Twobobs Aviation Graphics

1/48 F-105 Wrap-Around Thuds

Sheet Number: 48-049

Reviewed by  Fred Amos, IPMS# 6672

MSRP: $12.00 Web Site: www.twobobs.net Well it looks like to fellows at TwoBobs Decals have done it once again. Another fine set of decals for obscure aircraft subjects. When I was first volunteered to review this sheet I thought I had a Monogram F-105D in my stash but it turned out to be an F/G. So I called my favorite hobby shop in the St. Louis area and ordered Hobby Boss kit# 80332, the 1/48 F-105D Thunderchief, which I was assured was very worthwhile. When it arrived I was flabbergasted at the amount of detail and the price (MSRP: $69.90). Typically assembly begins with the cockpit. The seat itself is seven pieces and very detailed but inaccurate according to my one and only reference, the old Squadron Signal Publication on the Century Series. The side panels and instrument panel has very fine raised details but, again, unfortunately the details on the side panels were so over powering that the kit decals wouldn't settle down enough to show it. The instrument panel though is beautiful. While the cockpit tub was drying I moved on to the engine. What a lot of beautiful piece of model engineering. It is a shame all of this detail is buried inside the fuselage. Hobby Boss should have included a jet engine trolley, or what ever it is called, so the modeler would have the option of displaying it outside the aircraft. There is a section of the fuselage that is removable but that presented problems too. I will have more detail on that problem later. Hobby Boss instruction sheets leave a lot to be desired. The drawings are confusing and the assembly sequence is totally out of good order. These instructions would have you build up a beautiful rotary gun and refueling probe in the open positions before the fuselage halves are even put together. The nose gear is made up of nine small pieces, not counting the wheel, is put into the wheel, five more pieces. This is then placed in the right side fuselage half along with the cockpit tub and the completed engine. I saw all of this as an accident waiting to happen so I left the gun, the refueling probe and nose wheel strut off until later. It took some serious finagling to get the fuselage halves together and I had to use tape and rubber bands until I was ready to run liquid glue into the seams. At this point I misread the instructions. There is a bulkhead that fits in the back of the fuselage. There is another that fits in the removable fuselage section. The idea is if you want to leave the aft section off to display what little is left of the engine, the bulkhead represents what the real thing would look like. But if you don't want the aft part off leave the bulkhead off. Then the aft section slides in over the bulkhead in the forward section so you can either glue it or leave it loose so the engine can be displayed. Shortly after I had glued both bulkheads in place in did a quick test fit which left about a 1/16th inch gap between front and aft pieces. I ripped the bulkheads out and put a flange of sheet styrene around the inside of the forward fuselage. It was only at that time that I realized my blunder but it was too late to go back to the original idea. I assembled the two pieces for the aft section and slipped it over the flange. It wasn't a perfect fit but it was as good as it would get. It took a little putty to level the seams but under paint it is hard to spot.

On to the wings, fourteen separate pieces each. Except for the five spoiler flaps on the upper wing assembly went smoothly, I held off putting them on until after the join to the fuselage. There are only two very small tabs on the wing that fit into the side of the fuselage so it took a few rubber bands to hold them while the glue set up. It only took a little bit of putty to clean up the edges. With the vertical rudder in place I put toothpicks in the main gear slots to see how much weight would be needed to hold the nose down. To be sure it stayed down I super glued two 5/8-ounce weights into the nose. All of the seams were cleaned up and the model washed to prep it for painting. The instructions call the colors and give the modeler choices to use Vallejo, Model Master, Tamiya, Humbrol, and Mr. Hobby paints. I cross-referenced these to use Floquil Military Colors. After painting I applied a coat of Testors Glosscoat. As expected the Twobobs decals are in perfect registry. There are three complete sets of markings for the wrap-around paint schemes from Hill A.F.B. in the mid 1983 period. One is in a South East Asian colors, one in the Europe One, and one of two tans and a brown scheme I have never seen before. All three come with references to MM, Humbrol, Gunze, and Xtracolor paints except that the one in tans and brown have no known model paint equivalence. You will have to mix your own colors.

The instruction sheet is up to the normal TwoBobs standards; full color two sided, with a few photos and model paint reference numbers. I used the TwoBobs decals for most of the markings and a few of the kit provided decals. The Twobobs decals went on well. The kit decals are very colorful and appear to be in good registry. I used the yellow band markings on the bombs and the yellow seals for the canopies. I found these a little large and had to cut them down and piece them together. I won't get into a long story about the landing gear but only say that it is very fragile and complicated so be careful. I had to cut away part of the nose gear to get it into the wheel well. I guess the bottom line here is that although this is a great kit with a lot of detail, most of the detail is lost inside the model. I wanted to display the model with the gun bay open but the six gun barrels broke cutting them from the sprue.

So all in all if you want a really nice model of the F-105 D this one will do until the old Monogram kit is re-released. Thanks to Bob Sanchez for providing the review decals to the IPMS/USA Reviewer Corps. Thanks to my pocketbook for the F-105 kit.

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