1/48 Wolfpack T-38

[ALF18]

Hello fellow ARCers!

I started work on this kit before the forums died. I think I might have started a thread on it here, but failed to find it. Maybe it was too close to the crash date? Anyway, here it is, new version.

I bought two of these kits, because I am so excited about the versions that will be possible, especially the coming NASA decals that will arrive someday (soon) I hope. This is a very new kit, so I know many folks have not yet seen it, nor have many built it, so here is an opportunity for everyone to see how it builds up, and to learn from my (inevitable) mistakes as I go along.

This kit has a lot of very great features. One thing I liked is the instructions. They come with many pictures and great drawings. Some of the pics are in colour, which really helps. The instructions look like this on the cover:

Here you see the first page of the instructions, with some of the kit plastic.

One of my bug-bears is the cockpit. I find it hard to do a great job detailing it. This kit comes with raised detail on the main instrument panels, and also with decals for the MIPs. It allows modellers to choose to paint the panels, or use the decals (like I did here). The raised details even give the decals a 3D look. Nice to have the option, and the decals are nicer than the paint job I could do.

As I type this, I have a serious case of deja-vu. I know I have created this thread already, but for the life of me I can't find it here.

ALF

[ALF18]

Here is the cockpit with the MIPs and seats. The level of detail is quite acceptable for me, but many modellers would probably choose to use resin seats.

One thing that is hard to get right (first mistake: listen up folks!) is the angle of the MIPs in the cockpit. There are no obvious guides, as you can see here.

It was only after gluing the MIPs in position that I tried to situate parts B10 and B11 (the instrument coaming forward of the rear MIP). Those parts are unpainted in this picture. With a bit of forcing, I got the MIP in the rear to sit at the right angle. Next kit, I will ensure I locate these two parts at the same time as the MIP in the rear.

Here's the cockpit in an advanced state. I chose to build it with the canopies closed this time, so detail is not critical inside.

One aspect to be very careful of is how the cockpit sits in the first fuselage half before gluing the fuselage together. Look at the top rear of the cockpit; it is not exactly centred with the fuselage, but it should be to ensure a proper fit. There are no locating pins or other guides to make this fool-proof, so some care is required.

ALF

[ALF18]

The fit for the fuselage join was pretty good, after I fixed the angle at which the cockpit sits.

Even the rear fuselage horizontal join is pretty good. Some modellers may want to use lateral sprue inserts to make sure it's exactly the right width, but I didn't.

Partway through gluing the fuselage together, using Tamiya extra-thin, with the left rear already glued. Note how the right rear horizontal join is pretty close, the way it sits naturally. I only had to force it a tiny bit to get it to match quite closely.

Underneath, it's a slightly different story. This panel (under the cockpit, forward of the wing underside) sits too deeply into place; it could have used some plastic shim to make it flush with the undersurface. For me - will be invisible underneath, so didn't fix it. Add this kit to the list of those that will never be entered into contests (100% of my kits so far).

Have to go eat lunch. With the forums back up, I don't want SWMBO to start thinking I'm addicted to ARC!

ALF

[Wolfgun33]

Looking great! Thanks for doing a WIP on this kit and showing where the trouble spots are. I really want to get this one.

[ALF18]

Looking great! Thanks for doing a WIP on this kit and showing where the trouble spots are. I really want to get this one.

No problem - happy to have you along. This is a great kit, and I'm not just saying that because it's better than all the previous T-38 kits. It is a good kit any way you measure it. I find it to be on a par with the new Kinetic 1/48 F-5A kit. Both have their idiosyncrasies, but both are good.

Here is the rest of the bottom. Small fit problems at the front of the speed brake area, but quite easy to fix. The wheel wells are not bad on this kit, but super-detailers might want to spruce them up.

It's easy to do a good job around the engine intakes. The fit is very nice. That little gap you see aft of the intake will be covered by the wing.

To get a good fit, here's what I suggest. Glue the splitter part on first; don't glue the splitter to the outer intake trunk first (i.e. do what you see here). Then glue on the trunk, and finish with the forward plate part. It all fits nicely that way.

This builds up nice and quickly. Here the wings are in place, with a bit of persuasion to minimize the gaps between wing upper surface and fuselage side.

The vertical tail and horizontal stabilator attachment points are two areas to be paid attention to. On this side, the gap is very minor with the vertical stab. On the other side, though, it will require some filler. The second point, horizontal stab attachment points, is evident in both pics. Care should be taken to ensure the two locator holes for the horizontal stabs are round, and not slightly offset like mine. I had to gouge them out slightly to make the stabs insert into the holes later. It may also have had something to do with the slight trouble I had getting just the right anhedral (droop) on the horizontal stabs.

