**** DONE: GB-35 1/72 A-4B Skyhawk - Vietnam French/American War 1950-1975
- Thread starter Crimea_River
- Start date
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
parsifal
Colonel
not ideal, but maybe some weight in the leading edges of the wing cavities, or in the nose of the fuel tanks if you are fitting them? I had to doo both for my 1/48 skyhawk
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
It's looking good Andy, and I hope you can solve the nose-weight problem.
I took a series of sprue shots of the kit, showing the surface detail, before I sent it to Evan. I can post them if you don't have any detail shots.
I took a series of sprue shots of the kit, showing the surface detail, before I sent it to Evan. I can post them if you don't have any detail shots.
Sounds good. But most recently when I did that in the way, a 1/72 scale Mig-15UTI was flung against the wall.
Last edited:
Great work so far Andy!
- Thread starter
- #26
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks everyone. Grant, those reference pics are excellent and thanks for the link. Sticking with the OOB philosophy though will prevernt me from adding more detail than there already is.
Terry thanks but I intend to take detail pics as I go along and some are shown below.
As for the weight suggestions, thanks Michael. There is no room in the wing leading edges in this small scale but I did make use of the external tank spaces as you'll see below.
Despite Wojtek's warnings, I did go ahead with my original idea of breaking into nose section via the forward bulkhead in the wheel well. Here's the before pic of the area in question:
The instructions call for 5 grams of weight in the nose so I got out a 6 gram lead sinker, smashed it flat, and cut it into little pieces.
The bulkhead was removed by drilling a large hole and cutting the rest open with a #11 X-Acto blade.
I was able to get about half of the pieces into the nose and then poured in some CA glue to hold it all in place. The rest of the pieces were added to the front of the wing tanks but since the tips of the tanks are between the front and main undercarriage, I wasn't sure this would be enough. I therefore cut another 2 gram chunk of lead and places it behind the pilot's seat with plenty of CA to hold it in place. Plenty of room there.
With that all done, I rebuilt the bulkhead using a shaped piece of plastic card as shown below.
Terry thanks but I intend to take detail pics as I go along and some are shown below.
As for the weight suggestions, thanks Michael. There is no room in the wing leading edges in this small scale but I did make use of the external tank spaces as you'll see below.
Despite Wojtek's warnings, I did go ahead with my original idea of breaking into nose section via the forward bulkhead in the wheel well. Here's the before pic of the area in question:
The instructions call for 5 grams of weight in the nose so I got out a 6 gram lead sinker, smashed it flat, and cut it into little pieces.
The bulkhead was removed by drilling a large hole and cutting the rest open with a #11 X-Acto blade.
I was able to get about half of the pieces into the nose and then poured in some CA glue to hold it all in place. The rest of the pieces were added to the front of the wing tanks but since the tips of the tanks are between the front and main undercarriage, I wasn't sure this would be enough. I therefore cut another 2 gram chunk of lead and places it behind the pilot's seat with plenty of CA to hold it in place. Plenty of room there.
With that all done, I rebuilt the bulkhead using a shaped piece of plastic card as shown below.
- Thread starter
- #27
Crimea_River
Marshal
Next up was attachment of the intakes. The detail here was one that was just asking for trouble as there is a gap between the outer skin and the intake duct that is supposed to locate a raised section on the mating face of the intake piece. Coupled with that, the instructions have the piece numbers for the left and right intakes reversed. Fortunately the differences are very obvious and it's pretty hard to allow this error to ruin your build. However, to make the intake fit, I had to expand the gaps with a sharp knife and also reduce the raised part thickness with a file.
After a few trial fits and more trimming, the parts come together very snugly, as shown by this final installation on the right side.
Below is a detail shot of the port wing which has been glued to the lower half. This shows the impressive detail with the crisp panel lines as well as the delicate vortex generators. There was a small sink hole at the inboard face of the recess where the separate leading edge slats go that I had to fill with surface primer and sand smooth but, other than that, the quality of the parts is quite impressive. It's a good thing that the plastic is relatively soft, otherwise those moulded-in leading edge slat attachment would easily break off. The inner one in the pic below has been knocked a few times and has been bent.
At this point I did a dry fit of the wings and tail planes and balanced the model along a straight edge placed that the location of the main gear. This confirmed that there is plenty of weight to prevent the dreaded tail sit so, as it turns out, I won't need the weight in the wing tanks. By the way, that's a 6 inch ruler so this gives you an idea of how small this kit really is!
The trial assembly also suggested a need to increase the curvature of the wing to help close the gap with the fuselage so I installed these bit of rod prior to final assembly.
That's it for today guys. Thanks again for looking in.
