27' is provided by Hasegawa.
So now onto the build ..... |
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| Updated: 10 Nov 2006 |
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| Being a two seater the T-2 has a lot of canopy on display. A careful inspection
of the Hasegawa parts showed some minor scratching and a general hazy appearance
to the clear parts. The first task in preparing these is to remove them
from the sprue. A careful hand, side cutters and a sharp knife do the job. |
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| To bring the shine on the clear parts up a little, I will be dipping them
in Future floor polish. Before doing so, I like to remove any grease or
dirt from the surface using Polly S Plastic Prep. |
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As I use Future extensively, I keep a small bottle on hand at all times.
Dipping the canopy is very simple, just clasp it firmly (normally on a
frame section) and dip into the undiluted Future. Swirl it around a little
to remove any air bubbles etc.
I picked up several bottles of Future last time I was in the US, but I
noticed recently that Great Models Webstore have re-packaged the larger
Future bottles into smaller 3oz bottles. A great way for non US modellers to get some. |
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| Future, being floor polish, is fairly thin. After dipping a part like this
canopy, Future will tend to pool on the bottom of the part. To drain off
this pooled Future, I touch the edge of the part to an absorbant paper
towel (or tissue). The towel will drain away any excess as shown here.
You can see the damp pool on the towel closest to camera, whilst the far
side of the canopy still has a large glob of Future waiting to be drained.
If left on the part this would dry and leave an unsightly blob. |
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| Final step is to place all the parts you have dipped into a dust free container.
I like to leave them covered for at least 24 hours for the Future to harden
to a point where it will not stick to dust etc. The reason I did all this
to the clear parts as the first step in the model build was to allow it
adequate time to dry fully before I need to mask it. The longer you give
it, the less likely to have trouble you will have. As a rule of thumb,
I always leave parts at least 3 weeks before masking. |
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| Updated: 28 Feb 2007 |
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| After a long break (holidays and work travel), I'm back at the bench. Having
plenty of time to dig out my reference on the T-2, it became apparent that
almost all photos of the A/C show the leading edge slats partially deployed.
I figured if I was going to do the slats I may as well do the flaps as
well. Here both (top and bottom) have been cut from the wing. Some minor
work (with plasticard) will be needed to re-attach these. |
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Unfortunately no-one has fronted up as yet with a resin cockpit for the
F-1/T-2 (come on BlackBox <g>).
The kit seats are pretty basic, but luckily have the right shape and will
form the basis for some detailing. |
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| Some progress on one of the seats. Still some work to do here. Note how
the platic seat cushion (and lumbar support) have been removed. These will
be replaced with milliput. |
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When looking at my reference, I noticed that the cockpit sidewalls and
sills have some obvious detail that is missing in the kit. This photo shows
two port fuselage halves stacked on top of each other, looking down into
the cockpit (if that makes sense). The lower fuselage half (from my F-1
kit) is un-modified.
The uppper fuselage (from the T-2 kit) has been detailed by cutting out
two notches per cockpit (front & back) for the canopy latches. Also
note that the rounded corners at the rear of the T-2 cockpits have been
removed. These are way too thick in the kit and will be replaced with 10thou
card at the appropriate time. |
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| Here is the same T-2 fuselage half as viewed from the inside (hopefully
this makes the previous photo make sense). More minor detailing will be
added once these parts dry. |
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| As with most aircraft models, the kit manufacturers seem to think you can't
see down under the consoles. Perhaps they are right, but I just don't like
the empty look. Here I've added some plastic card to box in the area between
the pilots legs. |
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| Work has continued on the cockpit area with the front cockpit instrument
panel shroud (cover) being thinned out to be more in scale. This photo
shows the left side shroud has been thinned whilst the right side is as
provided by Hasegawa. |
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| The rear cockpit panel is a pretty good fit. The only thing needed here
was two 20thou strips to lift the whole panel so it fit snuggly into the
shroud. As you can see the shroud is also not to scale, but to modify it
would result in a bad fit of the panel. In this case I'll take the easy
way out (ie leave it alone). |
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| The front panel needed more attention than the rear. With the thinned shroud
(and perhaps without it) it was possible to see 'behind' the panel and
this just looked silly (it looks empty because it is). Here I have started
boxing in the front panel using plastic strip. This panel (like the rear)
has also been raised by two 20thou spacers. |
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| A better view of the boxing in of the front panel. Some trimming will be
needed to get the shroud to fit correctly. |
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| Detailing on the cockpit has continued, with the sills and sidewalls benefiting
from plasticard and Reheat PE accessories. Just about every surface of
the cockpit tub needed plasticard spacers to get a snug fit with the fuselage
sides. It makes you realise how spoilt we are with the resin cockpits that
are available these days. |
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| The starboard side also received some detailing treatment. I believe the
