spejic

I just hold little bits of sandpaper in tweezers. It is useful for many sorts of fine or awkward applications depending on how you fold the paper.

I was worried enough that I bought a rest-of-my-life supply of the non-toxic glue last month (which I like because of its very slow setting time). Now, that happens to be a single one, but still.

Every modeller knows not to put body parts in front of a blade while cutting. This is always learned the hard way.

You can coat clear parts in gloss finish (and it might help make clear parts more clear), but flat will turn them opaque. That would usually be terrible, but there are occasions you want that. If you are making a house for a diorama with lights behind the window but you don't want people to see inside the house you can cover them in a flat coat to frost them.

It's possible to spray complicated sticky-out bits properly on the model. Just use low pressure and keep hitting it from every possible angle. You are better off moving the airplane and keeping the airbrush still because it's awfully easy to spill the contents of the airbrush cup on the model by moving it too much (I learned the hard way so you don't have to). The larger the model the harder that is, so I'd also do the landing gear separately first in 1/48. You may need to spray again after the gear is installed to cover any glue showing from installing the gear and doors. If you'v

You did a very nice job on all three Skyhawks, especially with modifying the paint to both make the decals show up properly and still look right. I really like the little details you added, like the brake lines and the canopy hooks, and the larger elements that people often miss like that band around the fuselage belly by the tailhook.

Yeah. That gives us the time to complete, like, two more models.

Take a pin or other sharp implement and lightly score all the panel lines. That should give the wash some grip. Alternately, use some other kind of implement to clean the wash that doesn't get into the panel lines. Try a coffee filter, which does not leave fibers behind and has no give so it will stay on the high surfaces. Fold it a few times you have a kind of paper block.

This is very well done. The fix for the slat wells looks flawless. The wash is just right.

I try to match the colors of the pre-printed part, which can lead to some weird paint choices. I have the Eduard's set for the A-4 Skyhawk, and it wasn't even close to the correct FS36231. It is instead a dead match to RLM 76.

If the search area is small, I will take some masking tape and tap it down on the carpet.

Yes - I checked my TA-4J pictures and saw some of them had this flange as well even though they were never upengined. There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to when or if they got the flange either. If A-4F's got the flange as part of the engine upgrade (and every certain A-4F+ I've seen has the flange), then at least we can say an aircraft without the flange is not a Super Fox. There is nothing about the antennas or cooling intakes or vents that indicate what variety of A-4 it is as far as I could see except for the fin-tip ECM, but not every upengined A-4F got (or kept) that. I'

What's weird is that this is part of the TA-4J sprue. I wonder why they went to the trouble of making a new metal part when they could have just included a sprue they've already designed which is made of cheap, cheap plastic.

I can't find one, but it seems that 2/3rds of all A-4F's had the conversion done. It's usually hard to tell in photos what kind of intake the aircraft is sporting, so I would look at the exhaust. The up-engined A-4F's exhaust will have a little flange at the end instead of being a smooth cone. This part is also on sprue Q.

The Furball decal set has a low-viz scheme for a Super Fox from VMA-142. Initially I was excited because the aircraft (155028) was also used by VMA-133, which is my strong preference, but VMA-142 used very light markings, not the more standard varieties used in VMA-133 at the time. But the set has so many numbers you can probably cobble something together.