Early Vietnam North American F-100D

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November 8, 2022
Starting point: another rendition of Hasegawa’s venerable F-100D and Wolfpack decals
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November 8, 2022
The kit lacks the outer pylons but I found a good match in the spares bin.
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November 8, 2022
First job: separating the slats
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November 8, 2022
Wings assembled and LE closed off. Removed wall between main wheel wells which isn't there.
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November 8, 2022
Decided to remove the ceiling of the main wheel wells as well to regain some depth
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November 8, 2022
Added tiny slat rails to the wing (of which I would loose a lot later on…)
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November 8, 2022
Time for the cockpit. Kit's seat and cockpit are pretty useless. Found a seat in the spares bin to use as a starting point for something better.
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November 8, 2022
Scratchbuilt a cockpit on the kit floor
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November 8, 2022
Cockpit starts to look like something, seat still needs to be finished
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November 8, 2022
Boxing in the nose wheel well
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November 8, 2022
building up an intake trunk from two flat pieces. Tricky operation, first attempt failed…
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November 8, 2022
… but second attempt succeeded. Added a bulkhead to blank it off.
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November 8, 2022
Cockpit finished, except for instrument panel decal.
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November 8, 2022
Used a piece of indeterminate tubing from the spares box and the petals from a leftover afterburner of my earlier Italeri F-100F to improve the exhaust.
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November 8, 2022
Fuselage assembly in progress. Before assembly, I rescribed the panel lines.
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November 8, 2022
Fuselage fit is OK, some seams to fill.
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November 8, 2022
Goofed up the lower nose area by filing away too merrily. Now need lots of filling to restore. Detailed the nose wheel well.
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November 8, 2022
Scratch-built the aft cockpit deck and testfitting the ejection seat
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November 8, 2022
Assembled wing and fuselage, added details to the wheel wells
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November 8, 2022
Cockpit ready and canopy masked. Time to close things up.
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November 8, 2022
Stabilizers normally sit tilted on the ground, so cut off the tabs and inserted them in the fuselage and pinned the stabilizers
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November 8, 2022
The kit only provides short 275 gallon wing tanks, but I need lengthened 335 gallon tanks. Modified the kit tanks using a suitable donor from the spares box
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November 8, 2022
Took quite some sanding and filling needed but looks OK under a coat of primer.
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November 8, 2022
Also added some detail to the pylons and ordnance. Rocket pods are from a Hasegawa set.
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November 8, 2022
And on to the painting phase! The first coat of primer revealed that I had some more work to do around the windscreen, which did not fit very well
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November 8, 2022
Time for the base coat. Took the easy way out and used a Tamiya Gloss Aluminum spray can. Actually a bit of challenge to prevent a too thick coat of paint…
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November 8, 2022
Masking in progress around the areas that will receive another color
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November 8, 2022
Sprayed wheel bays green olive drab which according to Internet sources is the best match for the F-100 wheel bay color
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November 8, 2022
Spraying the aft fuselage NMF areas with a 40/60 mix of Vallejo steel and aluminum.
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November 8, 2022
And the hard bit: the copperish discolorations at the back. Man, this is hard. Reaching the limits of my airbrush and airbrush skills here. Needed a paper mask to get the vertical pattern, no way I could achieve it freehand…
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November 8, 2022
Moment of truth, it all turned out somewhat lighter than I had intended and will need some more work with pastel powder. But happy enough with the result so far, at least it is not a disaster.
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November 8, 2022
Giving the panel lines a wash with black. One of the techniques I still have not yet fully mastered.
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November 8, 2022
Added studs below the slats since most of the too fragile slat tracks have broken off.
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November 8, 2022
And on to decaling! Subject comes from a very nice Wolfpak decal sheet I have already used for other kits.
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November 8, 2022
Almost done after three sessions, decided to add more stencils as the airframe still looked a bit too cleanish.
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November 8, 2022
Final weathering with pastel powders. I like this technique. It's fast, less messy and easy too add just that touch of grimness and tonal difference to liven up a model.
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November 8, 2022
Sealed it up under a coat of satin and done with the painting and decaling. Almost there!
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November 8, 2022
Installing the landing gear
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November 8, 2022
Moment of truth, unmasking the cockpit. And what do you know, no disaster underneath!
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November 8, 2022
Adding slats and wheel doors. Realized in time I had to modify the inner doors for this s/n, which was an easy fix.
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November 8, 2022
Made my own gadget to hold pairs of wheels and file a more perfect flat spot than my earlier unassisted efforts.
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November 8, 2022
Adding the final bits and pieces…
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November 8, 2022
… and we’re done!
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November 8, 2022
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Comments

25 8 November 2022, 19:16

Hans Zwetsloot
Hi everyone, it has been a while since I posted something here due to other priorities but I'm back to modeling again. This spring I picked a Hasegawa F-100D from my stash to get back into shape again. It was a fairly recent purchase that I picked up second-hand last year because I wanted to add an early silver Hun to my collection and I had the decals for one in my stash. Hope you enjoy the build.

8 November 2022, 19:48