After a few trial fits and more trimming, the parts come together very snugly, as shown by this final installation on the right side.
Below is a detail shot of the port wing which has been glued to the lower half. This shows the impressive detail with the crisp panel lines as well as the delicate vortex generators. There was a small sink hole at the inboard face of the recess where the separate leading edge slats go that I had to fill with surface primer and sand smooth but, other than that, the quality of the parts is quite impressive. It's a good thing that the plastic is relatively soft, otherwise those moulded-in leading edge slat attachment would easily break off. The inner one in the pic below has been knocked a few times and has been bent.
At this point I did a dry fit of the wings and tail planes and balanced the model along a straight edge placed that the location of the main gear. This confirmed that there is plenty of weight to prevent the dreaded tail sit so, as it turns out, I won't need the weight in the wing tanks. By the way, that's a 6 inch ruler so this gives you an idea of how small this kit really is!
The trial assembly also suggested a need to increase the curvature of the wing to help close the gap with the fuselage so I installed these bit of rod prior to final assembly.
That's it for today guys. Thanks again for looking in.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Looking good, and glad you managed to get the weight sorted.
parsifal
Colonel
well done andy. The intakes issue look totally solved to me......
parsifal
Colonel
Gota say also that the cockpit, particularly the pilot seat, look very good. The restrained colour selection is just marvelous in my view.
- Thread starter
- #32
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys. The model is together now and there are a few dabs of surface primer here and there to deal with some minor imperfections. Should have some pics up later today.
fubar57
General
Great fix with the weights
I like it, my 1/48 A-4 will be a RNZAF bird in US SEAC colours
Looks great so far Andy!
turbo
Staff Sergeant
Looking good Andy and well sorted with the weights.
- Thread starter
- #37
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys. Moving on with my least favourite part of modelling - filling and sanding. Though the fit is quite good on this kit, I did have a few spots where seams didn't quite come together properly and, because the model is so small, I wanted to be doubly sure that I got everything taken care of before painting.
A first pass using Tamiya primer as a filler has been done and here's the start of the second pass. I wasn't 100% happy with the joints of the intakes and in hopes of making the seam line a bit narrower so that they look more like the other panel lines I applied some primer and I'll sand this area tomorrow when the paint is dry. Note also that the fairings for the guns have been installed at the forward edge of the wing root and these have been blended in with jewellers' files.
I elected to show the speed brakes in the closed position and they fit very nicely into the recess in the fuselage with just a tiny bit of a step at the hinge points showing. I may yet fix this area now that I look at it closer.
The tail pipe is a bit on the thick side so I filed the inner surface to thin it down. Here you see the left half almost done and the right half showing how it looked before starting.
After trying to install the centerline pylon, I discovered that I made a mistake and drilled two large holes that are actually for a stand that can be bought separately. The instructions are quite cluttered and it was only on checking back that I saw the holes called out for the stand in a sneaky fashion. Anyway, I lugged the holes using sprue from the kit that I tapered, cut off, and glued into the holes. Once dry, these will be filed down and smoothed out. Also seen is another round of primer applied on the center seam near the back of the wing.
That's it for today guys. More tomorrow. and thanks for your interest.
A first pass using Tamiya primer as a filler has been done and here's the start of the second pass. I wasn't 100% happy with the joints of the intakes and in hopes of making the seam line a bit narrower so that they look more like the other panel lines I applied some primer and I'll sand this area tomorrow when the paint is dry. Note also that the fairings for the guns have been installed at the forward edge of the wing root and these have been blended in with jewellers' files.
I elected to show the speed brakes in the closed position and they fit very nicely into the recess in the fuselage with just a tiny bit of a step at the hinge points showing. I may yet fix this area now that I look at it closer.
The tail pipe is a bit on the thick side so I filed the inner surface to thin it down. Here you see the left half almost done and the right half showing how it looked before starting.
After trying to install the centerline pylon, I discovered that I made a mistake and drilled two large holes that are actually for a stand that can be bought separately. The instructions are quite cluttered and it was only on checking back that I saw the holes called out for the stand in a sneaky fashion. Anyway, I lugged the holes using sprue from the kit that I tapered, cut off, and glued into the holes. Once dry, these will be filed down and smoothed out. Also seen is another round of primer applied on the center seam near the back of the wing.
That's it for today guys. More tomorrow. and thanks for your interest.
turbo
Staff Sergeant
Nice one Andy. The Tamiya primer you are using as a filler kind of looks like Mr Surfacer when applied. Do you find it works in a similar way to fill minor imperfections?
Looking good there Andy.
Users who are viewing this thread
Similar threads
