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Hello dear reader!

By now you've figured out I'm hooked on this GB. It's not my fault - so much of my stash qualifies! In fact, I have enough to build another 8 without stretching it...

Seeing we had 2 weeks left, I once again surveyed my kits, and found a little Hornet that I bought in Ottawa a while back. That was the day Mike (AX 365) kindly drove me to a hobby shop from my downtown hotel when I was there on business. I picked this kit up there.

I was eager to see how it compared to the Hasegawa offering in this scale. I also wanted to replace an old brush-painted in-flight CF-18A that I had made many moons ago. So this was the solution!

Pics coming soon, when I have time. The build is going VERY fast...

ALF

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Here is the box. The kit decals are for this airshow bird, which is quite a nice scheme. I decided not to make it though, because I wanted to do up an aircraft I'd flown. This will replace a desktop model I've had for many years, and an airshow scheme that has nothing to do with me personally is not in the cards.

P1100564.jpg

I debated for quite a while what version and external stores to do it with. This kit comes with a great selection of parts, allowing a build of a dual or single, and nozzles either open or closed. At first I tended toward a dual, but after looking at how rudimentary the cockpit was, I decided to go for a single.

The next problem was the lack of a pilot figure. I wanted to fill up the cockpit (to hide the lack of detail and accuracy), and also it was to be in-flight. I hunted around everywhere and failed to find a 1/72 scale pilot of any kind. I had lots of 1/48, but not 1/72.

So I robbed the pilot figure out of my previous desktop model, which is depicted here. It was brush-painted ages ago... kind of nice from about 5 feet away, but horrid-looking up close. The stand comes from McDonnell Douglas; when I graduated from the CF-18 course in 1987, each student was given a desktop model from the company, that came on this stand. It was slightly larger than 1/72, but I managed to fit the nozzles on a Hasegawa kit into the two acrylic rods.

P1100565.jpg

The kit cockpit is very poor. Not at all like a real F-18. With a closed canopy and pilot, it won't show much.

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Here is the old pilot figure, sitting in the new cockpit, beside his old mount.

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This build went together quickly. Raised panel lines - not so good. Fit not great, but the Hasegawa kit wasn't that great-fitting either...

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Here it is all together, ready for paint.

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I painted the bottom with Tamiya light grey primer, then the top with ModelMaster Acryl FS 35237. A bit of running under one piece of tape at the nose - should be easy to fix. Looks like this old jar of paint wasn't nicely mixed - it has a bit of a glossy hue to it.

P1100570.jpg

Next on the agenda is the weathering, using a pencil lead. I opted for a training configuration - two tanks, wingtip CATM-9M, and afterburners cooking.

ALF

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You have a sharp eye, mon copain! The reason I didn't repaint the pilot is that I would have had to add some wrinkles and some hints of grey in his hair... I prefer looking young like he was at the time!!!

:coolio:

ALF

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That's the Italieri kit reboxed, although it sounds like the Decals are MUCH better (not hard, the Italieri decals are awful). Gotta wonder if it has the same weapons sprue (Sparrows, Sidewinders, HARMs & Harpoons?)

It's a mediocre kit but it looks like you've managed to get some good results out of it.

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That's the Italieri kit reboxed, although it sounds like the Decals are MUCH better (not hard, the Italieri decals are awful). Gotta wonder if it has the same weapons sprue (Sparrows, Sidewinders, HARMs & Harpoons?)

It's a mediocre kit but it looks like you've managed to get some good results out of it.

I think you're right. There are 2 x AIM 7, 2 x AIM 9, and 2 each of HARMs and Harpoons as well.

Thanks for the comments.

Here's a shot of the decal sheet that came with the kit - not bad...

P1100571.jpg

ALF

Edited by ALF18
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Painting is done (major colours). Not apparent in this shot, but I did do the weathering with a pencil lead and a wet fingertip.

P1100572.jpg

The bottom is relatively clean, except for the aft fuselage portion. When I flew these aircraft, they were in better shape than they are now.

P1100573.jpg

ALF

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You have a sharp eye, mon copain! The reason I didn't repaint the pilot is that I would have had to add some wrinkles and some hints of grey in his hair... I prefer looking young like he was at the time!!!

:coolio:

ALF

LOL

hope your going with the 25 years of hornets tail i love colorful decals

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ALF,

It was a pleasure putting a face to a name that day and the continued friendship is a bonus. A trip to a hobby shop and a good steak dinner is always in order. A road trip to a hobby shop and a smoked meat dinner on the return trip is always in order too!

Nice little kit you have. You could have always painted the pilot's hair with Grecian Formula. ("Hey Richard...10 minutes for looking so good.") Nobody would be any the wiser.

Unless you flew 719 with 410, your options from the kit supplied decals for a Hornet you've flown are pretty limited. Or did you fly J-5015 during an exchange with the Swiss Air Force? (hee hee). What decals do you plan on using or should we wait to be surprised at the final reveal?

You better get this one done before "The Rapture" at 6:00 pm (PST) tomorrow. <_<

If you ever need any supplies and a trip to YUL isn't imminent, let me know and I'm more than happy to make up and send a CARE package your way.

Enjoy the long weekend, buddy boy.

