Mc Donnell Douglas F-101 C Voodoo – Kitty Hawk
My friend Tom Cleaver already posted an article about Kitty Hawk Voodoo.
As I can be pretty stubborn (there are a couple of subjects you won't change my mind about unless you're able to hypnotize an anvil), I decided the warnings I read about this kit could safely be ignored.
Yeah, sure.
Where to start?
Fit is... different.
The radome was designed by a different team than the forward fuselage, and both teams hated each other's guts.
The mid-fuselage parts come from yet another team, and guess what?
I think the guy who designed the nozzles suffered from an interesting bout of schizophrenia, and was going after his own throat whenever he felt like it (once every 12.5 seconds from what I gathered).
The airbrakes could have given Stevie Wonder an entertaining read, and the stencils all show the depicted F-101's suffered from pancreatic cancer.
Oh, and remove the low intensity formation lights, they've got nothing to do on a F-101 C (nor on a A).
The decals leave their backing sheet quite easily but need a rather strong motivation if you need to move them afterwards.
But once you have puttied every seam and its neighbour, used every grade of Micromesh and all the swear words you might know and quite a few you could invent, and decided correcting the air intake shape was a pain in the equatorial regions you could dispense with, well...
It looks big, it looks brutish, and it looks like a Voodoo (yeah, I know).
My next article will be about a much more pleasing experience.
A very nice Voodoo !
Sebastien, congratulations! Thanks for the honest assessment of the kit, from you and from Tom. Sounds like scratchbuilding would be easier.
Somehow, despite my regard for the subject, this won't be on my list for Santa.
I''ll spend the money I've theoreticaly saved on beer. If you were here, I'd give you two or three.
Onward and upward!
Modelling through attrition...
Hahaha, modelling by wrestling.
Despite the reputation of this (and other) KH kits, it looks like it turned out pretty well. Good work.
All that elbow grease (and deleted expletives) paid off! Great looking C. I'm eyeing the Valom kit to end up with almost the exact same bird in 1/72.
Always admired those of you who manage to stay with a difficult model long enough to outwit it. Great result!
Hi folks,
Thanks very much for your comments.
A couple of things, though.
First, I can be quite the drama queen when I give it a go (no kidding?)...
Then, I do like non shake-n-bake models. In fact, Tom pushed me to give vacs a try, and I had great moments building some (I'll post them soon).
What irked me with KH Voodoo is it's supposed to be a modern kit, it costs quite a bit, and as good as it looks in the box (airbrakes excepted), it's a dog to build.
And finally, I didn't outwit the Voodoo. I beat it into submission using brute force and sandpaper.
Thanks again,
S.
Welcome onboard at iModeler! Yes, it's a pity about the kit, especially as the Voodoo was such a great-looking aircraft IMHO. Yours is a commendable effort. Thanks for sharing!
Swet and tears.
Im like you build 101
I'm working on one of these myself, and I've found a few tricks to alleviated some of the gripes about the fit of this kit. on the radome and nose sections where the steps occur, I simply sanded the mating surface of the radome until it mated to the nose without a step. I then sanded the aft end of the nose until it mated with the forward fuselage without a step. (These were done on a very large board covered in sandpaper so everything stays square.) The exhaust nozzles were assembled so all the seams were tight to one another and left the resulting gap where it will be hidden next to the fuselage. I trimmed the upper portion of the mating flange of the rear fuselage (The bit that sticks up into the fin) away so the rear fuselage fits down flush with the mid fuselage. The formation lights were a bugger, but easy enough to remove. They're only there so they don't need an extra mold for the B variant. I read Tom's review also so I had an idea where the troubled waters were.
Oh, I do agree about the airbrakes though. I'll be fitting a pair from an old Monogram B in the open position. My only big gripe about the kit is with the fuselage vents. Why didn't they get that right?
Came out beautiful.
Well done & good work on what's generally regarded as a 'difficult' kit.
Wow, nice build and thinks for the info as well. Don't believe I'll be buying this kit any time soon.
So that's what a 'Labor of Love' looks like Sebastien. Just goes to show, hanging in there is really worth it sometimes, and this looks to be one of those times. Really impressive build. I'm sooo glad you stuck it out Sebastien. Wow
Considering the price and the aggravation that comes with the plastic. It looks like you tamed this beast into submission. It looks like a Voodoo. .