T-38A Talon Thunderbird

BK thanks for the props!

I was holding off on an update till I had the whole thing in primer but, Im too excited about how well the canopies are matching up Front to back there’s no gap and the edges are all parallel. Just some feathering of the bottom edge to the fuselage and these will be good. Going to spend more time on the cockpit this weekend seeing as these are so clear and straight!

Feels like I've hit a milestone this weekend. No, haven't got it all in primer yet   I do have all the major parts assembled though. It looks like a T-38 now. It took me a hair over 2 weeks just to do all the scribing, rivets, hinges, fasteners, and fittings for this beauty. Wow that was a long time with no reason to post updates of 10 more rivets tonight, if you know what I mean. The posts are good to keep the m o j o  going on a long build like this tho. So let me show you what I've accomplished...

Extra tubing and wiring on the seats and rear console. Added the Y-harnes from the seat to the pilot (this is in addition to the harness that holds his chute on in this style seat).

Painted up his Thunderbirds helmet and detailed out the canopy a little. You can't see it in any of the pictures but the KittyHawk canopies are made in the weirdest fashion. They aren't round. You can kinda get that impression by the distortion you see looking through them. They are actually a series of flat sections connected together, think of it like a stop sign but with about 16 sides to it. No amount of work gets rid of it either and you can see it clearly in person.

Glued on the wings and tail. Feathered in the tail and the canopies so far. Will do the wings tomorrow after they dry overnight.

Here's all the Archer Fine Transfers I alluded to the other day.

And finally a frontal assault. 

Lots of little things to do this week. I am really confident next weekend will be full primer! Thanks for doing a fly-by 

Its coming along nicely.  Time well spent for sure.  

You guys are gonna love this. I know it’s my favorite part of modeling. To keep from starting on the wings too early after filling the seam I started on the exhaust nozzles. 

Now here’s what I had to start with

Here’s what it needs to look like 

now off I went to wander through stores to see what I could find...at Walmart I picked up these...

with a little AKInteractive brown wash and some Vallejo burnt umber and desert dust pigment this is what I created!

I’m still working on the flame holders up in the nozzle. Going to try spraying some clear blue and red in there to finish off the in-flight look of full throttle. 

What an epic build!  I wish you the best on the completion of this obvious labor of love!

Glad you like it RealG! More updates on the way as I head down the home stretch.

I got her all in 1 color tonight, Citadel's Corax White primer. I like these because they go on so thin, yet come from a large spray can. There's some touch up work do do. To be expected though. The wing joints came out peachy and they are full of filler so that's a big plus. Most of my time will be spent along the canopies. It's such a high visibility area that it has to look better than it does now. 

Looking good Mongoose!  You certainly have more paitence for putty/sand/repeat than I do!

Thanks Keyda...I know you've had your share of the fill sand repeat routine too! 

bvallot glad to hear you've been hanging out. Hope you enjoy the finishing touches as much as the bondo stages lol

Thanks for checking things out everyone. I've got some more progress after a day of snow. Spent my time during the week finishing little stuff, plus one area on the bottom I just didn't like so I redid one side of the bulge just in front of the air brakes. Today has been all about fine line tape. Wish I had more to show, though I did get out to a movie with the family and made a big dinner so it was a good mix of bench and family time today. 

With a mix of kabuki tape and 3M fine line the patterns are coming together. here's an example; I printed a set of decals on paper and then traced them out on the kabuki tape.

Clear scotch tape works well to hold it all together until you are ready to pull off the sections you want to paint.

This morning I taped the top for the red and blue. Just the area around the cockpit and the spine left to do.

and this afternoon and evening I worked on the bottom for the red and blue. I still have to tape between all the guidelines that are laid down. 

Tomorrow night I'll finish up the guidelines and spray some clear to seal all the edges. Most likely won't see color until Tuesday. I decided to attack the paint scheme a little differently this time. On the last 3 I painted all the gloss white first then went back and did all the taping and sprayed the color coats. While this worked it was hard to cover the white, the red and blue are just a bit translucent so I have to add more coats. And the red tends to look a little pink at first. lol That's the reason I used the kabuki and kept the pieces in register. I plan to cover the red and blue with the tape and spray the white around everything. Wish me luck!

Finally, after all these months...COLOR!

I reduced the MCW paint 60/40 with MrColor Leveling Thinner. Then I worked up the opacity in 4-5 coats. The larger areas under the wings and along the spine took 5 in blue. Surprisingly the red covered in 3 coats.

