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1/48 Cougar and Tiger, DONE! 1/11/17


ghodges

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Thought I'd try to knock out 2 last builds before the New Year, so I hauled out the 1/48 CollectAire resin F9F-8 Cougar and F11F-1 Tiger. These are some of the older molds that CA did, as indicated by the orangish resin used to cast them. They're not nearly as nicely molded or detailed (inside or out) as the later resin kits CA did like the B-66, the later issue A-3, the F2H-3/4 Banshee, or the FJ-2/3 Fury. That said, they are buildable with some planning and elbow grease!

The Tiger has the front fuselage halves molded separately from the rear of the canopy forward, and I had to use a motor tool to "hog out" a hole in order to add nose weight. Did it need it? Not sure, BUT since the entire rear fuselage is one big hunk of solid resin, I figured better safe than sorry!

The Cougar is molded better than the older Tiger, with the fuselage being thin and hollow cast in two halves. On the other hand, the entire wing is molded solid from tip to tip, with room to add the gear wells and then fit the fuselage assembly over it. It works quite well after test fitting, sanding and adjusting everything first.
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You can see the sanding marks and even the clear superglue lines where it was used as filler. The next step will be yet more sanding and then some rescribing. By the way the tail planes and flaps aren't glued in place yet.

Both planes will carry the USN gray over white scheme, so I can paint them both at the same time. More pics when I get the sanding and priming done! Questions, comments, and critiques welcome, as always!

 

GIL :smiley16:

Edited by ghodges
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Fill, sand, repeat, fill sand repeat. Those are looking great so far.

 

Can the Tiger be built as the short nose also? I was wondering because of the breakdown of the kit nose section.

 

The Cougar looks like a lifting body. It looks like both of them have pretty nice detail also.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

You probably are already finished with these before i am posting this.

 

Bill

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Bill: The Tiger could be built as the short nose by grafting the Lindberg 1/48 short F11F nose onto this one; but CA doesn't include that option in the box.

 

Dave: both will be in the USN Gray over white scheme. The Tiger will be a VF-21 with shark mouth markings (decals come in the kit); and the Cougar will be from VA-26 off of the Kearsarge in '57. I'll have to paint all the blue stripes and source some codes from the spares box for that one. If you have the SQ/SIG book "USN Aircraft Carrier Air Units- vol. 2", you can find both schemes in it.

 

GIL :smiley16:

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More progress....

001_24.jpg

 

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The airframes are assembled and the vac windshields masked and on. They need a light sanding to smooth the primer a bit and they'll be ready for the painting stage.

 

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This is most of the fiddly bits for both of them, minus the gear doors which are drying on sheet of cardboard. I've pre-assembled the landing gear in order to make handling them easier and it also allowed me to check their fit and the stance of each model.

 

Still hoping to have these done by New Years! we'll see......

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Purring right along on these aren't you?

 

At least you're not CATatonic on these two felines.

 

Plenty of time to finish them off before the year is up.

 

Looking good.

 

Bill

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Trim colors are on...
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The Tiger didn't need anything but the silver coraguard applied (using AK Aluminum) and the nose tip painted black

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On the other hand, the Cougar also needed the sky blue squadron trim colors applied in addition to the red intake edges and the coraguard. I made a couple of templates to paint the swooshes on the fuselage sides, and used the Tamiya plastic tape (bendable) to do the nose scalloping.

 

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The red speed brake wells add a splash of color to the bottom!

 

The gloss coat is drying and I hope to apply the decals tomorrow!

 

Happy New Year! :smiley17:

 

GIL :smiley16:

Edited by ghodges
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Decals are on!

003_29.jpg

 

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Almost all of these decals are from the spares box, since this is a "custom" paint job copying the scheme from a book. Also note that the nose anti-glare panel and the wing walks have since been painted.

 

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In contrast, almost every decal on the Tiger is from the CA kit sheet. The shark mouth took some slicing and touch up paint, but actually fit quite well considering its size and the compound nose curves. I still need to paint the windshield black, a detail I almost missed!

 

Hope to finish these up before the weekend! More pics when they're done!

 

GIL :smiley16:

Edited by ghodges
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NICE! I'm now a believer in DIY squadron colors, even if it's just a white undercoat to prevent white decals from turning pink on a red surface.

 

Did you use that new 'Tamiya Masking Tape for Curves' or the regular flavor? Any more words on that stuff?

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Yes, I used the thin Tamiya "striping" tape do mask off the scallop on the nose. It worked "ok".....

 

If I sound less than enthusiastic it's because it has JUST enough adhesive to get the job done.

 

I actually think it's not much more convenient than buying colored plastic 3M tape and cutting thin strips from that.

 

The difference between the two (besides cost) is that the 3M tape CAN leave some adhesive residue as it gets warm from your handling it (which you'll especially do when bending it around tight curves). If you wear gloves and do this in an air-conditioned environment (unlike my garage 3/4s of the year); this is NOT a problem.

 

The Tamiya tape worked as advertised and I do not think it would leave any adhesive residue due to excessive heat and handling simply because it doesn't have as much to smear off.

 

In short, it's a quality "luxury" tape that's good to have on the bench!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Lookin good Gil! Not sure if you've tried any of this stuff, but its fantastic. It has a paper backing you have to separate, which is a bit of a pain, but its very flexible and has just the right amount of tack. Stays in place really well while you're stretching and bending it for the irregular separation lines between the grey and white, and comes off without damaging the paint. Nice crisp edges too. Goes all the way down to 1/16th of an inch...so no need to cut thinner strips from wider tape.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015NZMEA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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I'd hoped to get these done more than a week ago, but had a few distractions and didn't get them done til today. But that's a "two-for" to start off 2017! :smiley20:

 

Once again, these were built OOTB. The markings on the Tiger are from the kit, and I painted all of the blue markings on the Cougar and dug the decals from the spares box.

 

Tiger first....

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Just for fun, here's a pic of the new Tiger with the one I converted from the old Lindberg kit over 30yrs ago

 

And, the Cougar...

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questions, comments, and critiques welcome! Cheers!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Schweet! Nice touch with those panel lines.

 

 

JOHN - thanx for the tape tip. have seen that stuff in the RC section of the LHS, but thought it was color pinstriping for permanent application. Will test this out!

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Those look fantastic Gil!

 

VonL, I was thinking the same thing from the description they give on the web-site, but I figured I'd buy the 1/16th stuff first and see if it would work as a masking tape. I had been using 3M 471 tape because I use that at work for masking around antennas that we're sealing on pressurized aircraft, but that only goes down to 1/4" I think, and its expensive stuff. I used the Great Planes 1/16" tape for the preliminary masking of the inside and outside of Blue Thunder's canopy glazing. It turned a really complex masking task into a pretty straightforward process, and comes right back off when its no longer needed...no paint peeling.

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