McDonnell RF-101C - 45 TRS, 56-0105, “The Iron Eyeball”

Rando
Not going to start on this one for awhile, but just putting this up for now. Going to be quite an undertaking to build this beast! All my favorite planes need conversions 🙄😄

Rando
Also: big thanks to John Ballman for the conversion kit and decals!

John
You do have your work cut out for you. Pun sorta intended. I love old Monogram Century series kits, but they are definitely hard to wrestle with, the F-101 more than most.

Rando
Yeah I have 3 of them, going to build one OOB before I tackle this one. That and also practice with a different resin conversion kit first. This thing with the nose especially is HUGE!

John
Definitely seems like some sort of rebar is going to be required to hold that chunk of resin securely! I have a couple in the stash too. Just mulling over a rescribe...

Rando
My gosh, it's a solid brick. Wondering if hollowing it out would be a way to make it lighter. Thinking about the rescribe too, since the resin parts are engraved...so far I'm of the mind that I'll keep raised lines on older kits.

John
Normally I would too, it's just a pain to restore the raised line over a seam. Not as painful as a rescribe but still obnoxious.

Rando
I've yet to do such a thing, but Scott on the Model Geeks Podcast says he just takes a new exacto blade and freehand carves into where the lines are missing. Maybe sounds crazy but I'm going to try it on my current Mongram F-8 Crusader build.

John
Easier than the stretched sprue method. 👍

Maciej Bellos
Watching with interest.

Alexander
Looks interesting 👍

Rando
Contemplating what's next and it might be this one. Might try my hand at rescribing the raised lines since the conversion kit nose lines are engraved. Trickiest part would be the piano hinges…yikes

Matti Thomaes
I won this kit in the raffle held at the Plastic & Steel scale modeling show last weekend. Very interrested in how this one turns out

Rando
Nice, the RF-101B Monogram kit or the C conversion kit? I feel like both are rare, long out of production

Matti Thomaes
The monogram RF-101B kit, there 's always some older kits amongst the prices