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1/32 Trumpeter A-7E Corsair II


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The office is now officially complete! Or at least, as complete as I can get it. For my first all-resin cockpit I feel pretty good about it. I did add a wash but I went with subtle.

PitFinal6.jpg

PitFinal5.jpg

PitFinal1.jpg

I also got the HUD mostly completed. My goal here is to actually stuff all this resin into the fuselage and close it up tomorrow. Or possibly throw it into a wall depending on how that all goes.

HUD2.jpg

HUD1.jpg

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Wall throwing not authorized.

You have come too far to give up now. You're in it and you're in it deep. Not finishing this is cowardice.

Excellent work. The painting on the cockpit is top notch and convincing.

Looking forward to seeing more. Nice kit, especially with all the goodies.

(Good luck, we're all counting on you)

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Wow, where have two months gone?

Not much to show for it, either. I do have all the resin secured in one half of the fuselage now...

FirstHalf2.jpg

FirstHalf1.jpg

FirstHalf3.jpg

Seems it will close up with relative ease. The front end of this model is heavy!! Lotta resin in there....

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  • 2 weeks later...

Whooo-Hooo!!!

The fuselage is closed!!

I almost did a very dumb thing. I almost closed this up without the gun installed.

Got that done really quick. The cover will be on so no real detailing of the gun.

Gun.jpg

I then started from the inside out, using CA to secure all the internal points of contact.

ClosingOne.jpg

After that it was all a matter of working my way around the fuselage. I started on top right behind the cockpit and went around from there. The top went very easily and will require very little cleanup.

ClosingTwo.jpg

The bottom wasn't quite as easy. There is some work here to do to get everything clean but I'm happy with it. Shouldn't be too bad to wrap-up.

ClosingThree.jpg

ClosingFour.jpg

Hopefully things will move much more quickly from here!

Thanks for peeking. Critique or comments always welcomed...

Dave

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Guess it's just me around here....

Today was all about the air-brake. I've seen in some other builds that this is an ill-fitting area on this kit. I probably didn't help the situation any with some of the shoe-horning I did closing the fuselage! It took quite a few hours today to get to this stage.

SpeedbreakOne.jpg

SpeedbreakTwo.jpg

You can see where I've started filling sizable gaps with styrene strips. I'm not too worried about it though, it should all look fine after the sanding stages. More than anything I'm stoked by the fact that I spent 10 or so hours in the workshop over the last two days!! That's more time than I've spent in here in the last three months. Feels pretty good to actually be getting something done, ya know?

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I've been puttering around today starting to clean up seams and whatnot. I also installed the Zacto resin nose cone. This nose is the same for the D or E kits so some material has to be removed in order to fare in the IFR probe on the Navy version. It was a pretty straightforward installation after that.

NoseOne.jpg

NoseTwo.jpg

I suspect the fit would've been better if I'd had a clamp that would actually hold the plastic better. Can't get any grip on those round surfaces. Some Milliput and some sanding should see everything right. The underside had some issues, too. Those may have more to do with my crude, ham-fisted "techniques" while closing the fuselage.

NoseFour.jpg

More soon!

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Today I got a bit farther along. The upper and lower wing sections go together quite nicely with no surprises. A quick dry-fit looks like little filler will be needed:

WingDryfitOne.jpg

Then there are the flaps. :woo: For such a simple part you'd not expect such a strange method of molding these things! The engineering has this strange overlapping bit rather than a simple clamshell assembly and it leaves a horrible gap no matter what I tried.

FLapOne.jpg

It's on the underside but still. Not a very elegant way for these to go together. Styrene strips to the rescue again! The gap was filled with styrene then I sanded the edges to make them a bit more rounded and blend-in the strips. Looks much better after that treatment...

FlapThree.jpg

Flaps secured to the wing assembly:

WingOne.jpg

The wing was then installed. I'll be posing the wingtips folded so they wont get installed for a while.

WIngInstallOne.jpg

WingInstalledTwo.jpg

The fit was very good! Only the two seams across the spine of the aircraft will need any work to clean everything up.

Alas, all the news is not good. Somewhere along the line with all the squeezing, clamping and handling; the one avionics bay broke loose on one end. With everything closed I don't think there's anything I can do to try to reattach it that won't just make it worse. You can see the gap where it's pulled away here:

Dilemma.jpg

Anyone got an idea??? I'm afraid it might just have to stay this way....

Edited by RookieLSP
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Drill a hole in the part and glue a piece of wire into the hole. Then use the wire to pull the part outward. Flow some thin CA glue into the seam and set it. Once its all cured and secure nip the bit of wire off flush and touch up the area by brush.

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Looking good RookieLSP :)

She's really taking shape now.

Sorry to see your avionics bay issue.

Anyone got an idea??? I'm afraid it might just have to stay this way....

I would go along with what HWR MKII suggests but perhaps drill the hole in the plastic panel adjacent to the resin bay which might be easier to touch up when you are through re-glueing the resin?

Good luck with the fix, I hope it all works out.

:whistle:

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Drill a hole in the part and glue a piece of wire into the hole. Then use the wire to pull the part outward. Flow some thin CA glue into the seam and set it. Once its all cured and secure nip the bit of wire off flush and touch up the area by brush.

Interesting idea... There might be a place I could poke a wire in there. I'll have to look at it with that in mind. Thanks!

Looking good RookieLSP :explode:

She's really taking shape now.

Sorry to see your avionics bay issue.

I would go along with what HWR MKII suggests but perhaps drill the hole in the plastic panel adjacent to the resin bay which might be easier to touch up when you are through re-glueing the resin?

Good luck with the fix, I hope it all works out.

:cheers:

I like this idea a little better, but that fuselage is pretty will crammed full of resin. I'm not sure I could find a place to push all the way through. More food for thought...

Your Sluff is looking strong! Nice work... and don't you find yourself looking forward so much more to a Tamiya kit when building a Trumpeter kit ;)

Marcel

You aren't kidding!!

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  • 1 month later...

My goodness, time just marches right along.

Not much for me to show for it either! The lip to the intake has been installed:

Nose3.jpg

a few little areas will need to be puttied and cleaned up as you can see:

Nose2.jpg

Nose1.jpg

As I've pursued other projects in an attempt to avoid things like sanding and vac canopies ( :jaw-dropping: ) I've also started to build some weapons:

bombs1.jpg

Since I still don't know what markings I'm using I'm just slowly building all of 'em. They can always live in the spares drawer if not used.

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