ALF

[ALF18]

Here are the horizontal stabilators installed. The droop might be slightly exaggerated, but they should droop slightly.

Now onto the little cap piece on top of the tail. In the instructions, they got the wrong part number. Look carefully; you'll see part number B21 pointing to the tail cap (upper left panel here) and also to one of the main landing gear doors (part number in brackets on the lower right panel here).

The correct part number is actually B12, as you can see here from the sprue.

The nose landing gear area is fairly simple. I found a small amount of studying sufficed to get things right. Part A31, the forward angular brace for the nose gear, was a bit too tight on my kit. I ended up shaving a small amount of plastic off it to make it slide in nicely into the guides.

Here it's assembled, minus the side door.

The door itself requires a small amount of care. Make sure you study the drawing closely to avoid chopping off essential parts when chopping it off the sprue... which might explain why I chose to show this door in the closed position (from ref pics, sometimes they are closed on ground when parked).

The landing light (forward of the nose wheel well) and the front gear door can be attached open or closed. I chose door closed, and light stowed.

Thanks for looking! It is now finally clearing up (morning fog and drizzle gone), and I am going for one of the final bike rides of the season before winter sets in here.

ALF

[ALF18]

By now you've likely figured out that I made a lot of progress while ARC was down. That's how I am posting so many updates in such a short time.

A little dry fitting around the cockpit area. The canopy bow needed a tiny bit of trimming to fit in place, but ended up OK. If the model is built canopy open, it should look fine.

I then did some dry fitting of the canopies. Fit was good. One thing that will need doing is a bit of fill between the front and rear canopies, where the canopy bow is of smaller diameter than the canopies themselves.

The other thing I checked was the angle and placement of the canopy bow, before gluing in place. Lesson learned from the instrument coaming problem encountered earlier.

For those who love tiny details, the standby compass is provided inside the front windscreen. Guess whether or not I installed it!

For a closed canopy, it was fairly straightforward. The T-38, just like the F-5, has very fragile canopy supports that are quite complex. Sitting in the back of an F-5 it's unsettling to see the front canopy sway back and forth as we taxi fast (say about 40 or 50 knots in the winter with residual thrust being quite high at idle). The canopy mechanisms on the T-38 look to be pretty much identical. Closed, it's easier to assemble and fit.

Here are the instructions. Note the part A28 at the back. It is tough to locate properly, given that there are no clearly-defined places to glue it to.

So I installed the two extension arms (B37 and B38), and winged it.

My main goal was to ensure it didn't interfere with the canopy clear part.

Shrewd observers will note that I didn't install the insert for the rear canopy frame; that will come later.

ALF

[ALF18]

Another really nice touch for this kit - it comes with masking for the canopies, wheels, and the landing light.

The tape fit very well. 3 pieces per transparency in the back. Install the two side tapes first (labeled 5 and 6), then finish up with the cap in the middle part (mask 7).

The front canopy mask even came with a slit to allow it to fit the more complex curve of the front canopy. Wolfpack, well done.

All masked up and glued together. Fit was pretty nice for all the masks. One thing to be very careful here is the placement of the two large rear canopies. I managed to get a very slight offset on mine, and with the overall white paintjob, it shows a bit. This is the stage where a sharp eye is needed.

Here are the masks for the wheels.

ALF

Edited September 27, 2013 by ALF18

[ALF18]

The back of the aircraft fits together well, with the nozzles and a little metal piece over top, similar to the F-5. Not sure if this piece is accurate for a T-38, but looks right to me.

Now, into the paint shop. I used Tamiya white primer, then followed up with Tamiya gloss white (acrylic). The finish came out nice and smooth and glossy. White is a bear to work with, but the primer really made a difference in coverage. In this pic, I have also painted (by hand) the small black highlights on the leading edges of the wings and vertical stabilizer.

I decided I didn't like the effect, and painted it all white again. At the end, I may use a magic marker to do the black. I even doubted if this was correct for the aircraft, so I checked references and saw subtle black lines on this aircraft from this era. The drawings were in fact correct.

Then on to the wheels, which I always have a hard time painting cleanly. I was eager to see how the masks worked out. A coat of white primer, followed by Tamiya acrylic black hand brushed in place. Ready for the wheel masks, then to spray the white centre parts.

I also masked the landing light clear part (little dot provided in the kit), and did some minor filling of gaps and resprayed the white on the aircraft while I was at it.

The canopy bow gap was particularly noticeable; I had forgotten to fill it in my eagerness to spray the white.

ALF

[ALF18]

Gap filled, ready for paint.

Almost ready for decals, with the anti-glare panel done as well.

