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Post by mumbles on Aug 17, 2009 23:09:57 GMT 12
Hi all, here is my current project, two Fujimi and a Hasegawa Skyhawks converted to K's. This build is one I have been thinking about for while as three separate projects, but got all ambitious and decided to tackle together. Helping with that decision process is there is a deadline of the end of the month I'd kind of like to see them done by, so hopefully that'll be incentive to fairly rapid progress  Starting from here, two fairly good kits, the other not so much  The T-bird will be finished in the 'as delivered' TO 1.1.4. scheme with silver fern leaf roundels, the Fujimi single as a Kahu modified bird circa early 90's, and the Hasegawa being most expendable will be a circa 2009 'coccooned' example. First thing to fix are those funny looking curved tails  Just cut the curved bit long the nearest panel line, attach a piece of plastic card, and sand to shape:   Easiest conversion I can think of! Having built a couple of Fujimi A-4's before and found out the hard way just how fragile the leading edge slat runners are, I'm trying to do as much work on the wings as I can before removing them from the sprue. Here some resin RWR sensors have been added and the strike camera / anticollider beacon mast moved to the starboard undercarriage fairing, as per the New Zealand Skyhawks (anyone know why?). Also visible are the plastic card chaff / flare dispenser covers on the Kahu destined fuselage.  Progress as of last night:  Finally, if anyone wanted visual proof of just how overscale the Hasegawa A-4 is, here is a fuselage half overlaid with one of Fujimi's  |
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Post by Craig Sargent on Aug 18, 2009 11:09:20 GMT 12
The reason the Hasegawa kit is overscale is because they converted it from their two-seat molds and did not change the fuselage length, just expanded their drawings to the right length, hence the reason the tail is longer and the tail leading edge the wrong angle.
Given the month end deadline, I suspect I'll be seeing these on the table at the SME/Nats in Sept? Good luck and good work so far.
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Post by skyhawkdon on Aug 18, 2009 12:34:07 GMT 12
The lower anti-col was moved to the RH gear fairing on the K's so we could fit the Minipan strike recon camera in the LH fairing and it would have an unobstructed view when looking forward and aft. The minipan took a horizon to horizon photo and could be installed laterally or longitudinally depending on pilot preference. Looking forward to seeing the finished kits Mumbles!
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Post by mumbles on Aug 22, 2009 0:53:06 GMT 12
Sorry gents for the delayed update, been busy with the whole family sport work sleep life thing...... Here is the state of the game at the close of play tonight: 3 complete fuselages. The Hasegawa one has the intakes and canopy attached. Sanding the hase canopy to blend it in to the fuselage was a lot of fun. Not often you get to mess up a canopy's clarity and not have to worry about fixing it!  For those who haven't encountered the Fujimi Scooters, they are probably the best in scale, but veerrry fiddly to assemble. The kit is modular, with a common wing and rear fuselage to which the differing nose and intake combinations of the various A-4 versions can be attached. This is flexible, but results in a horrendous three way seam where the fuselage sections, wing and intakes combine, that I found a complete hassle to clean up when I did my first two Fujimi A-4's. For those I attached the fuselage and wings at the same time. This time around I have attached the fuselage sections together first so I can clean up those seams while I have room before attaching the intakes, which can then be cleaned up unobscured by the wings. The wings will be attached once all the seams are tidy. You have to be a bit careful with the alignment of the fuselage sections (I taped the wings on to use as jigs), but I am hoping it will speed up the build in terms of not having to mess around with difficult to reach seams. Nose weights shoehorned into the fuselages. I use cut down lead fishing weights for this.  Cockpits painted up. Not going too crazy with these, the canopies will be closed, and these are 1:72 skyhawks, so the panels are only about half a centimetre across anyway. I did do a full Kahu panel and HUD for one of my previous builds, but you can't really see it on the finished model.  Ejection seats dressed up with wine bottle foil straps and ready to install. Again not going too nuts with these.  Canopies masked up and ready to install. Took about two hours to do this, the frame lines are raised but very fine, meaning you can't rub the tape down onto them and cut them out the easy way  Trial fitting the wings before the next phase of assembly tomorrow.  Plan is to hopefully have all three primered and ready for painting by the end of the weekend, then paint throughout the week. Anyone know what a typical loadout for a T-bird was in the early seventies? Currently thinking about tanks, a couple of zuni pods and an empty TER on the centreline. |
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Post by mumbles on Aug 22, 2009 0:55:47 GMT 12
Given the month end deadline, I suspect I'll be seeing these on the table at the SME/Nats in Sept? Good luck and good work so far. Cheers Pretty much, the nats are providing the incentive to get this done. If it all works out I'll have a line up of six or seven RNZAF A-4's in different schemes and configurations to show off. |
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Post by mumbles on Aug 22, 2009 0:56:28 GMT 12
The lower anti-col was moved to the RH gear fairing on the K's so we could fit the Minipan strike recon camera in the LH fairing and it would have an unobstructed view when looking forward and aft. The minipan took a horizon to horizon photo and could be installed laterally or longitudinally depending on pilot preference. Looking forward to seeing the finished kits Mumbles! Thanks Don, hopefully they won't disappoint |
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Post by agalbraith on Aug 22, 2009 9:14:24 GMT 12
Fantastic work on those A-4's.....man I love Skyhawks. Its always a pleasure to see someone build one......or 3!