Mike

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ALF,

It was a pleasure putting a face to a name that day and the continued friendship is a bonus. A trip to a hobby shop and a good steak dinner is always in order. A road trip to a hobby shop and a smoked meat dinner on the return trip is always in order too!

Nice little kit you have. You could have always painted the pilot's hair with Grecian Formula. ("Hey Richard...10 minutes for looking so good.") Nobody would be any the wiser.

Unless you flew 719 with 410, your options from the kit supplied decals for a Hornet you've flown are pretty limited. Or did you fly J-5015 during an exchange with the Swiss Air Force? (hee hee). What decals do you plan on using or should we wait to be surprised at the final reveal?

You better get this one done before "The Rapture" at 6:00 pm (PST) tomorrow. <_<

If you ever need any supplies and a trip to YUL isn't imminent, let me know and I'm more than happy to make up and send a CARE package your way.

Enjoy the long weekend, buddy boy.

Mike

Mike

As you know, the pleasure was mutual! I'm using a set of Leading Edge 1/72 scale standard CF-18 markings decals. And I'll keep your offer of a CARE package in mind...

Sorry for taking so long to reply - I was hiding under a rock, just in case the Rapture took me away before I could get this build finished!

Lots of progress made. Here are some shots of the old kit I'm replacing, showing the relatively poorer quality of the work I did, plus some of the damage done to it by heat...

I brush-painted this old kit, and when we moved from Montreal to the Saguenay in 1995, I left a bunch of my kits inside my second vehicle, parked outside in May. You can see how hot it got in there - the fuselage and wings warped pretty badly!

P1100579.jpg

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Here is the old one beside the new one:

P1100578.jpg

P1100576.jpg

P1100580.jpg

More pics later this evening!

ALF

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I have this exact kit in my stash... when you mentioned the raised lines, I had to go run and check. :P I'll use this kit for practice then (I sure need it!). You made it look great, though! :)

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I have this exact kit in my stash... when you mentioned the raised lines, I had to go run and check. :P I'll use this kit for practice then (I sure need it!). You made it look great, though! :)

Thanks! In this scale, it's not as bad as 1/48 for raised panel lines.

ALF

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Now here we see the three models, left to right:

The new one, Revell's in 1/72; the one it's replacing, the old Hasegawa kit; and the original one that Mc Air gave out as graduation gifts when we finished the Hornet course.

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Here it is finished!

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ALF

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Funny thing..... first thing I thought was he's doing jet noises while taking pics.

:woot.gif:

Nice one Dan. This makes what 9 complete for you???? Between you and Shawn it's been fun watching my friend.

Emil

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Funny thing..... first thing I thought was he's doing jet noises while taking pics.

:woot.gif:

Nice one Dan. This makes what 9 complete for you???? Between you and Shawn it's been fun watching my friend.

Emil

Emil

Jet noises... that's exactly why I took the pics outside! Otherwise, there's all that saliva spatter to clean up afterward...

Thanks for commenting, buddy. This GB has been great for me - I still have enough in my stash to more than double my production, if there were enough time. I honestly didn't set out to challenge anyone's production rate, but I actually surprised myself at how many I got done.

ALF

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I just checked the calendar, and saw that time has just about run out on this GB...

That's why I won't be adding my CF-5A in 1/32 scale to it. For those who are interested, though, I will be posting an in-progress of that CF-5A over at LSP:

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=34796&st=0&gopid=324335entry324335

ALF

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Great work and fantastic results, Señor ALF. I have to say I had the same thoughts as Emil. I could just hear plenty of whooshing jet noises, with the occasional boom as you went past Mach 1.

I'm glad they didn't find you under that rock. Must have been a great hiding spot. I just sat in my model room, massaging some plastic and listening to the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper". I just had the opening riff and "All our times have come, Here but now they're gone..." going through my head. And then six o'clock came and went and here we are. I guess we have to go through all this again on October 21st or 21 Dec 2012, depending on which Doomsday prediction is correct. I guess I can change the tune to Chris De Burgh's "A Spaceman Came Traveling".

Nice work on your Hornet buddy. Now if you could only patent that new cockpit smell for model airplanes you could be a gazillionaire, or at least a couple of steps above bankrupt!

Take care mon ami.

Mike

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Great work and fantastic results, Señor ALF. I have to say I had the same thoughts as Emil. I could just hear plenty of whooshing jet noises, with the occasional boom as you went past Mach 1.

I'm glad they didn't find you under that rock. Must have been a great hiding spot. I just sat in my model room, massaging some plastic and listening to the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper". I just had the opening riff and "All our times have come, Here but now they're gone..." going through my head. And then six o'clock came and went and here we are. I guess we have to go through all this again on October 21st or 21 Dec 2012, depending on which Doomsday prediction is correct. I guess I can change the tune to Chris De Burgh's "A Spaceman Came Traveling".

Nice work on your Hornet buddy. Now if you could only patent that new cockpit smell for model airplanes you could be a gazillionaire, or at least a couple of steps above bankrupt!

Take care mon ami.

Mike

:rofl:

As usual, Mike, you crack me up! You have also managed to insert 'ear worms' into my head with those classic songs. Maybe that's why we didn't get chosen for the Rapture - you are evil for inserting 'ear worms', and we are both evil for listening to such sacreligious music...

ALF

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