F7F-3N

[M1Carbine]

Dave - day late and a dollar short...............LMAO


Bob

[Deleted]

Don't know Dave. Just saw the posting today. Hadn't had time to give it any thought.

[bullardino]

Awesome!

[Leon]

Awesome work on the engines,landing gear rivet lines Dave.

[DeafStuG]

Good job - landing gear & engines so I enjoyed read on this topic !

[bbd468]

Nice updates Dave, the engine is awesome! Your masterful thuggery is sure payin off big time so far!

[thug626]

Bob- I still have two dollars.....does that count?

Bruce- If you decide to go, drop a line.

Luigi- Thank you kindly. Always appreciated.

Jeremy- Thank you for the compliment. Always appreciated.

bbd468- Thank you for the compliment on the engine. Masterful thuggery....LMFAO! I am going to pass that on to my friend that gave me the nickname "Thug" years ago.

I was hoping for some bench time today. Buuuuut......the garbage disposal decided to go belly up this am. Plumbing projects.......i HATE plumbing projects. Rarely do they ever go as planned.

Dave

[deafpanzer]

Catching up here! One thing I like best about planes... Visible engines! Yours are AWESOME!!!!

[M1Carbine]

Dave - why yes it does...........LOL

Bob

[thug626]

A fair bit of progress this evening. The nacelles are on and, the landing gear appear to line up with each other. All of the landing gear received shading and highlights.....unfortunately I got carried away to get the nacelles on that I forgot to get pics of them....ooops.
The oleos received a strip of Bare Metal Foil Bright Chrome. This was burnished down with a toothpick.

In the next couple of pics you can better see the oleo struts.


A dry fitting of the engines. It turns out that during the painting of the engines, I knocked off the cowl flap actuators on one side. I'll need to remember to take care of that before glueing the engines on.

Remember waaaaay back when, I put all of that lead in the nose? This blasted thing is teetering on the main gear. I am hoping that the addition of the cowls, propellors, nose gear all put just enough weight forward to keep that from happening.


Currently I am experimenting with aluminum undercoats to use for paint chipping. I found some MIG Absolute Chipping at the Evergreen show last weekend. Which by the way my three entries did not place and, some waster broke the the rear cockpit, both aerials and the rear gun off. But they did place the cockpit back...closed....I built it open. Suffice it to say, I was not amused. On the up side, I did find a bunch of armor related goodies. Stuff I've been trying to find for a while...barrels, wheels, antenna and other really neat stuff.

Dave

Dave,I had to do a small edit.CeeBee

[M1Carbine]

Dave - looks awesome brother, getting close to some color.

Bob

[bullardino]

I agree, awesome job Dave. As for the stance, I'm rather sure that cowls and all the other stuff will add enough weight to make it sit properly.

[thug626]

Good morning Bob,
Thank you brother. Yup! It's that much closer. I down to sweating all of the fine finishing details on the exterior before I lay down any color. But first, I'll be experimenting with the aluminum undercoats today. Plus I'll be building a jig to hold the 'Cat. If you look at the third pic, you'll see the tie down loops on the bottom of the main LG. It's these wee bits of plastic that the whole of the 'Cat sits on when resting right side up. I've already snapped one of these off months ago. It's since been fixed. I don't wanna do that again. I was lucky to find the loop the first time.

Good morning Luigi
Thank you for the compliment. I think you're right, as it is just about perfectly balanced at the main LG. Come to think of it, there is a lip on the inside of the cowls that is hidden. Just enough space to hide some bird shot and glue it into place. Not a lot but, enough to guarantee that it will not be a tail sitter.

Dave

[Leon]

Coming along nicely Dave.Great job on the LG and struts.

[thug626]

First off, it's been drawn to my attention that I used a word that can carry different meanings on opposite sides of the pond. For anyone who read it and was offended…mea culpa…I apologize for any offense. My wife tells me I now have reserved seating at The Gulag School of Charm.

Leon,
Good to see you popped in for a gander. Thank you very much good sir.

Dave

[fightnjoe]

she continues to be a stunner.




joe

[wbill76]

Nice progress Dave! The fine balancing act you've got going on is just a testament to your craftsmanship abilities...and there's always the extra pocket to stash some more craftsmanship should you need to in order to avoid the tail-sitter! I can see why you would need a jig, I imagine you're running out of ways to safely handle this finely detailed beauty.

[thug626]

Good morning Joe,
Thank you kindly for the compliment.

Good morning Bill,
Thank you very much. As it turns out the lip in the cowls was not as big as I had thought and, my container of bird shot is MIA. So instead I ran a length of 0.035 lead wire around the inside diameter. Every bit helps. When I played out how I was going to handle it after the nacelles were on, I realized that a jig was a necessity. So out came the scrap wood and the jig saw.
Thus far, it looks as though the undercoat that will work best is the Model Master metallizer non-buffing aluminum. There's still a couple of kinks to work out though.

Dave

[Deleted]

She's a work of art Dave!

[AndyArgent.]

Excellent stuff.

[thug626]

Good evening Bruce,
Thank you very much. She's gettin' there.

Good evening Andy,
How good of you to pop in for a gander. Thank you for the compliment.

A wee bit of progress yesterday. I realized that I cannot safely work on this beastie without the use of 3 arms/hands......so the jig was a priority. I built it out of 3/4" MDF, four dry wall screws, some foam and some amazingly industrial strength double sided tape.

Look ma....the landing gear...no touchy.

This jig will help immensely with the remaining fine details yet to be added.

Dave

[bullardino]

Interesting jig, Dave

Is it reusable or is it tooled to work only on the F7f?

[thug626]

Good morning DickyF, My Opa told us (many times), "you can work hard. Or you can work smart." I going to go with smart. Yes they are demanding.

Good morning Luigi, Thank you very much. It is completely reusable. I opted to screw the supports into the topside so that I can vary the distance between them as the need arises. There are a few other ideas I have for the jig but this is the down and dirty, über simple, chimpanzee level jig. No offense to any chimpanzees out there following this build.

Dave

[M1Carbine]

Brother Dave.....Looking SHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bob

[bbd468]

Hiya Dave, she looking damn fine fella! Im diggin the wooden stand for your build....nice!

[venom1]

Well Dave, I know I haven't posted for about 10 pages, but I have been following along!

This is looking simply superb my friend! You really are a master scratch builder buddy. You have tackled some difficult areas with exceptional patience and skill. Great to see the ol' girl finally starting to come together. Very exciting!!

Fantastic work mate!

Cheers,

Sam

[thug626]

Thank you Brother Bob.

Greetings bbd468, Thank you very much. The stand is down an dirty....and it suits my purposes just fine.

Thank you very much Sam for the compliments. All of the difficult assemblies seem to pale by comparison to the exterior finish at this point. To me that feels like a make or break point with this winged beastie. I was very exciting to get the nacelles on. With the engines and cowls dry fitted it looks like a sleek brute. All on these fairly sleek lines.....with two big honking P&W 2800's on either side. The latter would be the brute part. With the jig built I can breath a bit easier with the final stages here.

Thank you as always gentlemen. Constructive criticisms are always welcome. Even a note that I might have inspired someone to try something they might not otherwise have tried. Have at the bench everyone and have fun with it.

Dave

[tonylee-Rest In Peace]

Haven't seen one of those in years.
In fact the last time was at Millington NAS outside of Memphis when I was a kid.

Classy airframe
Tony lee

[thug626]

Hello Tony,
It's good to see you. Thank you for stopping by. Apparently there is an airworthy version up in Washington State that I'd love to see.

Dave

[fightnjoe]

dave believe me when i tell you that your work here is very inspiring.





joe