Airplanes/Gallery

Thunderchief F105G

Trumpeter 1/32 scale

by Leslie Choy © 2004 Modeler Site

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My main references were Squadron F-105 Thunderchief Walkaround #23 and Warpaint series #38 F-105 Thunderchief. All paints used were Gunze Mr. Color, and I must say, that this model is huge.

 


The cockpit was assembled and painted as per the instruction. I replaced both cockpit's radar windows with clear palstic, using the Waldron punch on a clear 0.5mm plastic, airbrushing it, clear orange. After airbrusing the cockpit with interior gray, the instrument panels were painted black, painting the knobs and switches red and yellow, and detailing them with black stripes. According to references, and when the canopy is opened some latches are visibles in the outside of the cockpit, to represent this detail,  I removed some plastic and I added scratchtbuilt latches, which were painted  yellow.

 

I left opened, the gun compartment and the mid-air refueling probe, to show some details. Unfortunately the opened radome hide some details of  the gun.
 


The fuselage and the tail section were assembled without any problem, just a little amount of filler was used. The afterburner body, and its variable nozzles, had lots of injector pin marks. These were painstaking removed and filled.
 

The wings were assembled and painted separately. The 'working' leading edge flaps and the ailerons were glued to a fixed position. The trailing edge flaps were left without modifications.

I found that the painting guide ofered by Trumpeter, do not match with any of my references, and after cross checking with them, I got a right scheme . Some other details, like the tail antennas, were masked, spraying them separately. I joined the wings to the fuselage after painting.

The decals, which settles nicely, were added after applying a coat of future, after that I sealed them with another coat. Panel lines were highlighted with raw umber artist oil, followed by a flat clear coat. The engine exhaust was sprayed silver, followed by clear blue and smoke.

 


After gluing both main undercarriages, I let them to dry overnight. The day after, both undercarriage linkages got broken at the moment they took the weight of the model. I rebuilt the linkages using K&S brass plate and sandwich them with plastic sheet, then they were filed to shape. Brass rods were also used for the undercarriage door actuator arms.
 


I could not resist to further add on some details to the radar dish and radome as in the F105 Walk Around.

 


I added Shrikes, M117 bombs and drop tanks to the model. I could not find any references whether the Thud ever carried this configuration. It seems appropriate though.

 


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