DBMiller's 1/72 scale F-84G

[DBMiller]

First: My personal FINISH THE DAMN THING BUILD (just in case you are interested):
viewtopic.php?f=744&p=376327#p376327

Second: I think it is about time to retire this calendar above my work area and put up a new one.





Third: My choice for this build - The F-84G Thunderjet from the Korean War.



But no work on it until I'm further along on my FTDT build(s). I have several.

[aur0ra145]

Cool subject, you don't see a lot of these being built.

[DBMiller]

Cool subject, you don't see a lot of these being built.

I know! Korea is usually F-86s and MiG-15s. I love this era of jets but the main seller was the price.

[DBMiller]

This would have made an interesting "Not the Usual Conflicts" build. I wonder if he felt anything?
Also, "wounded"? Really?

[Kevthemodeller]

Just love these early jets

[DBMiller]

The kit.
(which, by the way, isn't very good but at least has very few parts)



Two marking choices.



Barely adequate instructions.



This is it. One page of assembly instructions.







A great lump of clear plastic.







Nice surface texture. Should be fun trying to get a natural metal finish!







They couldn't at least put in SOME markings to align these parts correctly? And those struts!





More brilliant engineering!







Some paint down!



Super detailed cockpit! Not even any decals for the controls.



Have I mentioned the ejector pin marks?

[Tomcat64]

Strewth! Here's a few bits of random styrene, just chop them about a bit until you have something like the picture on the box top!

Laying in a big supply for this one

[DBMiller]

More adventures in poor fit. Or is it "more adventures in having a fit"?

Not much of an interior. The fit is crap and it was hard to align it correctly. And, as I found out later, it was not aligned correctly - or shifted after gluing.





My method of keeping the cockpit tub sort of straight.



Thank goodness for lots of tape.





Nose cone on.



See the alignment issues? I think the intake splitter is pretty straight but the gear glued on crooked! What a mess!



Wings glued together - after a lot of work on the inside to clean out injector marks.



More parts glued on.





This is how the wings fit before a lot of work. You can almost see in the photos that the mating surfaces are convex! I had to bring out the Dremel to grind away some of the surfaces! I had some success (see photo) and after more work I got it a bit better than that.

[aur0ra145]

Oof, bad fits are never fun. Looks like you're powering through it, keep it up!

[Garion77]

That seems to be a world record of bad fit and bad engineering ! Keep up because it's a nice subject !

[Tomcat64]

How the hell did they make such an ugly kit for such an awesome looking plane?

Keep at it DBM - it's slowly bending to your will

[Kevthemodeller]

that's some kit................. not!

I'm sure you'll kick it into shape though, all looking good so far regardless

[BigWall]

Nice stick-to-itiveness! I think you're going to get that turd polished!

[DBMiller]

More work on the thing that looks like an F-84.

Wing seams. Not too much filler but a bit of sanding to get them to blend to the fuselage.





Tail. These didn't come out too bad...



however!! What the heck? These are so big it's almost like they are supposed to be there!



And on the gear doors! This is the outside of the doors!



Quick coat of primer to check seams and sanding. Needs a lot more work.





The second coat (or first real coat) after the first pass at priming and sanding.

[aur0ra145]

Looking good!

[Kevthemodeller]

Those ejector pin marks

[Garion77]

All the effort you putted in are showing ! nice work

[DBMiller]

Working on the nose and wing tank tips. By the way, why didn't I paint the nose before I glued in in place?
These need to be white with blue stripes - so that should be fun.







Ooooops! Forgot to mask the wing tips! I painted he gray along the spine in advance of the silver. I thought it would be less likely to be damaged by masking if I did it in that order.







Canopy masked. Just the lower frame for now - the transverse frame is so fine I wanted to do it in sections.

[DBMiller]

I'm afraid this airplane had to die. Too many issues that I wasn't able to correct. Poor masking. And the kicker - the decals blew up.
No time to start a new one so I'm out of this build.

Good-bye, F-84G.

[RangerNeil]

Thats a shame - I was looking forwards to seeing the finished build...
Are there no aftermarket F84 decals available??

[DBMiller]

Thats a shame - I was looking forwards to seeing the finished build...
Are there no aftermarket F84 decals available??

I think so, but the kit was so bad that I just couldn't be bothered. There is a nice Tamiya kit available I can try if I want.

[Garion77]

Sorry to hear about that ! you have taken good care of the first issues you had encountered ! Anyways good work all the same because it didn't seem to be an easy build !

[digger303]

That's a shame I thought you were getting around the issues then the decals came up and sucker punched.....damn

[BigWall]

Bummer!

[DBMiller]

That's a shame I thought you were getting around the issues then the decals came up and sucker punched.....damn

I thought I was going to finish too! But when the decals broke up I thought - modeling should be fun, why muck about with a bad kit and spend more money on it for decals?

[Tomcat64]

Ach that's a real shame, but as you say this is supposed to be fun and sometimes a kit just pushes you to the edge.