As I got ready for decals, I was installing the gear doors on the mains. To my surprise, I realized that I had screwed up the placement of the cross braces. I glued them in place in the back; I should have put them on the fronts. The end result is the main gear doors didn't fit quite right. Chalk it up to a late night and being rushed. The reason the doors didn't fit right is the angle of the main struts. This drawing is from the BACK of the wheel well, not the front. Oh well... I should have known better, having done many walkarounds of an F-5 which has almost the same kind of strut arrangement for the gear. Funny, when you're flying an aircraft, you're not looking at it with a modelling eye.

Notice that Wolfpack even provided a nice little recess for the cross brace at the front of the wheel well. So my main wheels are installed backward.

On to the decals next.

ALF

[ALF18]

The most fiddly decals on this kit are the black lines on the wings. They take a lot of effort to get right, but at least they aren't too fragile or too thin. They withstood a lot of manipulation, and ended up being OK.

It was only later that I figured out the left rear black line was provided in two options, decal 11 or 22. Why? Because the USAF roundel is semi-transparent (the white part of the star), and the loner line I used shows slightly under this decal. My advice is to use the shorter line, decal 22.

Fuzzy pic showing the show-through of the line under the star.

ALF

[ALF18]

The red lines on the pitot tube are done with this cool-looking decal. I was eager to see how it worked out.

It worked beautifully! It folded around well (not too stiff or brittle), and I used a bit of microset and some Future to hold it down once wrapped around properly.

Advanced stage of decalling. I love how the jet starts to come alive at this stage.

I painted the little white "thingie" (technical aviation term) on top of the anti-glare panel, and glued it in place. Pitot tube is looking OK. When I dry-fit it into the little channel atop the nose, it was not fitting well, so I gouged out the excess layers of white and black paint with an exacto knife.

I painted the navigation lights using magic marker.

Finished!

ALF

Edited September 27, 2013 by ALF18

[ALF18]

Here it is with its brothers (two Kinetic CF-5As) and a Hasegawa CF-18.

Thanks for looking, and I hope it has been helpful to those who will be building this great little kit. More skilled modellers will have a field day with this one; I'm looking forward to seeing some masterpieces out there.

ALF

[VMFA314Knights]

ALF,

Thanks for the lesson... now I'm going to have to go get me one of these. A lot of interesting schemes to be done with the Talon.... and they don't take up too much room on the shelf

Cheers,

David

[Neo]

Nice.. i missed this one!! Came out great. Gotto love canopy paint masks OOB

[AX 365]

Very nicely done, ALF. Bummer about the wing decal though. Not a deal breaker in my opinion though.

Mike

[CorsairMan]

such a pretty airplane. Nice gloss white finish!

[ALF18]

Nice.. i missed this one!! Came out great. Gotto love canopy paint masks OOB

Thanks Neo! So you missed this one... what were you doing, fixing the forums or something!? Priorities, mon copain...

The masks worked nicely for the canopies. Great fit, no bleeding. The ones for the wheels were not great, though. I prefer the Kinetic approach to wheels where they make the hubs and tires as two separate parts.

ALF

[ALF18]

Very nicely done, ALF. Bummer about the wing decal though. Not a deal breaker in my opinion though.

Mike

Thanks Mike.

such a pretty airplane. Nice gloss white finish!

Nice of you to comment. The finish was not easy, but still easier than bare metal. It sure is prettier than her grungy brothers in the camo colours (the two F-5s).

ALF

[Rodney]

Nice! Gotta love the clean lines of the T-38. I grew near Holloman AFB and remember the T-38s flying all the time. Miss the F-15As too.

Rodney

[hawkwrench]

Nice looking Talon you built ALF!

Can't wait for the Thunderbird version I here is coming out in Feb!!

I saw the Tbirds back in the late 70's and I've always wanted to build a large scale Tbird talon with the number 3 in it. The # 3 pilot who's name was Walt signed my program so that's why I want to decal it with the number 3.

Tim

[ALF18]

Nice looking Talon you built ALF!

Can't wait for the Thunderbird version I here is coming out in Feb!!

I saw the Tbirds back in the late 70's and I've always wanted to build a large scale Tbird talon with the number 3 in it. The # 3 pilot who's name was Walt signed my program so that's why I want to decal it with the number 3.

Tim

Thanks Tim.

This is a great kit, and the potential schemes are very numerous. Nice to hear you'll build one with a personal connection.

ALF

[Jennings]

Coming very soon!!

www.fundekals.com

[falcon20driver]

Came out great ALF!

[ALF18]

Came out great ALF! :thumbsup:/>

Thanks Falcon Driver!

Looking forward to the Fundekals release. My second one should be even better, now that I've learned a few lessons from the first kit.

ALF