1/32 Hobby Boss F-84 E "Thunderjet"

Gallery Article by Peter Doll on Oct 31 2011

 

After a while I'm here again with one of my latest Silver-Bird, a Hobby Boss F-84 E "Thunderjet" in the big scale.  This type of aircraft is indeed fitting exactly in my special field of interest.
 
Built right out of the box I was really surprised about the high quality of this new Chinese kit.  The general fit is absolutely excellent and rivets and panels are not oversized.
 
Included in the kit are decals for 2 Thunderjets of the Korean War.  These decals are of superb printing quality and extremely thin.
 
For my Thunderjet I've chosen the colorful markings of Cpt. Warren O'Brien's personal aircraft with the name "Sandy", when he was serving in Korea 1951 with the 9th FBS, 49th FBW.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

As usual I've used once again aluminium foil for the finish, which gives the model a very realistic touch.  I've already talked about the technique of using simple kitchen foil in previous submissions here on ARC and I'm really surprised that only a few modelers are practicing this technique which is unbeatable compared with Alclad or other silver paints.  The parts of the model that need paint have been airbrushed with Tamiya acrylic colors.  It's very important to paint the model prior to applying the aluminium foil, because taping the foil is impossible. 

Hobby Boss offers in the Thunderjet kit a large variety of weapons used in the Korean War plus Jato-Rockets for a faster take-off role.  I've left that stuff off, because I'm only interested in the airplane itself, without weapons or open panels.

After Czech Model's F-80, the F-84 E kit is another interesting airplane to complete your collection of Korean war jets.  Another version of the Thunderjet, a G-model is in preparation and will be released soon.

Let's keep our fingers crossed, that HB will sometime release the F-84 F "Thunderstreak" and the RF-84 F "Thunderflash" in the big scale.

Thanks for reading my article and watching my pictures.

Peter Doll

Click on images below to see larger images

 

      

Photos and text © by Peter Doll