Revell F-8E Crusader

gonna have to try a little harder with the IP after seeing some of the work you guys do around here!   heheh  (photo deleted)

oooh....look what I found.......didn't even know I had this....

Ish, I saw your box full of fuselages......are you running an assembly line??  hehehe

What is your preferred method for thinning the ass end......?

You are getting good info on this one so far.  My dad was a flightline qualified jet engine mechanic on these in a USN fighter squadron back in the late 60s so I basically grew up seeing tons of old 16mm film and slides, etc etc etc.  

The Revell kit is probably the worst of the "modern" 1/48 kits of this plane but it is still an old favorite for me.  Count on keeping the canopy closed unless you really wish to do some severe thinning of the lugs on the rear section.  Even then, it would be a pain.  Skimmed the thread here and did not quite notice if you were told this, but did see that you had white metal landing gear set, the kit's plastic main landing gear set is wrong and causes the back end to sit too low.  

Some other bits--air intake was insignia white, same as inside landing gear doors.  The dark gull gray is the right color for the cockpit aside from the green LOX bottle as mentioned.  The refueling probe is better off being left off and the door closed.  

If you ever give the Hasegawa kit a try, I think you would like it better.  My next endeavor will be the Trumpeter 1/32 F-8E, will have to come up with custom markings for that one to show the aircraft my dad was a plane captain on.  Would love to see the photos when you get this one done!

Maybe I'll just set the canopy in place so it can be removed to reveal the resin tub! I bought the white metal gear because of the problem you mentioned.

It all depends on how detailed you want to get.  The Revell kit is not very detailed compared to later models like Hasegawa.  I am actually working on a 1/48 Hasegawa with aftermarket cockpit and photo etch, but it has a long way to go.  The canopy lugs on the Revell kit are quite inaccurate.  I remember reading an article where the author built one of these and shaved down the inside surface of those lugs, wanting to position the canopy open.  When he finally got it shaved enough to fit somewhat properly, the remaining lugs were very thin.  

My dad was in the Med, 6th Fleet aboard the Shangri La.  Squadron was VF-13, 1967 and 1968 cruises.  They started out with -E models, then went backwards to -D's, and even to -C's because the newer planes were pulled to send to Vietnam.  He was a plane captain on AJ100, the CAG bird, and one of the pilots struck the ramp on landing, killing the plane.  Since there was a war on, units in the Med were way down the list for replacement aircraft and my dad spent the rest of that cruise cooking for other sailors because they did not know what else to do with him.  He spent very little of that time even getting near the jets.  I have the Detail & Scale book for the Crusader, tons of great detail shots but most are black and white.

I broke the doggone seat rails off of the BB tub when I was stripping the wrong color paint off of it! Sucks to be me....can't rebuild that. And I don't think I can make the primary initiation/face screen handles out of wire on the BB seat either. Maybe I'll whack that part off of the kit seat and slap it on the resin seat.

The book you referred to sounds like something I should have. Where can I get it?

You can usually find these books at some of the online hobby stores.  I also found it on Amazon.  

I just used Flexi-file sanding films, which worked perfectly because they are  flexible enough to bend to the radius of the opening. I also replaced the seat rails with Evergreen or Plastistruct styrene angle stripped, which I cut to size and thinned down. F-8Fan, I've never seen VF-13 in 32nd, but Aeromaster 48-568 has those markings. That would be a good starting point from where you could scale up images of the decals to 32nd and cut them yourself from a solid color decal sheet.

The Aeroscale markings are for an earlier VF-13 bird, from the early 1960s.  Tail code was AK, crom Carrier Air Wing 10.  When my dad was in, VF-13 had swapped over to CAG-8 with the AJ tail code.  If you look on the Ginfighter's webpage(F-8 Crusader Organization), you will see several photos of the correct aircraft, the guy that runs that website is actually a former VF-13 pilot who knew my dad.  I have some photos but it looks like I will have to either custom-print decals myself or commission someone else to do it.  Or, I might end up having to hand-paint some of the markings and use decals for the rest.  VF-13 back then carried a red stripe at the wingtips with three white stars on it.  I imagine it would probably not be that hard to find star decals that would work.  

If you can't find Microscale stars on their webpage, you could look into the ventral fin decals on -235 Crusaders (photo posted earlier in this thread) or -235 Phantoms. By carefully cutting the Red parts around the stars you might be able to do the whole stripe without painting.

www.microscale.com/.../merchant.mvc

u guys are DEEP into it!  Holy Schitt, Batman!

SargeUSMC

Maybe I'll just set the canopy in place so it can be removed to reveal the resin tub! I bought the white metal gear because of the problem you mentioned.

Which IP is the most correct? From the photos I've seen of cockpits, the one on the right appears to be the most correct. That one is the kit IP. The other one is resin.

Hello ISH...........I was wondering how you went about thinning the ass end as you recommended in a previous post? Did you do it by hand? Did you use a dremel? What.......?

For the red stripes with white stars you could print your own on white decal paper (should be fairly easy to design in Microsoft paint and then just print) or you could put down white decal paper and find some red and cut out and put over it.  Play around with printing your own, the only real limit is your printer's resolution.  I did some custom name placards for a 1/48 F/A-18 that turned out fine.  For some with really deep colors (like possibly red) you may have to print the item twice on your sheet and then put one on top of the other.  Using a toothpick it's actually a lot easier than it sounds to line them up.

Groot

Getting wready to "wrassel" these parts together.....

I thinned the back end by hand. It doesn't take that long to get it to a better looking thickness.  You have to pay attention, though. Its easy to sand all the way to the exterior (ask me how I know).

Ya, that's the way I did it. I think it looks pretty good. Thanks for the tip.

Ish.....Fitting the tub and the intake.....thought I'd fit the intake to 1/2 od the fuselage and then fit the tub to that......but it looks like there's gonna be no way to address the intake seams......how did you do yours?

Hi, Sarge! The panel on the right - the kit panel - is correct for an F-8E. The Black Box panel is correct for the earlier F-8C/D.

ugh.......wait......you're talking about the cockpit sidewalls? Those are both BB parts......

STALLED OUT....IN A FLAT SPIN........trying to recover.....gotta get that resin tub massaged down to fit so I can slap the fuselage together yet........so much going on over here.....airbrush is getting dusty..again!