Here's 4 with the blue. I ended up putting one more coat on after this pic.

And here are two after wet sanding to 8000 grit and gloss coating  the tape is off haha

All the major work is done! The highs - gloss is probably the best I've ever managed to attain and the colors came out vibrant. The lows - the blue had a tendency to peel  nothing that can't be fixed. Just didn't get the bottom cleaned off well enough before painting would be my guess. I want to sand the gloss down and apply another uniform coat over everything so the cockpit will stay closed up tonight. Lots of little stuff to do. On track to finish her up this week for sure!

This hasn't been wetsanded yet so those edges where the tape was removed will go away after sanding.

I got some good advice About spraying the chips rather than brushing in the touch ups. The color is matching up perfect. I worked it up slow then did a mist coat over the area of the repair and now you have to look close to find the chip.

Looking good!  Lots of surgery and now masking.   Impressive  

Soon to be a beauty!

Antenna all made up, glued, and painted. Decals are on...there’s only 14 total so this was the easiest decal session ever! Microsol applied. Off traveling for a few days. Good time to let it dry. Clear coat when I return then it’s time to foil the exhaust and add the intakes on top of the engine area. Also, found the perfect size brass tube to make the pitot out of at the LHS this morning. 

Time for the air show to start. I know many of you waited in line for some time to see it  To date this is my best effort for a paint job. There's one photo over the wing where you can see the reflection of the US Air Force lettering in the wing! All the little parts came together without me dropping 1 spot of glue on the finished paint. I've only got one problem and that's the front canopy. I think it's got dust on the inside of the canopy. At some point I may have to strip it and redo it completely. I tried to future it again and that hasn't worked. 2 out of 3 aint bad. It was fine after the primer so I'm lost as to what happened but it's recoverable. The rivets and panels look crisp I think. The decals are a mix of Kitty Hawk F-5F and the Tamiya F-4 Phantom from CamPro. They all went on sweet with no silvering. The paint is wet sanded to 12000 grit with a sponge. It's all MCW lacquer paint 60/40 with MrColor Leveling Thinner. I used BMF Chrome for the pitot, wing tips, and exhaust. I sprayed some clear blue and red in the exhaust to try and get some afterburner type exhaust look for the inflight pose. Here's a few as she executes a rollover maneuver.

After looking at the gallery of pics I thought it might be neat to see the progression of the major modification to get the profile to really look like a T-38. Here's how the fuselage came together.

Your build turned out wonderful. The surgery and custom work is outstanding.

N-I-C-E! And I doubt you will see another like it either....

Ben

That is one impressive amount of work and skill to pull this off. Truly an amazing build and worthy of awards. Well done, Sir.

BK

Looks great Mongoose!  You've got some serious painting skills at work! 

Very nice Mongoose! Happy to see the finish. Love all the hardwork. =]

Many thanks gang! Glad you enjoyed the build and stopped by to see what was happening. Only 3 more to go now to finish the set 

I decided to put her under the knife tonight. The fog under the canopy was killing me! Taped up all the edges and went as slow as possible with the trusty #11 blade to pop it off. Well worth it. Turns out it was dust as I expected after all the work i didon the outside to no effect. My own worst enemy...I barely had to open that pitot tube hole at all but what little ther was obviously was electrostatically attracted to the canopies ... of course. Main canopy cleaned, back seat 3/4 done due to needing something smaller and longer, and the front is about the same for same reason. Here’s how it looks now,

Fantastic work all around! Not sure how I missed this, but you’ve done such a great job with all the surgery and filling and profiling. Thanks for sharing this build!

Also, you’re very brave to be popping the clear parts off to clean some dust! 

Great work!

You're a brave man for tackling a Kitty Hawk kit and you've also got some good talent to make one look that good. You've got my respects bud.

RadMax8

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Also, you’re very brave to be popping the clear parts off to clean some dust! 

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Thanks RadMax8! You know I had to take pics from certain angles to minimize how bad it looked in real life. I'm sure we've all had those. Told myself it was ok for the shelf but I just couldn't bear to see it after spending all that time learning how to make a canopy look good, finally getting it together and then screwing it up doing something sloppy! BTW it took 2 glasses of wine to improve my bravery 

Mustang1989 appreciate the props! glad you stopped by to check it out