handles present in both cockpits are the canopy actuators. Here I have
used a couple of Reheat (now out of business) photo etch handles to replicate
these. |
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| Using my reference for the T-2, there are several instruments and switch
clusters on the top of the shroud. Even though my photos do not show how
the wiring works, some assumptions have to be made by the modeller (call
it creative license <g>). This photo also shows clearly the amount
of plasticard I needed to add to the left side of the cockpit tub to eliminate
an annoying gap. (about 35thou) |
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| The front shroud is actually cloth. Hasegawa provides a part that makes
some attempt to replicate this, but I thought the efftect could be better
and I did not like the angular shape of the kit part. I actually used a
small circular bit in the dremel tool to re-shape and rough up the part. |
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| Needing a break from the cockpit, I cut out several of the other parts
from the sprue. Here the nose wheel has had its ejection pin marks filled
with some plastic disks, which will be sanded flat. Using plastic to fill
even small holes like these is preferable I find to just using filler. |
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| Updated: 26 June 2008 |
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| I was not really happy with the cloth effect on the front shroud that I
have achived with the dremmel. I decided that a better solution was to
use a section of tissue paper. |
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| With the tissue paper held in place, a mixture of dilluted white glue was
applied which softened the paper and allowed it to conform to the shape
of the shroud. Once painted, I hope it looks more like cloth. |
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| As this kit will almost certainly never get a resin cockpit, I had to roll
up my sleeves and scratcbuild any details I wanted. The kit seats really
are very basic, so I started with replacing the seat cushions and lumbar
support on both seats with milliput. Here you can also see the start of
detailing work on the seat heads. |
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| After more detailed had been added from plasticard and wire, it was time
for addition of harnesses. These have been fashioned from lead foil (from
a wine bottle), and reheat PE buckles. |
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| A closer view of the front seat. Getting the belts to fall in a realistic
way is not as easy as it might seem !! |
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| The rear seat. Making your own belts has the advantage of allowing you
to have two seats with different belt positions. |
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| Updated: 08 March 2009 |
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| I recently read an article about pre-shaded cockpits and decided to give it a try on the T-2. If you
look closely at the edges of the grey paint, you can see the black undercoat. I'm not convinced I've got the
whole pre-shading technique worked out yet. |
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| The two seats are complete. Test fitting in the cockpit revealed that the rear seat sat too high.
The easist way to recify this was to trim some off the bottom of the seat.
This problem was first detected when I did a test fit of the canopies and found that the rear canopy actuator strut
(which attaches to the seat) was too high. |
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| Here we see the two seats in the cockpit tub. You can see that the modifications to the rear seat height have resulted
in the rear canopy strut being in the correct position. |
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| Earlier on I decided to detach the flaps and leading edge slats. Here we see the prominent gap left when the flap is re-attached
in the down position. |
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| To realistically fill the gap, I have used 30 thou plastic rod, gluded to the leading edge of the flap. The curved
edge of the rod will hopefully give a realistic result. |
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| The intake interiors need quite a bit of attention. Here you can see both intakes, with the closer one showing the
nasty ejection pin holes that need to be filled as they are very close to the front edge of the intake and will be quite visible.
I may yet decide to use intake covers. |
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| Work is underway to correct the intakes interiors. Plasticard (10 thou) has been used to fill the larger gaps. Super
glue will be used to fill the remainder. |
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| Updated: 03 May 2009 |
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| After my recent motivation with the C-17 and F-16, I believe I have enough modeling momentum to finally finish
off the T-2. After an hour of refreshing my memory on where I was upto, work starts on detailing the upper areas of the
cockpit. Between the two T-2 cockpits is a glass section, that needs to masked and painted, but I also decided it
could do with some more detailing. I need to attach a lip from 10 x 30 thou card to match the curved section (visible
on the kit part as a raised line. I start by super gluing the plasticard to the center of the clear part
and once this is dry I will carfully bend each end down and around the curve. Its often easier to tackle such jobs
a bit at a time, rather than trying to get the plastic to conform to awkward shapes in one go. |
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| Here you can see the clear part with the lip in place and much more ribbing added. Once the rear cockpit has received
the same treatment, the paint will be re-applied. |
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| Masking is one of my less favourite modeling tasks, so you can bet if I start masking, I must be motivated.
To enable me to paint the framing on this center section along with the cockpit proper, I needed to mask it first.
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