Great work mate
Cheers
Anthony
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Post by flyjoe180 on Aug 22, 2009 11:53:53 GMT 12
Great work Sam, looking forward to more prgress updates soon.
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Post by mumbles on Aug 25, 2009 23:47:36 GMT 12
Progress, a little behind schedule, but I allowed some extra in the timeline. We'll find out if thats enough:) Painting the intake interior lips to match the exterior colour:  One last look in the cockpits to make sure I haven't missed anything before adding the canopies:  And the assembled trio, sanded, filled and ready for primer:  |
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Post by mumbles on Aug 27, 2009 23:47:16 GMT 12
Progress at stumps tonight.... Builds always seem to leap forward a little once you get paint on them and thats where I am at the moment. Thankfully my policy of sanding and filling each subassembly as I put them together has paid off in saving time at this stage, as well as my trial of ignoring the instructions and assembling the fuselages on their own. Once the first primer coat went down very little cleaning up was required. The two camouflaged aircraft in their respective base coats:  Masked up to receive the medium green:  Mid green applied and ready for the final dark green to go on:  A little trick I picked up on a previous three-colour camouflage build (which seems obvious once you think about it) is to only mask the proper demarcations where the green meets the grey and tan (and hence permanent). The other demarcations I have straightened out as much as possible to save time. When the final green goes on the demarcations will be properly masked. Doing it this way uses a little more paint, but saves having to mask multiple squiggly lines twice in exactly the same places... |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 28, 2009 10:35:25 GMT 12
I quite like the Skyhawk in that all over caramel look.
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Post by flyjoe180 on Aug 28, 2009 14:36:17 GMT 12
Looking good Sam. Hope you have a nice earthquake proof cabinet for them!
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Post by mumbles on Aug 29, 2009 1:00:27 GMT 12
Looking good Sam. Hope you have a nice earthquake proof cabinet for them! Yeah, after this mornings reminder! No cabinet as such, but a very sturdy set of shelving instead. The Kahu now has a complete set of camouflage plumage. Got the masking done tonight while watching the last three episodes of 'The Wire' season 2 on DVD with a mate around, and was ready to paint after we were done:   Wraparound schemes look good, but are a pain to mask. This is easily the trickiest scheme of the three, so I am glad I got it out of the way first with no snags. I'll paint the tailplanes and slats tomorrow, the models are a lot easier to mask and paint before they are attached. |
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Post by mumbles on Aug 30, 2009 23:42:52 GMT 12
Right then, after a lot of masking like so:  Both the Kahu and T-bird now have complete camouflage schemes, with slats and tailplanes done as well. I made a minor tweak to the starboard wing on the Kahu as well, since I wasn't totally happy with the pattern after the first coat   After doing the topsides, masking the underside of the T-bird is a breeze:  There is much less to do on the cocooned model so it is backseating it while these two catch up. Starting work on all the stores and undercarriages tomorrow |
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kiwikid
Flight Lieutenant
Posts: 86
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Post by kiwikid on Aug 31, 2009 1:29:40 GMT 12
Lovin' watching these Scooters come together. Quite a nostalga trip as I had just started on my RC TA-4K at this time last year. Is yours going to be the same - the Kahu prototype 6254?
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Post by agalbraith on Aug 31, 2009 10:02:42 GMT 12
Wow....fantastic! You have done an amazing job so far. I am loving your paint jobs! Cant wait to see some decals on he soon!
Cheers
Anthony
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Post by mumbles on Sept 2, 2009 0:26:27 GMT 12
Thanks guys Both of the models have identities now. Here are the decal sets I used:  An old Flying Kiwis set for the Euro1 scheme, and a possibly even older set of Microscale decals for the T-Bird, plus a separate Flying Kiwis RNZAF roundel set. The reason for the second roundel set lies here (Flying Kiwis on the left, Microscale on the right):  The Microscale Kiwis are so bad as to be unusable. Unfortunately, the same can just about be said of the Flying Kiwis Kahu set. Thick, shiny, tinted carrier film that is guaranteed to silver on even the glossiest surface, and impervious to setting solutions. The Kahu was marked up as a 2Sqn aircraft, but I pulled the markings off as they looked so terrible. The silvering is obvious on the serial and rescue arrows. I used roundel decals from the later Kiwis sheet which are better quality, and managed to trim the film completely around the fin flash:  No such problems for the T-bird, although a couple of the roundels have reacted badly to the clear coat and will need replacing.  Work has started on all of the stuff to hang off the models, will put up pictures of that later. |
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Post by ZacYates on Sept 2, 2009 7:11:18 GMT 12
Very nice so far! It will be great to see all of them lined up when complete. How realistic is your deadline right now?
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Post by mumbles on Sept 2, 2009 8:32:29 GMT 12
Very nice so far! It will be great to see all of them lined up when complete. How realistic is your deadline right now? Thanks Zac! As for the deadline realism, not very since it passed yesterday!  Seriously though its mostly little finishing jobs now, so quietly confident of making the weekend. |
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Post by flyjoe180 on Sept 2, 2009 12:30:03 GMT 12
Looking really good Sam, looking forward to viewing the finished products.
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