Kinetic F-84F Thunderstreak 1:48

On with the build

The kit seat isn’t bad, as is the cockpit side wall detail although the main instrument panel is poor with shallow detail and no decal to enhance it – hence the Eduard replacement. The cockpit sub-assemblies are built up…

…and mounted on clothes pegs ahead of spraying dark grey as a base that will help create a nice looking cockpit when the top colours go on later.

Nose intake/forward gear bay

There are some useful spaces in here that need nose weight to help stop this aircraft tail-sitting and so I filled these with lead pellets and plasticine.

There was an unsightly gap along the top of the nose wheel bay when it was all assembled and to disguise this I added some strips of Tamiya masking tape to hide them. This is a neat and quick trick when it isn’t practical to fill and clean up joins like this in hard-to-reach recesses. Painting later will render the gaps invisible :)

The nose gear bay doors are integrally moulded onto the above and the gun detail is just added to the top of the bay insert. I am not planning on displaying the gun bay open as I want to preserve the good looking Ines of this F-84. Remember to nip off the locating hinge if closing the gun bay door (see the photo)…

Tailpipe

This is a simple affair that fits into the rear fuselage…

Read on…