Republic F-84E Thunderjet-a tribute to my Father-in-Law

[Gary Brantley]

My father-in-law, Jack Terhune of Springfield, Missouri, was a U.S. Air Force veteran. He joined in March of 1950, after turning down several scholarships to play college football. He always said he joined to see the world and never got out of Texas. During his service, he was a ground-crewman for the Republic F-84 Thunderjet. Jack passed away at age 86, on New Year’s Eve 2018, sleeping peacefully in his own bed at home. What a way to go, eh?

After a three year hiatus, I’ve finally something new to show here. I started this model build around the first of this year, and right away considered it something of a tribute to Jack. Several times I mentioned to my wife, Jackie, how wished her Dad was here to advise and consult. I believe he would’ve enjoyed that, and hopefully, been pleased with the final result.

Jack, this one’s for you! I hope you approve ol’ airman!

The model is the Revell 1/48 F-84E. I bought it off a consignment table at Kings Hobby in Austin, Texas a few years back. The build was filled with snafus and problems, some caused by the clumsy builder, and some due to odd engineering choices in the kit’s design. I used a lot of the extensive kit decals, dated 2002, but they required a lot of work. First, I brushed a coat of Microscale decal film over those I intended to us. I kept a pan of water on an electric “hot-plate” on the work table, just under a simmer, and it took a long soak in that and then an even longer wait to get them off the paper. Even then, they were quite thick and required a good dose of Solvaset. Remarkably, only two split and even they could be salvaged.

My “go to” paint for NMF was always SnJ but my unopened bottle was old and proved unusable. As did my second choice, Floquil’s Bright Silver. In the end, I used Humbrol Meta Cote polished aluminum overall, with areas painted in several different combination of aluminum and various other colors. I painted the nose ring and the anti-glare panel as I didn’t trust the old decals for that. It was hair-raising (if I still had enough to raise, lol) getting the big decals on the vertical stab but I “endeavored to persevere” and pressed on.

I added a bit of detail to the cockpit and main gear. Painting the canopy was another adventure. Initially, I used an EZ Mask set but when removed, paint was pulled from almost every frame. Eventually I chose to do it similarly to the method used on the real bird. To replicate the fiberglass reinforcing strips glued to the real canopy, I painted clear decal film, then cut into thin strips of two different widths and applied over the canopy “frames”. It was nerve-wracking and tedious work spread out over several days to avoid lifting previously applied strips. Wow, was I glad to finish that step.

I finished the model on June 5th and took her out to our municipal airport before sunrise yesterday for some airport pics in natural light. I really hope my modeling mojo is back; I’ve got several kits in line and another, started well before this one waiting on some home-made decals. I hope it can be finished this summer too.

So with all that said, here’s my tribute to Jack and also to the pilots and crews of the Korean War planes. You aren’t forgotten by me. Cheers!
Gary

“Little Butch”
Republic -84-E-25-RE, 51-0478
9th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 49th Bomber Wing
Korea, 1952









































****** More pics of this model if interested:

https://imgur.com/a/igdPpxf

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. It feels great to finally have something new to post here! I hope to have another soon; my Tamiya Meteor is almost done, just waiting for my busy son to do a lil' CAD magic and make some replacement decals. Please feel free to leave your comments, good or bad.

[tempestjohnny]

Great looking build. And an even better reason as to why.

[LyleW]

Gary, I edited out the extra image tags. What a gorgeous build! I’ve missed your work and pics from the airport! Your father-in-law sounds like a great person.

[Gary Brantley]

Well, something's not quite right still. Why is that only one pic has the image brackets? That's the only one that when clicked takes you to the original pic at imgur? I just edited each and every one of them to have that "image tag" on each end and when I submitted again, only one is showing the tag and works as it should. Does clicking on the others take you to an Imgur error? Argghhhh. I'm about to delete the entire thing and try some other day...wow, what am I doing wrong?

[Gary Brantley]

Well, I am completely lost I guess...

Thank you both for the kind words! It is great to be back and posting something new again! You guys are so nice!

Gary

[LyleW]

We will get it sorted out! Hang with me.

[Stikpusher]

GARY!!!! Great to see you back posting new builds!

You did a super job on this kit. It is a great build, the only odd engineering I thought was the nose gear strut attachment. You really nailed the look of the ground attack role with ordnance and RATO bottles. And as always, your airport locale photos are the crowning touch.
Just curious, but what paint did you use on the canopy strips? Odd that it pulled up with the masking.

Once again, it’s great to you back!

[Gary Brantley]

Thanks so much Carlos! It's great to be back too. Thanks so much too for your kind comments on the model!

Yes sir, that nose gear attachment point couldn't be much smaller or there would be nowhere to place it at all. It has such a tenuous attachment that I worried about breaking it for the two hours I was at the airport. The retraction link helps stiffen it some and so far, it's holding up the weight of a couple spent bullets epoxied up front. It won't get moved around too much now.

My other main beefs with engineering was how the front gear bay doors were a part of the gear well/intake splitter and how the main gear inner doors attached to that inside bay wall, necessitating even more careful handling. I broke the port front gear door off twice, finally drilling it for thing copper wire with corresponding holes to accept the wire in the bay wall. I broke off both of those main gear inner doors, the port side twice as well. Most of that is probably on the clumsiness of the builder, lol. I thought the instructions were rather vague in places, but much of the kit had great fit, eg. the wings and horizontal stab attachment. They fit perfectly!

I painted the canopy framing camo gray originally. But, this wasn't the first time EZ Masks have pulled up paint when removed. I believe it may have to do with my "sealing" the masks before spraying with clear flat. I've got quite a few more EZ Mask sets and on my next build, most likely the old 1/48 AMT F7F Tigercat, I'll leave the clear step off before painting. I read an account by the great modeler Rodney Williams about how he had worked at the Goodyear aircraft plant glueing the reinforcing fiberglass strips onto the original blown plexiglass canopies, with strips inside and out. That was in 1951 or '52 iirc. He made enough to buy himself a new Caddy! So, after my masking fiasco, I decided to use the same method, more or less, with the decal strips. I painted a section of clear decal sheet camo gray and cut the strips. I only applied them on the outside (hey, I'm only human! ) using the molded frame lines as my guide. Here are a couple good reference pics:





Rodney Williams F-84G build:

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/F ... ms/00.shtm

It was really nice out at the airport so early Monday before sunrise. It was still sort of cool and I had the place to myself. I'm so lucky to be able to use it for my photos; only five minutes from our house! I talked to my closest friend today, a professional photographer and got some great advice and tips to maybe "up my game" with the pics. I have a few older Monogram builds that still haven't been photographed and I may experiment with them soon. Ya gotta love digital photography, take a bunch of images and hope for a handful of good ones. Between two cameras Monday, I took about 140 pictures, saving about 30 I guess.

Thanks again for the warm welcome back!

[Floki]

Beautiful aircraft and even more beautiful photos! The decal strips to replicate the plexi is a great touch as well.

[keavdog]

Great tribute, great airplane and wow, great photos. I have to try that