I finally got some more work done on my NMF F-105D. I assembled the wings and fuselage, shot a coat of primer on the whole thing, put some white on the wing tips & rudder and I am now ready to put the silver on it. The wing tips, stab tips and rudder will be red/white striped. The url below will take you to a site with some pictures of the detailed mods I did to the kit to retrograde it back to the early Thud configuration. [alien]
Wow! Nice work. What are you planning to use for the NMF finish?
Gip Winecoff
Good progress so far. Looking forward to seeing it painted.
Regards, Rick
Looks good. I wish I had the nerve to tackle a THUD. I tried the Monogram 1/48 kit many years back but I still remember the fit problems I had… kinda put me off building a beautiful plane.
That looks like it deserves the full Alclad treatment !
For anyone planning a NMF finish, take a look at the Mirage build feature in the December edition of Scale Aircraft Modeller. The author takes the beautiful Eduard kit and makes it even more spectacular. But the relevent things is, there is a diagram of the model showing each panel outlined, with the shade of Alclad used on each one. It would transfer to Metalizer or any other metal finishes. It really opened my eyes as to what type of metal finish is appropriate on certain parts of the airplane.
And Yardbird, I envy you. It looks like you are off to a great start ona subject I’ve long wanted to do: an early Thud before Vietnam. Can I have all your research material when you’re done?
[;)][:-,]
TOM
Gentlemen, not trying to rain on your parade, but I remember reading somwhere doing research when building A F-105F is that what may appear to be an NMF is actually a silver anti-crossive paint job used to extend the life of the metal skin. I could be wrong?
About the first 1/3 of F-105s built left the factory in Natural Metal Finish. Several problems developed, the most significant being moisture getting into the electronics bays. Republic and the USAF decided to start painting the Thuds on the assembly line, (Block 25 and up), and recalled all the NMFs under a program called “Project Look Alike” to bring them up to Block 25 standard. This included the Silver Laquer finish on the entire aircraft. All Thuds that went to South East Asia in 1964 and 1965 were Block 25 standard, ie, silver painted finish. I plan on painting by early D with silver enamel, with Chromate Green landing gear bays and other internal bays.
Sharkskin I wouldn’t mind loaning my research material to you when I am finished, but I am afraid that will be quite a while. I have the following F-105 kits that I hope to get built in the not too distant future, (before I go to that big hangar in the sky).
2-1/72 B models
1-1/72 D model
6-1/72 F./G models
9-1/48 D models
8-1/48 F/G models
1-1/32 F/G model
And that doesn’t include the 1/72 B, 1/72 F, 1/48 D, 1/48 F and 1/32 D that I have in the paint shop. [alien]
yardbird78, thank you for your concise reply, I’m sure this information will be helpful to those who might want to authenticate which color scheme is correct for the time period they are building.By the way the year was mid 62 when they started painting aircraft with Aluminum Lacquer FS 17178. Regards Badbob