Here's my 1/48
Tamiya Thunderbirds F-84G.The
Thunderbirds flew their debut exhibition at Luke AFB in early June 1953. One of
the most important decisions of the newly formed Thunderbirds was the selection
of their first aircraft. Primarily, the aircraft had to be stable for maneuvers
in formation, reliable to meet show schedules, rugged for demonstration
aerobatics and combat proven. The choice was the F-84G Thunderjet.
Tamiya's F-84G
Thunderbird comes chrome plated and this is the only difference (other than
decals) from the standard version of the kit. This chrome plating seems to daunt
some modelers but just requires some scraping of the joining surfaces to
allow the plastic cement to work. Some modelers have opted to strip off the
chrome plate with brake cleaner or Easy Off oven cleaner. If you go this route
you'll be presented with white plastic. I opted to leave the chrome plating in
place and build the kit OOB.
Building the kit
went straight forward and no filler was needed. Since some of the main fuselage
seams would be somewhat noticeable due to the plating I had decided to go ahead
and take care of these areas by scraping the seam and then repainting these
areas with Alclad later. The nice thing is most all of these seems fall on a
panel so it would be easy to mask and blend in as different shaded panels on a
NMF airplane.
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The only prep required for
painting these plated areas once they were masked off was to
"rough" up the plated surface to give the Alclad something to
'bite' into. If you do not do this the Alclad will not stick and
eventually flake off during handling and subsequent masking. I used
several different shades of Alclad to get a varied NMF finish, although
the primary finish is the chrome of the original model. The decals
actually went on better then expected. You have to paint the tip tanks red
and blue with the center white section being a decal. The nose intake also
has to be painted red. Tamiya's X-7 red is almost a dead match for the
decal red. The tail group is painted Tamiya X-1 gloss white.
Taking my time and
having plenty of Solvaset helped. The model was then given a panel wash with
artists oils and turpenoid. The only real pain is masking all those glass panes
on the canopy. It took me three tries before I was finally happy with the
results. I had wanted to use Eduard's masks but Sprue Brother's was the only
place that carried them and they were out for several months. I finally bit the
bullet and used Tamiya tape and a sharp X-Acto. This was an enjoyable build
(except for the canopy) and looks quite striking in red, white, blue and chrome.
Jeff Brundt
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